ir :• 1 1' »J' -• !ii V* ' !i h i illlilll, ' ^ LIBRARY OF THE University of California. OIFT OF The B^noroft Library. Class Ml ^ 'Oam^C' vniM^ L^i/x^< ^ m 1/ THE • HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, FROM THE PLANTATION OF THE BRITISH COLONIES THEIR ASSUMPTION OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. Br JAMES GRAHAME, LL. D, IN TWO VOLUMES. . VOL...1L :;■ SECOND EDEflQN, Er'jL5>lR'iE:0 .i-Nfj, ASCENDED. PHILADELPHIA: LEA AND BLANCHARD 1848. Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1845, by Lea and Blanc hard, in the Clerk's office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. ;PE^n*^r.b#'T.^K; 4- p.nj.,f;oiims» CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME BOOK VIII. PROGRESS OF THE STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, TILL THE FOUNDA- TION OF GEORGIA, IN 1733. CHAPTER I. The American Provinces dissatisfied with the Fruits of the British Revolution. — Affairs of Virginia and Maryland. — Character and Policy of Governor Nicholson. — Affairs of Massachusetts. — Administration of Lord Bellamont — and of Dudley. — dueen Anne's War. — Policy of New York. — Affairs of Connecticut. — Attempts to subvert her Charter. — Invasion of South Carolina. — Progress of the War in New England. — Indian Embassy to Britain. — Conquest of Port Royal and Acadia. — Invasion of Can- ada by a British and Provincial Force. — Failure of the Expedition. — Indian War in North Carolina. — Affairs of New York. — Peace of Utrecht. — Effects of the War in New England. — British Legislation 1 CHAPTER II. y Affiiirs of Virginia. — Passage across the Appalachian Mountains ascertained. — Affairs of New England. — Attempt to subvert the New England Charters. — Indian War in South Carolina. — Affairs of Pennsylvania. — Administration of Sir William Keith. — Affairs of Carolina. — Piracy on the American Coasts. — Theach, or Blackbeard, the Pirate. — Revolt of South Carolina against its Proprietary Government. — Affairs of New York. — Administration of Burnet. — South Sea Scheme and commercial Gam- bling in Britain. — Affairs of New England. — Administration of Shute. — Disputes — and War with the Indians. — Massachusetts incurs the Displeasure of the King — and receives an explanatory Charter. — Dispute respecting fixed Salary between the Assem- bly and royal Governor — terminates in Favor of the Assembly. — Affairs of New York. — Transactions in Carolina. — Surrender of the Charter of Carolina to the Crown. — Affairs of Pennsylvania. — British Legislation. — Bishop Berkeley's Project. . 41 APPENDIX II. State of PoDulation, Laws, Trade, and Manners in the North American Provinces. — Vir- ginia. — New England. — Comparison of New England and Canadian Manners. — Ma- ¥land. — Carolina.— Nerw York. — New Jersey. — Pennsylvania and Delaware. - heTunkers 90 229436 iv CONTENTS. # BOOK IX. • PLANTATION AND PROGRESS OF GEORGIA, TILL THE YEAR 1752. Unpeopled and defenceless State of the southern Frontier of Carolina. — Situation of im- prisoned Debtors in England — Colonization of Georgia suggested for their Relief — by Oglethorpe. — The Moravian Brethren — agree to send a Detachment of their Society to Georgia. — Royal Charter of Georgia. — First Resort of Emigrants to the Province. — Oglethorpe's Treaty with the Indians. — Legislative Constitutions enacted by the Trus- tees of Georgia. — Negro Slavery prohibited. — John and Charles Wesley — accompa- ny Moravian Emigrants to the Province. — Emigration of Scotch Highlanders. — Dis- contents in the Colony. — The Scotch Colonists remonstrate against Negro Slavery. — Negro Insurrection in South Carolina. — Spanish War. — The Moravians forsake Geor- gia. — Oglethorpe's Invasion of Florida. — The Spaniards invade Georgia — and are foiled by Oglethorpe — who returns to England. — Change in the civil and political Constitution of Georgia. — Flourishing State of South Carolina. — Surrender of the Charter of Georgia to the Crown — and Introduction of Negro Slavery. — Condition of Georgia — Trade, Manners, &c 109 BOOK X. PROGRESS OF THE STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, TILL THE PEACE OF PARIS, IN 3763. CHAPTER I. Affairs of New York. — Zenger's Trial. — Prosperous State of New England. — Contro- versy between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. — Intrigues for the Removal of Governor Belcher. — New England Missions. — Jonathan Edwards.— David Brain- erd. — Affairs of Pennsylvania. — Benjamin Franklin. — George Whitefield. — Disputes respecting a military Establishment. — Discontent of the Indians. — War with France. — Louisburg — the Invasion of it projected by New England — and undertaken. — Siege — and Surrender of Louisburg. — Jealousy of Britain. — Effects of the Enterprise in America. — Rebellion in Behalf of the Pretender in Britain. — Armament despatch- ed from France against the British Colonies — discomfited. 143 CHAPTER II. Progress of the War. — Tumult excited by naval Impressment in Boston. — Peace of Aix- la-Chapelle. — Regulation of Paper Currency in New England. — Policy of the British Government relative to America. — Political Sentiments and Speculations of the Amer- icans. — Condition of America, and miscellaneous Transactions. — Origin of Vermont. — The Ohio Company. — American Science and Literature. . . . . .'182 CHAPTER III. View of the colonial Dominion and Policy of Britain and France in America. — Renewal of Disputes between the French and English Colonists. — Hostilities on the Virginian Frontier. — Benjamin Franklin — his Plan for a federal Union of the American Prov- inces. — Discontents in Virginia — North Carolina — and New York. — Preparations of France and Britain for War 218 CHAPTER IV. Hostilities in Nova Scotia — Expulsion of the French Neutrals. — Braddock's Expedition — and Defeat. — Battle of Lake George. — Transactions in South Carolina. — Dissen- sions in Pennsylvania. — Resignation of political Power by the Quakers. — Quaker Proceedings respecting Negro Slavery. — War declared between France and Britain. — Success of the French at Oswego . , 240 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. Incapacity of the British Commander in America. — Loss of Fort William Henry. — Dispute between Massachusetts and the British Commander. — State of Parties in New England. — Change of the British Ministry and Measures. — Affairs of Pennsylvania. — PoUtical Exertions of Franklin in England.— Conquest of Cape Breton. — Repulse at Ticonderoga. — Reduction of Fort Frontignac — and Fort Duquesne. —Effect of the British Successes upon the Indians. — Plan of the Campaign of 1759. — Reduction of Ticonderoga — and Crown Point. — Battle of Niagara — and Capture of Fort Niagara. — Siege of Quebec. — Battle of the Heights of Abraham — and Surrender of Quebec. 262 CHAPTER VI. Progress of Hostilities in America. — Entire Conquest of Canada. — War with the Chero-^ kees. — Affairs of Massachusetts. — Death of George the Second. — Conclusion of the Cherokee War. — Affairs of South Carolina. — Discontents in Massachusetts — and in North Carolina. — Peace of Paris. — Affairs of Virginia. — Patrick Henry. — Indian War. — Affairs of Pennsylvania. 300 APPENDIX III. Condition of the North American States — Virginia — New England — Maryland — the Carolinas — New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania — Georgia. — Political Feelings and Ideas in Britain and America. — Benjamin West. — Indian Affairs. — Moravian Missions. ............... 336 BOOK XI. PROGRESS OF THE STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, TILL THEIR ASSUMP- TION OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE. CHAPTER I. Relative Position of Britain and her Colonies. — Policy of the British Court — Severe Enforcement of the existing commercial Restrictions — Aggravation of the commercial Restrictions. — Project of the Stamp Act. — Remonstrances of the Americans. — Idea of American Representatives in the House of Commons. — The Stamp Act debated in England — and passed. — Act for quartering British Troops in America. — Proceedings in Massachusetts — and Virginia. — Ferment in America. — Tumults in New England. — The Stamp Officers resign. — Convention at New York. — Political Clubs in Ameri- ca. — Tumult at New York. — Non-importation Agreements. — The Stamp Act dis- obeyed. — Deliberations in England — Act declaratory of parliamentary Power over America — the Stamp Act repealed 363 CHAPTER II. Sentiments of the Americans. — Leading Politicians in America — Randolph — Jefferson — Adams — Hancock — Rutledge, and others. — Renewed Collision between British. Prerogative and American Liberty. — New York resists the Act for quartering Troops. — Acts of Parliament taxing Tea and other Commodities in America — and suspending the Legislature of New York. — Policy of France. — Progress of American Discontent. — Circular Letter of the Massachusetts Assembly. — Governor Bernard's Misrepresent- ations. — Royal Censure of the Massachusetts Assembly. — Riot at Boston. — Firmness — and Dissolution of the Massachusetts Assembly. — Convention in Massachusetts. — Occupation of Boston by British Troops. — Violence of the British Parliament. — Reso- lutions of the Virginian Assembly — and Concurrence of the other Provinces. — Re- monstrance against British Troops in Massachusetts. — Miscellaneous Transactions — Dr. Witherspoon — Dartmouth College — Methodism in America — Origin of Kentucky ~ Daniel Boon .413 y\ CONTENTS, CHAPTER III. . Impolicy of the British Measures. — Affray between the Troops and the People of Boston — Partial Repeal of the Tea-duty Act — unsatisfactory to the Americans. — Perplexity of the British Ministry. — Tucker's Scheme. — Writers on the American Controversy. — Insurrection of the Regulators in North Carolina. — Resistance in Rhode Island. — Governor Hutchinson. — Proceedings in Massachusetts — and in Virginia. — Attempt of Massachusetts to abolish the Slave-trade — resisted by the British Government. — British Attempt to exact the Tea-duty — successfully resisted in America — tumultuously defeated at Boston. — Disclosure of Hutchinson'^ Letters. — Dismissal of Franklin from the British Service. — Taunting Language in England. — The Shakers. — European Emigrations to America. ... 449 CHAPTER IV. Boston Port Bill — and other British Measures — their Effects in America. — Proposition of a general Congress. — Suffolk Resolutions. — Meeting of the first American Con- fress — its Proceedings. — Transactions in New England. — Proceedings of the British linistry and Parliament. — Defensive Preparations in America. — Affair of Lexington. — The Americans surprise Ticonderoga and Crown Point. — Battle of Bunker's Hill. — Second American Congress — prepares for War — elects a Commander-in-chief — George Washington. — Transactions m Virginia. — Progress of Hostilities. — American Invasion of Canada 483 CHAPTER V. Popular Feeling and public Policy in America. — American Negotiations with France. — La Fayette. — Condition of the American Army. — Operations of Washington. — Re- treat of the British Army from Boston. — Hostilities in South Carolina. — The Amer- icans declare their Commerce free. — Conduct of the American duakers. — Proceedings in Congress. — Declaration of American Independence. — Conclusion. , . ,530 NOTES. . 557 THE HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA BOOK VIII. CHAPTER I. The American Provinces dissatisfied with the Fruits of the British Revolution. — Affairs of Virginia and Maryland. — Character and Policy of Governor Nicholson. — Affairs of Mas- sachusetts. — Administration of Lord Bellamont — and of Dudley. — Queen Anne's War. — Policy of New York. — Affairs of Connecticut. — Attempts to subvert her Charter. — Invasion of South Carolina. — Progress of the War in New England. — Indian Embassy to Britain. — Conquest of Port Royal and Acadia. — Invasion of Canada by a British and Provincial Force. — Failure of the Expedition. — Indian War in North Carolina. — Affairs of New York. — Peace of Utrecht. — Effects of the War in New England. — British Legis- lation. When the first agitations of hope and fear that were engendered by the British Revolution had subsided, this great event proved least satisfactory in the very quarters in which its operation was the most beneficial. The church of England, which owed its preservation as a Protestant estabhsh- ment to the revolt which it had countenanced against its own temporal head, received the boon with a sullen acquiescence in disagreeable necessity ; and continued, for many years, estranged more or less from a government, whose origin, however disguised by the theories of political sophists, practi- cally confessed, or at least forcibly suggested to mankind, the legitimate control of popular will and reason over the most authoritative principles and the most venerable institutions of national pohcy. It was not from love of civil or religious liberty, but for the protection of their own special priv- ileges and emoluments, that the English prelates abetted the revolutionary movement ; for their deep desire was, that kings should reign by a divine right, which laymen were not entitled to scan, and of which the ecclesias- tical expositors of the divine will were the sole-, or, at least, the most competent, judges. The Scottish Covenanters, who were rescued by the Revolution from the extremity of barbarous oppression and political degra- dation, less rejoiced at the signal deliverance, than repined at the inadequate compensation they obtained ; and, thankless for a bare toleration, without triumphant ascendency of those principles which heroic sacrifice and the glory of their martyred friends had so mightily endeared to them, they re- garded the revolutionary government with anger and aversion, and even in some instances conspired with the partisans of their deposed oppressor to accomplish its overthrow. From the peculiar sources, however, of these domestic discontents there was derived a reasonable prospect of their pro- gressive mitigation. The lapse of time, as it invested the remodelled mon- VOL. II. 1 A 2 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIH archy of Britain with a semblance of antiquity, tended to abate the jealousy of the Tories and prelates, by veiling what they deemed its dangerous features from the grossness of the general gaze ; and the descendants of the Covenanters, even when they inherited the principles of their fathers, lost a portion of that enthusiastic zeal, which, like the ardor of maternal affection, must originate from a personal experience of trouble, anguish, and danger. In no part of the British empire did the Revolution of 1688 produce more beneficial consequences than in the provinces of North America ; yet nowhere did the immediate fruits of that revolution excite greater or more general disgust. Some of these colonies had been previously reputed pe- culiarly loyal to the fallen dynasty ; others had always regarded it with appre- hensive dislike ; some had endured but httle, and others had endured a great deal, of molestation from its tyranny. Several of the provinces had suffered only the apprehension occasioned by a threatened abrogation of their privileges ; others had been actually deprived of them all. Virginia, though devoid of the safeguard of a charter, had been merely subjected to a tyrannical governor, without being deprived of her representative assembly. The New England States,. though possessing chartered systems of liberty, had been deprived both of their charters and their assemblies. Various, however, as the sentiments consequently were, which the first tidings of the British Revolution excited in these several provinces, they were all per- vaded by common feelings of disappointment and discontent, after a very short experience of the dominion of the new authorities that had arisen in the parent state. From the reasonableness of these feehngs, and the rela- tive prospects of the two countries, a mutual estrangement of regard was more likely to be increased than diminished by the lapse of time. The insurrections, by which some of the provinces cooperated with the revolutionary proceedings in England, were provoked not by English, but by American, grievances ; the purpose of the insurgents (except in Mary- land) was to obtain the restoration of American liberty ; and the approbation, which King William at first bestowed very readily on every province and every party which took arms against the authority of his father-in-law, was interpreted by the colonists into a sanction of the objects to which their movements had been immediately directed. Considering their own interests associated with the cause of Wilham, they expected from his triumph a willing and immediate restitution of every provincial privilege which had been unjustly w^ithheld or tyrannically invaded by his predecessor. But their expectations were completely disappointed. The establishment of William's authority induced a manifest alteration of his regard for the promoters of popular insurrection ; the acquisition of power had no tendency to concihate his patronage of claims for its limitation ; and the expediency of retaining those functionaries of the old government, who were willing to transfer the benefit of their official experience to the new, prompted him to engage the service and embrace the counsels of men who had signalized themselves by overthrowing liberal institutions and administering tyranny in North America. Not one of the aggrieved provinces received an entire redress of its wrongs ; nor did any of them succeed in procuring even a partial restoration of its violated hberties, without an arduous struggle against the opposition of the court. Connecticut and Rhode Island, which were en- abled by the Revolution to resume the charters of which they had been CHAP. I] AMERICA DISAPPOINTED IN WILLIAM III. 5 deprived, were compelled to defend them against the envy of the revolu- tionary government in the parent state, whose ineffectual hostility at once diminished her own influence, and endeared to the colonists a system of lib- erty exposed to continual peril and jeopardy, and only preserved by their own firmness and vigor against the encroachments of superior power. Ac- cording to the dictates of hberal justice, Massachusetts was equally enti- tled to the restoration of her old charter ; and her claim was strengthened by the gallant stand which she had made in defence of those principles of liberty which the British Revolution professed to vindicate. But the tech- nical formalities, which her virtuous inflexibility had compelled the oppressor of her liberties to employ, furnished a legal pretext for obstructing her claims, whicn King William and his ministers did not hesitate to embrace. Though the English parliament, in its first revolutionary fervor, prepared a bill for restoring the old charter of Massachusetts, this act of national jus- tice was defeated by the dexterity of the court ; and though a new charter was extorted from the king by the interest and importunity of the colonists, it withheld from the people some of the most valuable privileges which they enjoyed under their original constitution. New Hampshire,- which earnestly petitioned to be annexed to Massachusetts, was erected into a separate jurisdiction, without obtaining a charter, — for the convenience of a wealthy merchant of London, who purchased the vexatious claims of Mason against the occupiers of the soil. New York had been deprived of its assembly and defrauded of its promised charter by .Tames the Second. The restoration of the assembly was accomplished by the popular insurrec- tion promoted by Leisler. But no charter w^as procured from the crown ; and Leisler, for an act importing rather folly than guilt, was condemned to the fate of a traitor by Dudley, who had been chased from New England for abetting the tyranny of King James, and w^hom William, nevertheless, appointed chief justice at New York. Though William was encouraged by his advisers to lay claim to every advantage, however unfairly acquired, which might be supposed legally to accrue to him as the successor of the British crown, he was far from acknowledging a corresponding obligation to fulfil the engagements which had been tyrannically violated by his predeces- sors. Though a charter was promised to Virginia by Charles the Second, this promise obtained no more respect from the government which suc- ceeded than from that which preceded the Revolution ; and though Lord Effingham had been guilty of such tyranny in Virginia that the people confi- dently expected his di.smissal even from the justice of King James, he was retained in his office by the policy of William. The same expediency, however, which prolonged his dignity, forbade the exasperating measure of his return to Virginia, — where his personal presence w^as supphed by the lieutenancy of Francis Nicholson, another agent of King James, who, flying from the revolutionary commotion at New York, received welcome and patronage from the revolutionary sovereign of England. By what arguments Lord Effingham was enabled to prevail over the complaints of the Virginians at the court of King William w^e have no means of ascertaining ; but the presumptive credit of his vindication of himself is impeached by the notorious fact, that he was permitted to stipulate with Nicholson that no legislative assembly should be convoked in Virginia, unless this measure were commanded by the most urgent and palpable ne- cessity.^ The promotion of Dudley and of Nicholson served to pave the ' Beverly. Burk. 4 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. way to a measure by which King William loaded his own administration with all the odium and jealousy that the government of his royal prede- cessors had excited. This was the appointment of Sir Edmund Andros, in the year 1692, to the office of supreme governor both of Virginia and Maryland. Andros, as the superior officer both of Nicholson and Dudley, had been appointed by King James to conduct his arbitrary system of gov- ernment in New England and New York, and had excited the unanimous hatred of the people over whom he presided. Deposed, imprisoned, and impeached by the colonists of New England, he was acquitted by King William ; and, after a little prudential delay, was despatched to assume the government of Maryland. Here, from the oppression to whic|^ the Roman Catholics were doomed by the policy of Britain, he found himself once more the delegate of injustice and tyranny ; and, tempted, perhaps, by the distracted state of the province, he endeavoured to enrich himself by pec- ulations that enlarged his own disgrace and dishonored his new master.^ The temporary usurpation by King William of the rights of the proprietary of Pennsylvania, and the arbitrary proceedings of Fletcher, to whom he committed the presidency both of that colony and of New York, tended still farther to impeach the justice and diminish the popularity of the British government in the American provinces. Yet many gratifying circumstances contributed at the time to countervail the sense and restrain the expression of the colonial discontents. The ben- efit of actual deliverance from oppression and danger was universally ac- knowledged ; and the general effect in America of the British Revolution was an increased attachment to liberty, and a jealousy rather prudent and vigilant, than bitter or indignant, of the designs and policy of the parent state. In Virginia, however, a good deal of address and concihation was neces- sary to reduce the prevailing sentiments of disaffection to this moderate strain. The continuance of Lord Effingham in office, and the appointment of another instrument of King James's tyranny to act as the lieutenant of this nobleman, created so much disgust and irritation [1690], that Nichol- son, on his arrival in the province, clearly perceived that his commission was insufficient to administer effectual support to his authority, and that the colonists were actually ripe for revolt. Nicholson, who now resumed in America a career which was to procure him, for many years, a conspicuous place in its history, though naturally headstrong, restless, and impetuous, was yet endowed with considerable shrewdness and address ; devoured by vani- ty and immoderate ambition, he was destitute of steady principle and com- prehensive wisdom. With skilful and assiduous exertions, he strove to soothe and conciliate the minds of the Virginians, who, remembering the haughty and sullen austerity that characterized the deportment of his pre- decessors, Culpepper and Effingham, were the more captivated by the oblig- ing and affable demeanour of Nicholson, from its dissimilarity to the man- ners which they were accustomed to associate with tyranny. In order to extend the influence of his courtesy, as well as to ascertain, without ex- pressly demanding, the sentiments of the planters on the important point of a representative assembly, he made a tour through the several counties of the province ; lavished attentions and commendations on the people and all their establishments ; solicited their opinions with regard to local im- * Oldmixon. Formerly, the first edition of Oldmixon's work is referred to, unless when the second is expressly specified. Now, and hereafter, reference is made to the second edition alone. The two publications differ not a little in their contents from each other. CHAP. I] NICHOLSON'S POPULAR ARTS. v^^ . / 5 provements ; and seemed cordially to embrace the views and suggestions which they imparted. To promote the gayety and amusement of the colo- nists, and divert their leisure hours and stirring spirits from political debate and inquiry, he instituted pubhc games, and distributed prizes to those who excelled in riding, running, shooting, wrestling, and backsword. Finding that the erection of a college was a favorite object of the planters, he zealously promoted their wish, and gained a great accession of popularity by procuring and delivering to them the royal donative which contributed to the estabhshment of William and Mary College. ^ But amidst all the re- spect and good-will which his elaborate civihty and politic benevolence at- tracted, he discerned a deep-seated and vigilant jealousy ; and was made sensible, by many unequivocal symptoms, that it would be impossible for hinl to gain the general confidence or preserve the public tranquillity, without restoring to the colonists their representative assembly ; and thereupon, with equal prudence and promptitude, he scrupled not to disappoint the wish of Lord Effingham, and to allay the prevalent solicitude, by a regular convocation of assembhes. Before the close of his first presidency, which lasted only two years, his efforts to compose the dangerous ferments by which Virginia was agitated at the period of his arrival [1691] were crowned with a success equally creditable to his own dexterity and to the modera- tion and placability of the people. His popularity, however, was latterly somewhat impaired by a sudden change of sentiment which he displayed in relation to a matter which excited much interest in the colony. The richer class of planters had for some time entertained the design of establish- ing manufactures in Virginia ; and this project was eagerly espoused by the leading politicians of the province, who regarded it as a measure cal- culated to diminish the dependence of their country on the parent state. To this end, it was necessary that the system of straggling inhabitation that prevailed in the colony should be abandoned, and the people induced to live together in villages or towns. After an obstinate struggle with the current of popular inclination in this respect, the promoters of the design succeeded in obtaining from the assembly what was termed an Act of Co- habitation^ proposing encouragements to the formation of towns and the introduction of manufactures ; and Nicholson endeared himself not a little to a powerful party by zealously abetting the scheme and affirming the act. A present of three hundred pounds was voted to him shortly after by the assembly, who entreated him to accept it as a testimony of the deep sejise they entertained of his virtues and obliging demeanour.^ But no sooner did he learn that the measure which he had thus supported was disagreea- ble to the king, than he hastened as zealously to retract his declarations in its favor ; with ineflJectual and ungracious importunity, he labored to per- suade the assembly to rescind its enactment ; and impaired his own credit ' The plan of the college buildings was the composition of Sir Christopher Wren. Wynne. "There was a commencement at William and Mary College in the year 1700, at which there was a great concourse of people ; several planters came thither in their coaches, and several in sloops frofn New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland ; it being a new thing in America to hear graduates perform their academical exercises. The Indians themselves had the curiosity to relish of learning." Oldmixon. Fifty-eight years before, a similar ceremonial was performed in the younger province of Massachusetts. ^ King William's instructions about this time to the American governors having strictly prohibited their acceptance of donatives, an address was presented to him by the Virginian asserablj, beseeching that Nicholson might have leave to accept their present) and the royal permission was accordingly granted. Beverly. ' Q HISTORY OF WORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. by demonstrating to the people that his interest in their prosperity would ever be subordinate to his obsequious devotion to the pleasure of the crown and the policy of the parent state. ^ The continuance of Lord Effingham in the office of governor of Virginia, which at one time was deeply resented by the colonists, had latterly been rendered a matter of indifference to them by the mild administration of Nicholson ; and when the event of that nobleman's dismission at length oc- curred [1692], it w^s rendered even unwelcome to Virginia by the con- comitant intelligence that the vacant dignity was conferred on Sir Edmund Andros. After a short stay in Maryland, of which also he was appointed governor, and where he appears to have again indulged his wonted severity and rapacity, Andros, repairing to Virginia [1692], resumed the govern- ment of a people who regarded him with alarm and dislike, and were pre- pared to watch his conduct with the most jealous attention. Nicholson straightway repaired to Maryland, where, in the station of lieutenant-govern- or, he continued for six years ; during which he is said to have displayed a spirit more eager and intemperate than stern or illiberal, and to have pro- moted measures that happily conduced to the encouragement of industry and the advancement of religion.^ Whether in consequence of information communicated by Nicholson, or from a sagacious discernment and appreciation of his own altered interests and circumstances, Andros now evinced a remarkable change of deport- ment ; and during his presidency in Virginia, he extorted the public appro- bation both of the liberality of his sentiments and the mildness of his man- ners. Prompt, judicious, and methodical, he introduced into all the offices and institutions of government improvements that contributed to the sim- plification and despatch of public, business. He promoted the cultivation of cotton in the province ; and though he succeeded, by the auxiliary influ- ence of the merchants of London who traded with Virginia, and the concur- rent habits and inclinations of a majority of the colonists, in persuading the assembly to suspend the Act of Cohabitation^ he was yet celebrated for his active patronage of every other feasible project for the introduction and do- mestication of manufactures. Devoid of Nicholson's inordinate vanity and ambition, and greatly his superior in talent and understanding, Andros con- tented himself with endeavouring to redeem his public character, and associ- ate his administration with provincial improvement and prosperity, — without studying to extend his influence, or greedily courting popularity by supple- ness and intrigue. His useful labors were interrupted by the revocation of his commission after an endurance of six years ; when Nicholson, promoted * Oldmixon. Burk. ' A letter written to the Royal Society of London by an intelligent Englishman, who visited Maryland during the administration of Nicholson, contains the following statements : — " The church of England is now pretty well established. Churches are built ; and there is an annual stipend allowed to every minister by a perpetual law ; which is more or less, according to the number of taxables in each parish. Every Christian male sixteen years old, and negroes, male and female, above that age, pay forty pounds of tobacco to the minister ; and this makes their revenues, one with another, about two thousand pounds of tobacco, or one hundred pounds sterling, a year. It has been the unhappiness of this country, that they had no Protestant min- isters, hardly, among them, till the time of Governor Nicholson, who has been a great pro- moter and encourager of the clergy." " Now, by Colonel Nicholson's protection, the orthodox churches are crowded as full as they can hold. The people grow sensible of the Romish su- perstition and the enthusiasm of the Quakers. Indeed, the Quakers struggle hard to maintain their footing; and their teachers (especially of the female sex, who are the most zealous) are very free of their reflections and scandal against the orthodox divines and professors." Old- mixon. CHAP. I] NICHOLSON'S AMBITIOUS SCHEMES. 7 to the vacant dignity, returned once more to preside in Virginia. [1698.] In the government of Maryland, Nicholson was succeeded first by Colonel Blackiston, and afterwards [1703] by Colonel Seymour, — whose adminis- trations obtained the praise of liberal and honorable policy, and the recom- pense of general satisfaction and esteem.^ The advancement of Nicholson to a station of greater dignity than he had ever before enjoyed served rather to inflame than to gratify his thirst for distinction. Elevated to the supreme command of the most ancient and wealthy province of the British empire in America, he now suffered himself to be transported, by the eagerness of his ambition, beyond the modesty of reasonable hope and the safeguard of politic demeanour. The project of a general government, embracing all the colonies, which had been de- vised by James the Second, but rendered abortive by the Revolution, was now revived by this enterprising politician, who beheld in it at once the most effectual means of securing the absolute authority of the parent state, and the fairest promise of his own ascent to the pinnacle of provincial s^reatness. By his merit in promoting an object so agreeable to the English cou> , added to his boasted influence and experience in America, he hoped to entitle himself to claim the appointment of governor-general ; and this ambitious vision s§ems to have mainly influenced his language and actions during his second presidency in Virginia. One of the first transactions in which he engaged convinced him very disagreeably that he had underrated the resist- ance which the colonists might be expected to oppose to such designs, and that, in laboring to accomplish them, he had no aid to expect either from his own personal influence or the supposed tractability of the people. Three years before this period. King William had concerted a plan for the general defence of the American settlements against the French forces in Canada and their Indian allies ; in conformity with which, every British colony was required to furnish a pecuniary contingent proportioned to the amount of its population,^ — to be administered according to the directions of the king. This plan was submitted to all the provincial legislatures, and disregarded or rejected by every one of them ; the colonies most exposed to attack being desirous of employing their forces in the manner most agree- able to their own judgment and immediate exigencies, and those which were more remote from the point of danger objecting to participate in the expense. The Quaker assembly of Pennsylvania, from which the most inflexible opposition might naturally have been expected, was the only one which finally consented to aid, by a subscription, the military operations in New York, which preceded the peace of Ryswick.'** Governor Nicholson clearly perceived the utility of King William's plan as a preparative of the uherior design of a general government of the colonies ; and though peace was now established, he determined to signahze his recent promotion by reviving the royal project and retrieving its failure. He ventured accordingly to introduce this unwelcome proposition to the assembly of Virginia, and em- ployed all the resources of his address and ingenuity to procure its adop- tion. He affirmed that a fort on the western frontier of New York was essential to the security of Virginia ; and insisted that the legislature of this province was consequently engaged, by every consideration of prudence, equity, and generosity, to contribute to its erection and support. But his ' Oldmixon. Beverly. Burk^ «^Se7Book~VTChap II., ante. " » See Book VII., Chap II., ante. 8 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. arguments, though backed by all the aid they could derive from reference to the wish and suggestion of the king, proved totally unavailing ; and the proposition experienced an unquahfied rejection from the assembly. Nich- olson, astonished and provoked at this discomfiture, hastened to transmit to the king a report of the affair, in which he strongly censured the refrac- tory spirit of the Virginians, and urged the propriety of compelling them yet to acknowledge their duty and consult their true interests. [1698.] William was so far moved by this representation, as to recommend to the provincial assembly a more deliberate consideration of the governor's prop- osition ; and he even condescended to repeat the arguments which Nicholson had already unsuccessfully employed. But these reasons gained no addi- tional currency from the stamp of royal sanction. The king's project encountered again the most determined opposition, and was a second time rejected ; while his argument elicited from the assembly only a firm, but re- spectful, remonstrance, in which they declared their conviction, ''that nei- ther the forts then in being, nor any other that might be built in the province of New York, could in the slightest degree avail to the defence and security of Virginia ; for that either the French or the Northern Indians might invade this colony, and yet not approach wuthin a hundred miles of any of those forts." Nicholson had relied with undoubting assurance on the success of this attempt ; and the issue of it, which disconcerted his aspiring hopes, de- stroyed his popularity, and discredited the policy of his counsels by lower- ing the dignity of the king, inspired him with the most vindictive feelings of rage and mortification. Henceforward, he took no pains to conceal his an- tipathy to the institution of representative assembHes, and to the democrat- ical frame of the provincial governments. He represented to the British ministers that the dissent of the Virginian assembly from his Majesty's desire and opinion proceeded entirely from a spirit of rebelUon, and a propensity to national independence and republican government ;i — charges, which, as they coincided with the apprehensions of the parent state, were most likely to provoke her jealousy and malevolence towards the colony. Blending a regard to policy with the gratification of his resentment, and hoping to im- press the credulous with a high opinion of his munificence and public spirit, he protested that neither the king nor New York should be disappointed, for that he himself would rather furnish the quota due by Virginia from his own private estate. He repaired soon after to New York, where he labored to regain the reputation which he had heretofore forfeited with its citizens, by passionate declamations on his efforts to serve them, and on the sordid and disobliging spirit with which the Virginians obstructed his purpose ; and he succeeded for a while in buying golden opinions in this quarter by an impudent deceit, whereby he pretended to grant his own bills of exchange for the sum that had been ineffectually soHcited from the Virginian assembly. Notwithstanding his resentment against the people, and his hostility to the institutions over which he continued for some years longer to preside, he found his power insufficient for any open violation of public rights ; and was obliged to content himself with conveying to the English government secret counsels and complaints, which, under pretence of guarding the in- terest and honor of the parent state, aimed at the destruction of every lib- eral and popular institution in Virginia. He cooperated with his friend, ' 1 See Note XXVIII., Vol. I., atde. " CHAP. I.] POLITIC APPOINTMENTS IN MASSACHUSETTS. ,9 Colonel Quarry, another functionary of the crown in North America, in the composition of the Memorials which were presented in Quarry's name to the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations in England. These Memorials rep- resented the colonists of America, and particularly the Virginians, as deeply imbued with republican principles ; strongly counselled immediate recourse to the most rigorous measures for preserving the ascendency of the royal prerogative ; and especially suggested ''that all the English colonies of JSTorth America be reduced under one government and one viceroy y and that a standing army be there kept on foot to subdue the enemies of royal author- ity.''^ The success of his exertions corresponded better with his vindictive sentiments than with his ambitious designs ; for, though he was able to ex- cite mutual distrust and jealousy between the parent state and the colony, he could not succeed in persuading the English ministers to embrace the en- ergetic measures which he recommended. The vehemence of his language, perhaps, led them to doubt the soundness and prudence of his views. His career in America was suspended in the year 1704, by his recall from Vir- ginia ; ^ but he afterwards resumed it, in the conduct of various mihtary ex- peditions, and in a short occupation of the government of Carolina. In New York, where hberal institutions had enjoyed but a brief exist- ence, and where the boundaries of royal authority and popular rights were not defined by a charter. King William showed as little respect for the wishes of the people, in the selection of his pubHc officers, as he had done in rela- tion to Virginia. He conferred the highest judicial office at New York on Dudley, a victim of the revolution in New England ; and bestowed the government of the province on Fletcher, whose intemperate effiarts to stretch the royal prerogative proved, however, more beneficial than hurtful to public spirit and the interests of freedom. But in Massachusetts, where the peo- ple regarded liberty as their undoubted birthright, and, next to rehgion, their peculiar glory, and where the most formidable approaches of tyranny had ever been encountered with heroic fortitude and inflexible opposition, the king and his ministers were sensible that greater deference was due to pubhc opinion, and that a conciliating policy was necessary to mitigate the discontent excited by the innovations in the frame of the provincial consti- tution. Though some of the obnoxious officers of James were counte- nanced and retained by Wilham, not one of them had yet been employed in New England ; and the first royal governor of Massachusetts after the Revolution, as we have seen, owed his appointment by the king to the previous favor and express recommendation of the colonists and their agents. This pohtic condescension was in a great degree successful ; though, from unforeseen and unhappy circumstances, the administration of Sir William Phips did not produce all the satisfactory consequences that were expected to ensue from it ; and at its close, and for some time after, so much discon- tent and irritation prevailed in the province, as forcibly to inculcate on the king and his ministers the utmost prudence and moderation in the exercise of the royal prerogative. It was never more wisely exercised by them, than in the subsequent appointment of Richard, Earl of Bellamont, to the govern- ment of Massachusetts and New Hampshire ; to which was added the gov- ernment of New York, where some remedy was urgently required for the abuses that had signahzed Fletcher's administration. The conduct of Lord Bellamont at New York has already engaged our attention. ^Beverly. Oldmixon. Quarry's Jlfe^nonW, in the British Museum. VOL. II. 2 iO HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIH. Lord Bellamont was the first and the only British nobleman who ever exercised the functions of governor in New England ; and even in this region of republican usages and Puritanic sentiments, his rank enhanced the rever- ence which his merit inspired. Endowed with sound sense and judgment, a liberal and magnanimous disposition, a calm, yet resolute temper, — grave, incorrupt, religious, open, and sincere, — he embellished these estimable qualities by an address replete with courtesy and benignity. [1699.] On his arrival at Boston, he found that his reputation had preceded him ; and he experienced the most gratifying demonstrations of welcome and esteem from all classes of the inhabitants, who assembled to greet his ap- proach in throngs so numerous and so uniformly respectable in aspect, that he was struck with surprise at the unexpected wealth and population of the province, — and, doubtless, touched with a generous pleasure at the unex- ampled display of extended happiness and civility. His popularity was not confined to the immediate scene of his administration ; the inhabitants of Connecticut, esteeming the appointment of such a man a favorable indica- tion of the policy of the parent state, expressed in a congratulatory address their sympathy with the gratification of their neighbours in Massachusetts. The mutual satisfaction of Lord Bellamont and his people w^as confirmed by a farther acquaintance with each other. Regarding them collectively with respect,^ and treating them individually and invariably with affability and benevolence, he commanded esteem and was judged with candor. They forgave, or rather, perhaps, they did not feel it necessary to forgive, his attachment to the church of England ; and while the desire of ingratiat- ing himself with the people could not induce him to disguise this predilec- tion, the force of it could not prevent his discerning and acknowledging the worth of those provincial institutions of which the extraordinary piety and virtue of the people of New England was either the cause or the effect. Though he paid his Sunday devotions in an Episcopal chapel, he attended the weekly lectures of the Congregational church at Boston ; ^ and pro- fessed the highest regard and esteem for the Congregational preachers. Hutchinson, a ruler and historian of this province, whose own unpopularity has rendered him extremely skeptical with regard to the merit of a popular governor, ascribes the success of Lord Bellamont to his avoiding offence to particular persons^ and disputes with the assembly ; and his general con- formity to the cast or prevailing disposition of the people. Certain it is, V " A speech of his to his lady, when their table was filled with the representatives from the country towns, is yet remembered : — Dame, we should treat these gentlemen well ; they give vs our bread. ^' Hutchinson. ^ The General Court always adjourned its sitting to attend the lecture. This strictness of religious observance, however, though generally, was not universallv, prevalent in Boston. Among those who were estranged from it was one Bullivant, an apothecary, who had been a justice of the peace under Andros. " Lord Bellamont, going from the lecture to his house, with a great crowd round him, passed by Bullivant standing at his shop-door loitering : Doctor, says his Lordship with an audible voice, you have lost a precious sermon to-day. Bullivant whispered to one of his companions who stood by him. If I could have got as much by being there as his Lordship, I icould have been there too.^' Hutchinson. The least pleasing trait in the demeanour of Lord Bellamont is one which reproaches the prevalent taste and language of the contemporary partisans of the British Revolution. In his speeches to the assembly, he extolled the character and achievements of King William in a strain of the most exaggerated and almost impious commendation ; and in his unsparing, though juster, censure of the princes of the House of Stuart, he loaded their real or supposed religious faith with all the blame of their corrupt or careless policy. In his last speech to the Massa- chusetts assembly, he declared that " the parting with Canada to the French, and the Eastern country called Acadia or Nova Scotia, with the noble fishery on that coast, were most execra- ble treacheries to England, and intended, without doubt, to serve the ends of popery." Ibid. CHAP. I] POPULAR ADMINISTRATION OF LORD BELLAMONT. || that, whatever was the source of Lord Bellamont's influence, he obtained from the provincial assembly a larger remuneration of his services than was ever bestowed on any of his predecessors or successors in the administra- tion of royal prerogative. During his residence in the province, which lasted only fourteen months, he received from the General Court grants amounting to £2,500 of the provincial money, or £1,875 sterling. The appointment of this excellent person would reflect more honor on King William and his ministers, if it were not evident, from their correspondence with him, that they were more desirous to render his previous reputation instrumental to the credit of royal authority, than to secure to the colonists the benefit of his virtues. Infected, themselves, by the reports of Nich- olson and Quarry, with distrust and jealousy of the Americans, they en- deavoured to impart these sentiments to Lord Bellamont ; and, assuring him that the people were notoriously disaffected to the parent state, and inchned to mutiny and independence, urged him to watch and curb the symptoms of this dangerous spirit.^ His unexpected death prevented him from receiving the communica- tion of these ignoble suspicions and pernicious counsels, which were repugnant alike to the dignity of his disposition and the tenor of his expe- rience. Continuing to treat the colonists with merited confidence and un- affected respect, he pursued the policy most honorable and advantageous to them, to himself, and to the parent state. While he demonstrated a generous confidence, he succeeded in inspiring it ; of which a remarkable mstance has been preserved in the annals of New Hampshire. He had recommended to the assembly of this province the execution of a public work, of which the expense appeared to them disproportioned to the ad- vantage that would accrue from it, and to the pecuniary circumstances of the people. They submitted this objection to his consideration ; but declared, at the same time, that, if he would acquaint himself a little farther with their actual condition and resources, they would readily submit to any burden that he should reckon conducive to their advantage and compatible with their ability. The annals of this province, for several years, con- sist of little else than a record, no longer interesting, of the disputes and litigations between the successors of Mason and the colonists who had im- proved the soil by their own industry and defended it by their valor. During the administration of Lord Bellamont, the only circumstances that occurred to disquiet the inhabitants of Massachusetts were the terri- torial encroachments of the French. Louis the Fourteenth had already projected, and even commenced, the conduct of that ambitious scheme of policy, which was afterwards pursued by France with so much steadines-s and address, for the aggrandizement of her colonial empire. Laying claim to the vast territory of Louisiana, the French monarch despatched two vessels, with a troop of adventurers, for the purpose of establishing a col- ony there, in the year 1698. King William, convinced of the preferable claim of the English to Louisiana, endeavoured to anticipate the project of Louis by hastily assembling a force composed of French Protestant exiles, who sailed from London with the intention of forming a settlement on the banks of the Mississippi. But this emulous attempt was rendered abortive by the vigor and celerity of the French, who first assumed posses- sion of the country, and erected forts at well selected spots for defending ' See Note XXVIII., Vol. I., ante. ' 12 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIU. their occupation. The grand project of the French government was to open a communication from the mouth of the Mississippi to the colony of Canada, and so to hem and environ the colonies of the English as to enable the subjects of France to engross the whole of the Indian trade. This enterprising design, however, was not immediately disclosed to the English colonists by the first insignificant hnk in so great a chain of opera- tions ; and their present uneasiness was occasioned by an act of resolute usurpation committed by their rivals in a quarter very remote from Louisiana. Almost immediately after the peace of Ryswick, the French openly avowed the intention of restraining the English from occupying any part of the country comprehended within the Massachusetts charter to the east- ward of Kennebec, and of engrossing to themselves the sole possession of the fishery on the relative coast.^ It was understood by the English court, that by the treaty of Ryswick all the country westward of St. Croix was recognized as the property of England, from being included within the char- tered designation of the province of Massachusetts ; and an exact adjust- ment of all questionable hmits was left to be subsequently accomphshed by commissioners, whose appointment never took place. In opposition to the understanding and the rights of the English court, Villebon, the governor of a French settlement on St. John's River, gave notice to the government of Massachusetts that he was commanded by the king of France to take possession of and defend the whole country as far as Kennebec, and that English vessels attempting to fish on the coast would forthwith be seized ; and in concert with this pohcy, the Norridgewock Indians, a tribe allied to the French, and implicitly devoted to a French priest whom they accepted for their pastor, began to establish a fixed settlement and erected a church on the banks of Kennebec River. Lord Bellamont communicated infor- mation of these transactions to the Enghsh court, by which they were so negligently considered and so languidly resented, that, had it not been for the war which more interesting disputes soon after enkindled between Eng- land and France, the encroachments of the French (who were actively supported by their king) would in all probability have proved entirely suc- cessful. The administration of Lord Bellamont was terminated by his death at New York in the beginning of the year 1701 .^ The wise and liberal policy of King William towards New York and New England was exhausted by the appointment of Lord Bellamont ; and the vacated dignities of this nobleman were now conferred on successors whom we might almost suppose to have been selected for the express pur- pose of counteracting the impressions produced by his virtue and reputation. The command of New York and New Jersey, as we have already seen, was intrusted to Lord Cornbury, — one of the most odious and contempti- ble of mankind ; and the government of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, ^ The French appear to have been more jealous of the advantage derived by the English from the American fishery, than judicious in their exertions to render it advantageous to them- selves. From the letters of Charlevoix, it appears, that the fisheries on the coasts, w^hether of the English or the French settlements, were beneficial to the English alone, and generally proved ruinous to the French who engaged in them. The resident English colonists, them- selves undertaking the fishery, ascertained the proper seasons and stations for fishing with advantage, and wasted no time on the sea which they could profitably employ on shore. The French colonists preferred to devote themselves to the fur trade (which was one cause of their more extended connection with the Indians), and left the fishery to be conducted unskilfully and expensively by fishing-vessels despatched annually from France to the American coast. ^ Charlevoix, Histoire de la Mouvelle France. Hutchinson. Belknap. Trumbull. Ander son's History of Commerce. Holmes. CHAP. I] JOSEPH DUDLEY 13 which Lord Cornbury had also unsuccessfully aspired to engross, was com- mitted to a man whose previous history tended to reawaken the most irri- tating recollections of regal injustice and usurpation. Joseph Dudley was originally destined by his friends to the office of a minister of religion in his native country of Massachusetts ; but his taste did not correspond with his education ; and, declining to assume a function, which, in New England, was divested of all temporal pomp and splendor, he applied a vigorous un- derstanding, and a genius more comprehensive than elevated, to civil and political pursuits. It is difficult to form a satisfactory estimate of the char- acter of an individual, however illustrated by conspicuous station and vicissi- tudes of fortune, of whom it has been justly remarked, that few men were ever pursued by their enemies with fiercer virulence, or supported by their friends with fonder zeal. He extorted even from his opponents the praise of indefatigable application, sagacity, and ability, in the conduct of public affairs ; and endeared himself to his partisans by the charm of agreeable manners, and the genuine grace of as many virtues as could consist with an overweening desire of power and distinction. At that interesting period when Charles the Second made his final at- tempt to subvert the liberties of Massachusetts, Dudley had attained a con- sideration in the eyes of his countrymen that recommended him to the ar- duous and dehcate office of envoy, to represent the province and defend its interests at the English court. Here his native thirst for grandeur and authority was inflamed by the dazzling display of regal and aristocratical state ; and despairing of the cause of his country, which had been intrusted to him, he was seduced into a partial desertion of it. His acceptance of the temporary commission of government, which was tendered to him by King James, completely extinguished his popularity, notwithstanding the moderate strain of his administration, and the hberal measures which he rec- ommended to the king ; ana his subsequent association with the tyranny of Andros, in whose grand council he occupied a place, not only loaded him with additional obloquy and aversion, but entailed, as we have already seen, the shipwreck of his political fortunes. Driven from his office by the rev- olutionary explosion in Massachusetts, and conveyed a prisoner to England, he was not only absolved from blame, or at least screened from punishment, by King William, but, through the interest of powerful connections at court, was appointed to the office of chief-justice of New York, — where he increased the odium that already attached to him, by presiding on the trial and pronouncing the condemnation of Leisler, who had given the first im- pulse to the revolution in this province. But this contracted sphere was very ill suited to his aspiring character, and equally uncongenial to that patriotic attachment with which his ambition, though the preponderating sentiment, was inseparably blended. Returning to England, he obtained, by the interest of his friends, a seat in the House of Commons, and the post of lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Wight. Yet even this elevation, though more exalted than any promotion that was attainable in America, could not divert his wishes from their original determination, or reconcile him to the condition of an exile. To all his countrymen whom he met with, from time to time, in England, he expressed a longing desire to end his days and obtain a grave in the land of his nativity ; and all the interest which he possessed at court was assiduously exerted to procure his restoration to official dignity in Massachusetts. He endeavoured to gain the favor of the B 1^ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VHI. party, who, in this province, were opposed to Sir William Phips, by abet- ting their complaints and intrigues for his removal from office ; and when at length the envied eminence was vacated by that governor's death, the pre- tensions of Dudley to succeed to it were so powerfully supported at court, that, but for a politic device of his adversaries, they would probably have prevailed. The colony had now adopted the practice of maintaining resident agents at the court of London, to defend its interests and watch the policy and proceedings of the parent state. Sir Henry Ashurst, a member of parliament, and Constantine Phips, af- terwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who then discharged this important function, in order to obstruct the elevation of an individual so obnoxious to their constituents as Dudley, strove to injure his credit in England, by stim- ulating and aiding the exertions of the son of Leisler to procure a parhament- ary reversal of his father's attainder. Young Leisler eagerly united with them in denouncing the character of the judge by whom his parent had been condemned ; and, chiefly by their assistance, the act of reversal was obtained. The real object of the agents for Massachusetts was not less effectually promoted by this transaction, which, as it impeached Dudley's credit, so it relaxed the zeal of his English partisans, — and, betokening a determined opposition to his authority in America, contributed to persuade King William to bestow the government of Massachusetts on Lord Bella- mont. Undaunted by this defeat, Dudley labored with the most adroit and persevering assiduity to reinforce the interest by which he hoped to repair it. He cultivated with particular care the good-will of the Protestant Dis- senters in England, who had derived a great accession of political weight and consideration from the British Revolution, and were always ready to inter- pose its efficacy in the councils and arrangements of the court with respect to the people of New England, whose interests they regarded as identified v/ith their own. By a grave and serious deportment, and a conversation well seasoned with piety, good sense, and politeness, Dudley succeeded in rec- ommending himself to this powerful party ; and not only engaged their do- mestic influence in support of his pretensions, but by their good offices was reconciled to the most influential personages among the clergy and politi- cians of Massachusetts. He was still regarded with enmity and aversion by a great portion of the inhabitants of this province ; while the sentiments of those whose hostility he had been enabled to overcome partook rather of hope than confidence. It was manifestly improbable that the administration of such a man would tend to promote harmony and contentment among the colonists, or to improve their regards for the parent state ; yet, by the in- crease of his interest, and the diminished weight of the opposition to his advancement, he finally prevailed on King Wilham to appoint him the suc- cessor of Lord Bellam.ont in the government of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The king's death following almost immediately after, the ap- pointment was confirmed by Queen Anne ; and Dudley, gladly resigning his dignities in England, repaired once more to Boston [1702], where he was received with much ceremonious respect by a provincial council, among whom were several of the persons who had been most actively instrumental to his deposition, imprisonment, and exile. ^ His administration, as might easily have been anticipated, proved neither agreeable to Massac husetts nor advantageous to the parent state. Treating * Hutchinson. CHAP. I] DUDLEY'S EFFORTS TO EXTEND PREROGATIVE. J 5 the people with less courtesy, and urging the royal prerogative with less moderation, than Lord Bellamont had displayed, he provoked very speedi- ly a keen and determined spirit of opposition, of which the vehemence must appear disproportioned to the immediate cause, if we overlook the old resentments and jealousies which renewed collision with the same individual tended inevitably to reproduce. In New Hampshire this spirit was re- pressed by the anxious desire of the people to propitiate the favor of the English government, with the hope (which was not altogether disappointed) of engaging its protection against the legal, but iniquitous, claims with which they were incessantly harassed by the successors of Mason. Dudley was specially directed by the queen to require from the provincial assemblies the establishment of competent and permanent salaries to the governor, the lieutenant-governor, and the judges appointed by the crown ; and this re- quisition was complied with very readily by New Hampshire. But the Massachusetts assembly not only reduced the emoluments of Dudley to about a fourth part of the remuneration they had bestowed on Lord Bellamont, but positively refused to attach a fixed salary to his office, — declaring that it had ever been their privilege to raise and distribute the provincial supplies according to existing emergencies ; and that the imposition of permanent burdens was a measure totally unsuitable to the fluctuating circumstances of the people. Dudley made free and frequent use of the power of rejecting members of council nominated by the assembly, — a privilege, which, though doubtless conferred on the governor by the existing charter, had been suffered by his predecessors to remain almost entirely dormant ; and he endeavoured, without any warrant from the charter, to appropriate the power of controlling the assembly in the choice of their speaker. Opposed and thwarted in these and various other attempts to enlarge the royal pre- rogative beyond its legitimate proportions, or to extend its practical effi- cacy beyond the limits which the patriotism of Sir William Phips and the moderation of Lord Bellamont had prescribed to them, — Diidley was so far bereft of liberality and discretion, as to express a wish that the province might be again deprived of its charter. Only this was wanting to rekindle all the hatred and indignation which his conduct in the reign of King James had engendered ; and henceforward, his power and reputation were assailed by a numerous party with the most passionate and implacable animosity ; while, in his own defence, he courted the adherence of a friendly faction, and degraded his character by adopting the crooked and illiberal devices of a party leader. Honor and integrity were violated alike by the policy of the governor and the rage of his opponents. In the course of the war that ensued with France, he connived at an il- licit trade which some merchants who adhered to his party carried on with the French settlements, and he was strongly, though unjustly, suspecf^^d of having himself participated in this traffic, by which the military resources of the enemy were increased. During the whole of his administration, manv respectable inhabitants, including several of the clergy of Massachusetts, re- sorted to the most unworthy arts and scandalous intrigues, with the view of supplanting him in the government of the province. To this end, they per suaded Sir Charles Hobby, a man of reputed influence and licentious char acter, to solicit Dudley's office from Queen Anne ; and besides supporting this worthless candidate with all their might, they prevailed with a committee of the ministers of the church of Scotland to intercede with the queen in his IQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. behalf ; — apologizing for, or rather defending, their conduct with loathsome hypocrisy and casuistical cant. These apphcations of his adversaries to have him displaced from his office were counteracted by petitions for his continuance in it, not only from his own partisans in Massachusetts, but from a great majority of the inhabitants of New Hampshire, who warmly espoused his interests, in return for the honest or politic favor which he de- monstrated for theirs in their controversies with the successors of Mason. i Nothing could be more impolitic than the conduct of the British govern- ment, in employing such an instrument as Dudley to make the first essay in Massachusetts of straining to its utmost height a prerogative, which he had previously forfeited his popularity by assisting to introduce into the provin- cial constitution, and which his predecessors in authority were suffered practically to lower and relax. The measures he pursued were, doubtless, calculated of themselves to create discontent ; but, promoted by him, and recalling the remembrance of his former apostasy, they provoked a warmth of resentment and bitterness of apprehensive jealousy which the advocacy of no other individual could have excited ; and the pretensions of the parent state were henceforward identified in the minds of the colonists, by strong historical association, with treachery and tyranny. Never did any man labor with greater assiduity than Dudley for the attainment of official dignity in his native land ; nor ever did any one find a more painful preeminence in the gratification of his ambition. In addition to the rage of domestic dissension, the rekindled flame of for- eign war signalized the commencement of Dudley's administration. By the treaty of Ryswick, Louis the Fourteenth had acknowledged the regal title of King William ; and on the death of James, he determined, in conformity with the advice of his minister, not to recognize the claims of the royal ex- ile's son. But, yielding to the entreaties of his mistress, Madame de Main- tenon, he abandoned this wise purpose, and openly proclaimed the accession of the Pretender to the crown that had been forfeited by his father. The insult thus offered to the Enghsh people betokened the termination of the peace of Ryswick ; and in the month of May, 1702, war was declared by Queen Anne and her allies, the emperor of Germany and the States General of Holland, against France and Spain. This intelligence prepared the English colonists of America for a renewal of hostilities with the colonial settlements of the enemy ; and excited, especially in New England, an anxious desire to ascertain how far they might rely on the continuance of their pacific re- lations with those Indian tribes, who, in previous wars, had been the allies and instruments of the French. To this end, Dudley, accompanied by a deputation of the magistrates of Massachusetts, held a conference with the ' Hutchinson. Belknap. Sir Henry Ashurst, the provincial agent at London, at first ex- pressed disgust and surprise at the recommendation of such an individual as Hobby by cler- gymen and other professors of superior piety in New England. But finding that faction ren- dered his constituents deaf to sober truth and reason, he adopted their views, conducted their negotiation with the church of Scotland, and observed, that, though Hobby was not in all re- spects the man he could wish to see governor of Massachusetts, yet the earth must help the woman ' — " which," says the historian of Massachusetts, " too often means no more than we must do evil that good may come of it." Hutchinson. In Sir H. Ashurst's letters we find frequent complaints of an ungrateful disregard of his services by the colonists. " I see," he declares, on one occasion, " that he who is faithful to his religion and his country must expect his reward above." Hutchinson pronounces these complaints well founded, and declares that .he colonial agents were invariably treated with ingratitude and injustice. We have already seen (Note X., at the end of Vol. I.) a similar testimony from Cotton Mather. Sir Henry Ashurst was succeeded in the agency for the province, in 1710, by his brother, Sir William Ashursi. CHAP. I] aUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 17 Indians inhabiting the eastern parts of New England, who readily consented to renew their former treaties, and, with a guileful semblance of candor, avowed that the French had labored to engage their assistance, but pro- tested that they had not the most distant thoughts of breaking the peace, and that their friendship with the Enghsh was firm as a mountain and du- rable as the sun and moon. [1703.] These protestations did not gain implicit or general credit ; but, unhappily, from their coincidence rather with the general wish than with repealed experience and manifest prob- a]|)ility, they succeeded in lulling some of the colonists into an unguarded se- curity, from which they were first aroused by the fury and havoc of a gen- eral attack by those Indians, a few weeks after the conference, on all the frontier settlements of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. So indiscrim- inate was the hostility of the assailants, that they put even Quakers to the sword ; and so unreasonable was the surprise which their treacherous assault created in some of the colonists, that the anticipations, which wiser persons had entertained and vainly endeavoured to communicate to their neigh- bours, were ascribed to supernatural agency and impression. A fierce and desolating warfare ensued between New England and the Eastern Indians, reinforced by the Indian tribes of Canada, and frequently aided by detachments of French troops. The scene of this warfare was confined to Massachusetts and New Hampshire ; for Rhode Island was completely sheltered from attack by the intervention of Massachusetts ; and though a part of Connecticut was considered in danger, the irruptions of the enemy never actually reached this territory. New York secured the benefit of an entire exemption from hostilities, by directing the Five Na- tions, which were interposed between her territories and Canada, to nego- tiate for themselves with the French a treaty of strict neutrality between the belligerent powers. The French very wiUingly agreed to an arrange- ment which enabled them to concentrate the force of their Indian auxil- iaries against New England, and deprived the Enghsh colonists in this quarter of the advantage they would have obtained from the cooperation of the Five Nations. The Indian allies of New England, from the means that had been employed to reduce them to a state of civilization, were become an enervated race, or at least had generally lost the habits and qualities that would have rendered their assistance valuable against Indian foes ; and the Five Nations, whose neutrality was thus sold to the French for the benefit of New York, were the most efficient native allies that the Enghsh pos- sessed in America. The injury that New England sustained at this period from New York, where Lord Cornbury presided as governor, was not bounded by the operation of the mean and selfish pohcy which was thus per- mitted to debase the public councils of this province. Even during the last war,^ it was strongly suspected that the Dutch merchants at Albany, with their national preference of commercial profit to political or patriotic consid- erations, had traded with the Indians who ravaged New Hampshire, sup- plied them with arms, and promoted their depredations by aflbrding a mar- ket for the spoil. This disgraceful practice was now carried on to a large extent, and combined with proceedings still more treacherous and injurious to the English interests. The inhabitants of Albany not only purchased * The war which was closed by the peace of Ryswick has been denominated by some American writers King William's War. The war which we are now considering has moro generally obtained the title of Queen Anne's War. VOL. II. 3 B * 13 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. in the most open manner the plunder taken from their fellow- subjects in New England by the Canadian Indians, but even suffered these marauders to pass through their territory in order to attack the New England frontiers. There were, indeed, some respectable citizens of Albany who regarded the base pohcy of their fellow-colonists with detestation, and dihgently en- deavoured to counteract it. Colonel Schuyler, in particular, exerted his interest with the Five Nations for the purpose of discovering the projected expeditions of the French and their allies, and was able on some occasions to afford timely notice to Massachusetts of approaching danger. Thus de- prived of an efficient Indian ally, and betrayed by their own fellow-subjects, i the inhabitants of Massachusetts and New Hampshire conducted their mili- tary operations with great disadvantage against an enemy consisting of numer- ous flying hordes, divested of those restraints of honor and humanity which mitigate the ferocity of civiUzed warriors, and whose object was not victory or conquest, but plunder and extermination. Though the Indians received premiums from the French government for the English scalps which they produced in Canada, they did not invariably destroy their victims. They preserved, in particular, a number of children, of whom some were adopted into Indian families, and others were sold, or gratuitously consigned to French priests, who eagerly desired to convert them to the church of Rome ; nor was it the least afflicting calamity entailed by the war on the New England colonists, that their offspring were frequentty carried into a captivity where they were educated by Catholic priests or heathen savages, and incorporated with a people the enemies of their kindred and of the Protestant faith. At first the military operations of the colonists were merely defensive, and confined to small parties scattered along the wide frontiers exposed to attack. Of the nature of these hostilities, and the difficulty of overcoming an enemy who warily avoided fighting except with the attendant advantages of assault and surprise, some notion may be derived from the enormous bounty of forty pounds for every Indian scalp, which was proffered by the assemblies of Mas- sachusetts and New Hampshire. In the year 1704, more extended opera- tions were attempted ; and Colonel Church, who had distinguished himself in Philip's War,^ was despatched by Dudley, at the head of six hundred men, and with an auxiliary naval force, against the French and Indians in Acadia. The French settlers in this quarter now endured a severe retribution of the devastations with which their countrymen in Canada had afflicted New England ; but the Indians escaped whh very little injury ; and much discon- tent and evil surmise were excited in Massachusetts, when it was discov- ered that Dudley had prohibited any attack upon Port Royal, the capital of the French settlement, — though he was aware of the general hope and belief that the subjugation of this place was the main object of the expedi- tion, and though Church had earnestly solicited the governor's permission to attempt it. Dudley asserted in his defence that he could not venture to undertake an operation of such importance without express instructions from England ; but his forbearance was generally imputed to regard for the in- terests of an illicit traffic with Port Royal, in which some of his own po- litical partisans were engaged.^ * " Thus our own enemies," says Charlevoix, " assisted our most faithful allies in their difficulties, and whilst they were daily hazarding their lives in our service." 2 Book II., Chap. IV., ante. ^ y ohaire's Aa-e of Loiiis the Fourteenth. Hutchinson. Belknap. W. Smith's History of JVew York. Dwight's Travels. In the year 1704, Sawyer, a respectable colonist of New England, CHAP. I] ATTACK ON THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER. 19 The province of Connecticut, on this occasion, displayed a spirit dia- metrically opposite to that which prevailed in the councils of New York. With equal vigor and liberality, the assembly of Connecticut prepared to defend the vulnerable points of its territory, and to succour the other States more exposed to the brunt of war. To prevent the encouragement which the enemy were likely to derive from the influence of the panic that began to prevail in the frontier settlements, it was ordained by an act of the legisla- ture, that all persons deserting their habitations in any of the frontier towns should forfeit the lands and houses from which they withdrew. Prompt and liberal assistance was rendered to Massachusetts and New Hampshire by levies of men and money, which were despatched to cooperate with the mili- tary force of those provinces. While the inhabitants of Connecticut were laboring under the weight of these generous exertions, they were incessantly harassed with the most impudent solicitations from Lord Cornbury for pecu- niary subsidies in aid of the pretended defence of New York, which his own ignoble policy had already secured from attack by land at the expense of the colonies of New England. But affecting to dread the invasion of a French naval force, he succeeded in rendering the colonists of Pennsylvania, and endeavoured also to render the people of Connecticut, tributary to the de- fensive measures of erecting batteries at New York. The Pennsylvanian Quakers were induced to depart from their religious principles, on this occa- sion, by the apprehension of affording a pretext to the British government for abrogating or altering their provincial constitutions. The people of Connec- ticut had much greater reason to entertain the same apprehension, and, by their refusal to submit to Lord Cornbury's exactions, they stimulated the hostile activity which he was exerting to realize it. The preservation of the original charter of Connecticut had always been a subject of regret to the revolutionary government of England ; and various attempts were successively made to withdraw or curtail the popular fran- chises which it conferred. We have remarked the encroachment attempted by King William, in the year 1693, on the chartered rights of the province, and the determined opposition by which his policy was defeated.^ In the year 1701, a more sustained and deliberate effort was made to undermine those rights altogether, by a bill which was introduced into the English House of Lords for rescinding all the existing American charters, and subjecting the relative provinces to the immediate dominion of the crown. The preamble of the bill declared that the charters which had been bestowed on certain of the English colonies were prejudicial to the trade and customs of the king- dom, no less than to the welfare of those settlements which had not obtained charters ; and that piracy, smuggling, and other illegal practices were coun- tenanced and encouraged by the governments of the chartered colonies. An address of remonstrance against this measure was transmitted to England by the province of Massachusetts ; but the principal opposition which it receiv- ed proceeded from Connecticut, against whose charter it was more especially directed. Sir Henry Ashurst, who was the agent at London for this prov- was carried alive by the Indians to Canada, and condemned to expire in torture. An appli- cation for his release by the French governor was rejected ; and the unfortunate man was already attached to the stake, when a French priest, rushing into the circle, held forth a key, with which, he declared, that, unless the Indians desisted from their purpose, he would in- stantly unlock the gate of purgatory, and let out all the diabolical plagues of that place ou their heads. Even the stubborn ferocity of the Indians was overcome by the terror of this threat ; and without asking to see the gate or its lock, they surrendered their prisoner ^ith great humilitv Dwight. « Jnte, Book v., Chap II. 20 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. ince as 'well as for Massachusetts, having obtained leave to defend the inter- ests of his constituents at the bar of the House of Lords, represented that the rights and privileges established by the charter of Connecticut had been granted on weighty considerations, and as the meed of valuable services actually performed ; that the colonists had, at a great expense, purchased, subdued, and planted an extensive country, and defended it against the Dutch, the French, and other public enemies ; and that the fruit of their exertions had been a great enlargement of the English dominions and commerce ; that on the charter there was reposed not only the stability of the municipal in- stitutions of the province, but the security of the titles by which the inhab- itants enjoyed their private estates ; that Connecticut had never been ac- cused, far less convicted, of abetting piracy or smuggling, and was willing to reform any illegal practice which might have inadvertently sprung up within her jurisdiction, whenever such illegality should be specifically indicated ; and that the abolition of so many charters was calculated to destroy all confidence in the crown and its patents and pledges, to discourage all future enterprise in colonizing and defending North America, to create universal discontent and disaffection in the colonies, and to produce effects more prejudicial to the British nation than any of those which were enumerated in the preamble, of the bill. The force of these reasons, backed by the support which the New Eng- land colonists received from the Enghsh Protestant Dissenters, operated so powerfully against the bill, that it was withdrawn by its .promoters. Lord Cornbury and Dudley, who had supported this measure, now labored assid- uously to retrieve its failure, and to furnish Queen Anne and her ministers with some plausible pretext that would justify them in the public opinion for again attempting by judicial process or legislative act to annul the charter of Connecticut. Dudley engaged a venal scholar to compose a treatise, which was entitled The Doom or Miseries of Connecticut^ and contained a tissue of slanderous charges against this colony, an exposition of the advantages of a general government for New England, and a warm panegyric on the ad- ministration of Sir Edmund Andros, prior to the British Revolution. Among other accusations, the assembly of Connecticut was reproached with an en- tire denial of succour to Massachusetts, — at the very time when Dudley's letters to them were filled with grateful acknowledgments of the liberal aid they afforded. The charges contained in this volume were communicated in a formal shape to the queen by Dudley and Cornbury ; and there was presented along with them a complaint which these personages had instigat- ed certain discontented litigants before the courts of Connecticut to prefer, and which imputed to the assembly of this province the most fraudulent and oppressive conduct towards an Indian tribe named the Mohegans or Mohi- cans. Lord Cornbury assured the queen that her authority would never be respected in Connecticut as long as the people retained the power of appoint- ing their own governor ; and Dudley directed her attention to an opinion which King William obtained from one of his crown lawyers, importing that " the crown might send a governor to Connecticut." The queen readily availed herself of this last pretext, and intimated to the provincial agent that she would proceed forthwith to exercise the prerogative which was thus as- cribed to the crown ; but she was compelled to arrest the execution of her purpose by a forcible remonstrance, in which, from facts and arguments quite incontrovertible, it was clearly deduced that the opinion of King Wil- CHAP. I.] CHARGES AGAINST CONNECTICUT. 21 liam's adviser had reference to a hypothetical case, and was founded on the assumption that the colony was unable to defend itself. Lord Cornbury and Dudley were thereupon remitted to the proof of the complaints which they had preferred, and which, after harassing Connecticut with a vexatious and expensive controversy, were shown to be entirely destitute of foundation. The investigation of the complaint respecting the Mohegans, which involved a territorial dispute, was protracted for many years, but finally terminated in like manner in the triumph of Connecticut. The animosity of Lord Cornbury and Dudley against this province seem- ed to be rather inflamed than exhausted by their successive defeats. [1705.] Aware that their exertions were seconded by the wishes of the queen, whose forbearance was dictated solely by the obstructions of legal formalities and the force of public opinion, they continued to produce against the govern- ment of Connecticut a variety of charges, some of which were so manifestly incapable of abiding parliamentary scrutiny or judicial investigation, that they could not have been intended to serve any other purpose than that of depre- ciating the colonists in the regards of their English fellow-subjects, and abat- ing the general sympathy by which they were aided in the defence of their liberties. Among other proceedings of this description was the charge they derived from one of the laws published by the Connecticut assembly more than fifty years before, against the Quakers, during the general persecution of Quakerism in New England ; and which, as it had been framed before the Connecticut charter was in existence, could never imply an abuse of the power which this charter conferred. A complaint against that law was pre- sented to the queen in council, describing it as an ordinance recently enacted, and beseeching her Majesty's interposition to prevent the injustice which it threatened from being carried into effect. In vain the provincial agent en- deavoured to prevent the sanction of a royal order from being imparted to this charge, by offering to prove that the law was enacted half a century be- fore ; that it had never been executed even at that time, and was long since deemed obsolete ; and that no suspicion could now be reasonably entertained of an attempt to revive or enforce it, as there was not a single Quaker living in the colony. An order of council was issued nevertheless, describing the complaint precisely in the terms in which it had been presented, and annul- ling the law as a recent enactment, and an abuse of the powers conferred by the provincial charter. To give greater efficacy to this proceeding, the Qua- kers of London, who had been persuaded to support the complaint, and must, therefore, have known the explanation which it had received, present- ed a public address of thanks to the queen, for her gracious interposition in behalf of their brethren in New England ; taking especial care so to express their acknowledgment of what she had done, that the public should not be undeceived as to the actual date of the law that was repealed ^ This transaction appears the more surprising, when we recollect, mat, at the time of its occurrence, the only American persecution of which the Qua- kers had reason to complain was that which was inflicted on their brethren by ^ The vindictive dislike which was long cherished by many of the Quakers towards the people of New England appears on several occasions to have obscured their moral discrimina- tion. More than seventy years after this period, Robert Proud, the Quaker and American his torian, with astonishing ignorance or shameful equivocation, published a copy of the queen's order in council and of the Quakers' address, with the preliminary remark, that "About this time (anno 1705), the Quakers in America seem to have reason to be alarmed by a singular act of assembly passed in the colony of Connecticut ; the substance or purport of which ap- pears by the order of Queen Anne in council, made upon that occasion. 22 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. Lord Cornbury himself in New Jersey.^ Yet so strong was the hereditary resentment of these sectarians against New England, as not only to enfeeble their sense of justice, but to overpower their sense of present interest, and render them the willing tools of their only existing oppressor. Notwith- standing all the falsehood and intrigue that was exerted in this affair, it yielded no other satisfaction to its promoters than what their malignity might derive from wounding the feelings and calumniating the reputation of the people of Connecticut. This people, meanwhile, retained their virtue uncorrupted and their spirit undepressed, and encountered every variety of trouble with un- conquerable patience, resolution, and magnanimity. Menaced at once by national and political enemies, and burdened with a heavy expenditure for the succour of their allies, the defence of their own territory, and the preserva- tion of their chartered rights, they cheerfully continued, and even augmented, the liberality by which the ministers and the ordinances of religion were sup- ported. They contemplated the varied scene of peril and dehverance de- picted in their past history, and supplied by their present experience, with solemn and grateful elevation of regard ; and, rejoicing in the preservation of their liberty, ascribed this blessing, and the victorious virtue which it re- warded, to the favor and beneficence of the great Arbiter of destiny and Parent of good.^ Although the policy of New York produced the effect of restrictmg the hostilities of the French and their Indian allies, during this war, to the north- ern colonies of Britain, there was another hostile power to whose attack the most southerly of the colonial settlements was pecuharly exposed. The Spaniards in Florida had been for some time preparing an expedition for the reduction of Carolina [1706] ; and at length despatched against it a force by which they confidently expected to overpower all resistance, and victo- riously establish the ancient pretensions of the Spanish crown to the domin- ion of this territory. Apprized of their design. Sir Nathaniel Johnson, the governor of South Carolina, exerted much skill and vigor to put the colony in a posture of defence. His efforts were seconded by the spirit of the col- onists, who heard with undaunted firmness that the approaching armament of Spain was reinforced by a junction with some French ships of war. On the arrival of the combined fleet at Charleston, Le Feboure, the French admiral, who assumed the command of the expedition, sent a message with a flag of truce into the place, requiring its instant surrender to the arms of France and Spain, and threatening its capture by storm, if a submissive answer were not returned within an hour. Johnson, anticipating this step, had arranged the provincial militia, and the warriors of a friendly Indian tribe who march- ed to their assistance, in a disposition which was ingeniously adapted to con- vey to a hasty glance a very exaggerated notion of the strength of the be- sieged ; and precluding the hostile messenger from the opportunity of more deliberate observation, dismissed him abruptly with the disdainful reply, that the enemy needed not to wait one minute for the answer to their summons ; » Jinte, Book VI. * Trumbull. Hutchinson. "Is it possible to review the sufferings, dangers, expense of blood and treasure, with which our liberties, civil and religious, have been transmitted to us, and not to esteem them precious.^ Can we contemplate the sobriety, wisdom, integrity, industry, economy, public spirit, peaceableness, good order, and other virtues, by which this republic hath arisen from the smallest beginnings to its present strength, opulence, beauty, and respect- ability, and not admire those virtues, and acknowledge their high importance to society ^ Shall we not make them our own ; and by the constant practice of them, band down our dis- tinguished liberties, dignity, and happiness to the latest ages.'^ " Trumbull. S- o CHAP. I.] PROGRESS OF THE WAR IN NEW ENGLAND. 23 that he was ready to sustain the threatened attack ; and that, commanding a people who preferred death to submission, he would willingly shed the last drop of his blood in their defence. This dexterous parade of simulated force, which induced the invaders to proceed with more caution than they at first supposed to be necessary, was followed by an active and successful exertion of valor that consummated the deliverance and triumph of Carolina. A detachment of the enemy's troops, which were disembarked with the view of seconding by land the operations of the fleet, were unexpectedly attacked at daybreak by Captain Cantey and a chosen band of the provincial militia, who routed them in an instant, and, having slain a considerable number of them, compelled the remainder to surrender as prisoners of war. Animated by this success, the courage of the Carolinians could no longer be confined to defensive conflict ; and, yielding to their ardor, the governor permitted Captain Rhett, an able and intrepid officer, who commanded six small vessels that formed the naval force of Charleston, to try the fortune of a bold assault on the superior strength of the invading squadron. But the enemy, disheartened by the check which they had received on shore, and the unexpected emergency of sustaining instead of inflicting attack, declined the overture of farther battle, and, weighing anchor, retired from Rhett's approach, and abandoned the expedition. A few days after, a French ship of war, arriving to join the combined fleet, and unacquainted with the dis- comfiture of the enterprise, landed a number of troops in Seewee Bay, where they were attacked and put to flight by Captain Fen wick and a party of the provincial militia ; and they had hardly regained their vessel, when she was surrounded and captured by the little armament of Rhett. Thus terminated the invasion of Carolina, in a manner that reflected the highest honor on the conduct and courage of the colonists. The loss of men that they sustained was very inconsiderable ; but the public satisfaction was not a little depressed by the heavy taxes which were imposed to defray the expense of the military preparations.^ The war, of late, had languished in New England. Vaudreuil, the governor of Canada, doubting the ability of the French monarch to dis- pense with a portion of the strength of his European armies for the rein- forcement of the provincial troops, and perceiving that his Indian allies ceased to combat with their wonted alacrity and were desirous of peace, had, in the preceding year, sent a commissioner to Boston, with proposi- tions of a treaty of neutrality between Canada and New England. These propositions were communicated by Dudley to the General Court, who de- clined to take any step in promoting an arrangement so inconsistent with their favorite and long cherished hope of an invasion and conquest of Canada. Dudley, however, continued artfully to protract a correspondence wnth Vaudreuil, and vaunted to his countrymen the repose which their fron- tier settlements derived for some time from his poHcy. But Dudley had now become an object of incurable jealousy and dislike to the majority of the colonists ; and the intermission of hostilities served to increase his un popularity, when it was ascertained that the chief benefit of it resuhed to the French, who obtained an accession to their military stores from certain merchants of Boston, who were stanch adherents of Dudley, and whoso illicit traffic he plainly appeared to have sanctioned, and was generally sus- pected of having partaken. Vaudreuil, finding himself duped by Dudley, * Hewit. 24 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. endeavoured to rekindle the flame of war, and with much difficuhy prevailed on his savage auxiliaries to resume their predatory inroads upon the frontiers of New England. With the view of stimulating their ardor, and increasing their attachment to the French interest, he despatched Nescambouit, a noted Indian chief, to the court of France, to receive from the king's own hands the reward of those cruelties that had rendered him the terror of the English frontiers. On his appearance at Versailles, Nescambouit held up his hand, and boasted that it had been the messenger of death to a hundred and fifty of the enemies of the Most Christian King. Louis received him with courteous demonstrations of friendship and esteem ; loaded him with ca- resses ; conferred on him a pension of eight livres a day ; presented him with a sword ; and, according to the report of some writers, elevated him to the dignity of knighthood. It was not a mere vague desire or visionary speculation of the conquest of Canada that prevented the Massachusetts assembly from accepting Vaudreuil's proposition of neutrality. [1707.^ ] They had repeatedly urged the British government to undertake this enterprise ; and their applications were seconded by Colonel Nicholson and other partisans of arbitrary gov- ernment in America, who judged that an extended system of military op- eration, the presence of a British army, and the necessity of united contri- butions of the several colonies for its support, would promote their own ambitious views, and invigorate the authority of the parent state. The British government seemed at length to have acceded to the wishes of the colonists, who were encouraged to expect that an armament would be de- spatched in the commencement of the present year from England, for the reduction of the French settlements in Canada and Acadia. In reality, a considerable detachment of troops, under the command of General Macart- ney, had been destined by the English ministers to undertake this enterprise ; but their services were diverted and the expedition intercepted by the de- feat of the English and their allies at the battle of Almanza, in Spain. The government of Massachusetts, meanwhile, had made active exertions to assemble an auxiHary force to cooperate with the armament expected from the parent state ; and though the detention of the English troops rendered the attack which had been contemplated on Canada impracticable, it was still hoped that the native force already collected might, with the assistance of the other New England States, be employed to strike an important blow, and perhaps achieve the conquest of Acadia. Rhode Island and New Hampshire willingly contributed to reinforce the troops of Massachusetts for this purpose ; but Connecticut, alarmed by intelligence from Colonel Schuy- ler of a projected invasion of French and Indians from Canada, and engross- ed with the defence of her own and the New Hampshire frontiers, declined to take any part in an enterprise to which the concurrence of her councils had not been previously invited. Two regiments, composed of the forces supplied by the other States^ and amounting to about a thousand men, commanded by Colonel March, were embarked at Nantasket, whence they sailed to Acadia under convoy of an English ship of war. [May, 1707.] Arriving at Port Royal, they made an attempt to bombard it ; but displayed in all their operations a defect of discipline and skill which courage alone was insufficient to counterbalance. ' The union which took place this year between England and Scotland extended the licensed trade of the North American colonies to all parts of the island of Great Britain. CHAP. I.] EXPEDITION AGAINST PORT ROYAL. 25 At a council of war, it was resolved, ** that the enemy's well disciplined garrison in a strong fort is more than a match for our ill disciplined militia'' ; and, abandoning the siege, the troops retired to Casco Bay. Dudley was greatly provoked at this result ; and the more so, because the attack on Port Royal had on the present occasion been specially enjoined by himself in opposition to the wishes of the General Court, which preferably recom- mended the devastation of the territory of Acadia. With more of headlong pertinacity than of considerate wisdom, he ordered the dispirited troops to return to Port Royal and resume the siege they had abandoned ; and dis- trusting the capacity of March, but afraid to displace a popular officer, he adopted a practice familiar to the military councils of the Venetians and the Dutch, ^ and despatched three commissioners to the camp with power to superintend and control the proceedings of the nominal commander. So much insubordination and discontent now prevailed among the troops, that it was with difficulty they were induced to obey the mandate to return again to the scene of their recent repulse ; and when they actually reached it a second time, the season was so far advanced, and sickness was spread- ing so fast among them, that success was plainly more improbable than be- fore. Some sharp encounters ensued between them and the enemy, in which both sides claimed an insignificant victory ; but the position of the invaders becoming more perilous every day, they finally abandoned the en- terprise and returned to New England, — where their conduct was univer- sally lamented and more generally than justly condemned. While this expedition was in progress, the frontiers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire were ravaged by the Indians ; and in the following year [1708], the intelligence that had been communicated by Colonel Schuyler was authenticated by the assemblage of a formidable band of French troops and Indian auxiliaries, who marched from Canada to invade New England. A scene of extensive ravage, rather than conquest, was portended by this expedition ; but the force of the blow was broken, and the plans of the enemy disconcerted, by the abrupt desertion of two Indian tribes ; one of which was terrified from advancing by an incident which they construed into an augury of evil,^ and the other was induced by the influence and negotiations of Colonel Schuyler to decline a prosecution of the campaign, under pretence that they had contracted an infectious disease, which they were afraid of communicating to their allies by longer association with them. [August, 1708.] Disconcerted as well as extenuated by these desertions, the invading forces attempted nothing more important than an attack on the village of Haverhill, in Massachusetts, which they plundered and set fire to. Satisfied with this paltry triumph, they commenced a hasty retreat, but were compelled to abide a sharp skirmish with a party of the Massachusetts militia, before the woods afforded them shelter from farther pursuit.^ The disappointment which New England sustained by the diversion of the troops of the parent state from the invasion of Canada, and the morti- fication which attended the abortive attempt on Port Royal, served to en- hance the general hope and joy produced by the intelligence that the English government had resumed its suspended designs against the French colonies • This practice was likewise imitated at a later period by the chiefs of the revolutionary republic of France. 2 One of the tribe had accidentally killed his companion. 3 Charlevoix. When Charlevoix's Travels (Letters) are not expressly specified, it is to his History of Mw France X\\Q.i I xa^er. Hutchinson. Belknap. Trumbull. VOL. II. 4 n 26 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. on a larger scale of operation than was formerly contemplated, and with an activity and minuteness of preparatory arrangement that betokened imme- diate performance. [1709.] Letters from the Earl of Sunderland announced to the provincial governments of all the English colonies, except Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina, to which no communication was addressed, that the queen was preparing to attack the settlements of France in Canada, Acadia, and Newfoundland. The plan of operation (devised by Colonel Vetch, who had acquainted himself with the condition of the French set- tlements), and the extent to which the several colonies were required to co- operate with it, were distinctly unfolded. An English squadron was to be despatched in time to reach Boston by the middle of May, with five regiments of regular troops, which were to be joined by twelve hundred auxiliaries required from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hamp- shire, whose respective quotas were defined, and who were directed to provide transports and provisions for three months' service of their forces. This armament was destined to attack Quebec. A levy of fifteen hundred men was required at the same time from Connecticut, New York, New Jer- sey, and Pennsylvania ; and this corps was appointed to proceed by Lake Champlain to the invasion of Montreal. So httle was the spirit of the colonists understood by the British court, that a general reluctance to com- ply with the royal mandate was anticipated ; and Colonel Vetch, who was despatched to superintend the arrangements of the provincial governments, was most superfluously authorized to offer the boon of a preferable interest in the trade and soil of Canada to those colonies which should actually con- tribute to its conquest. The mandate, however, was received not only with acquiescence, but with the most cordial satisfaction, by all the colonies except Pennsylvania, where the Quakers, who composed the majority of the assembly, protested to Gookin, their governor, that the fundamental object and purpose of their provincial settlement was, to afford an inviolable sanctuary to the princi- ples of peace and philanthropy ; that their principles and consciences would not suffer them to contribute a farthing for the purpose of hiring men to slay one another ; but that they cherished, nevertheless, a dutiful attachment to the queen, and in demonstration of this sentiment now voted to her Majes- ty a present of five hundred pounds, which w^as all they could afford to be- stow, — and for the apphcation of which (says a Quaker historian) they did not account themselves responsible. The zeal of the other colonies sur- passed the limits of the royal requisition. Thanks were voted by the pro- vincial assemblies to the queen for the promised armament from England ; and besides the quotas that were specified, independent companies were raised and added to the provincial forces. None of the States demon- strated more ardor than New York. The inhabitants of this province had been recently delivered from the sway of Lord Cornbury ; and had expe- rienced only a gratifying liberality of treatment from his successor. Lord Lovelace, whose sudden death, after an administration of a few months, intercepted a dissension that would infallibly have been produced by the queen's instructions to him to insist for a permanent salary, and by the de- termination of the assembly to make no such arrangement. The command was now exercised by Ingoldsby, the lieutenant-governor, and the council, who manifested a zeal and liberality in the common cause that atoned for the selfish policy with which this province had previously been re- CHAP. I] PROJECTED INVASION OF CANADA. gffe proached.^ Aided by the powerful influence of Colonel Schuyler, the provincial authorities negotiated so successfully with the Five Nations, as to induce them to consent to violate their neutrality, and contribute an aux- iliary force of six hundred Indian warriors to accompany the expedition against Montreal. Colonel Nicholson, whose experience and ability were highly commended by the queen to the provincial governments, was intrusted with the com- mand of the forces destined to this enterprise, and marched with them at the appointed time to Wood Creek, where he awaited the arrival of the English fleet at Boston [May, 1709], — in order that the attack of Quebec and Montreal might take place at the same time. The troops of Massachu- setts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire w^ere embodied with equal punc- tuality, and, under the command of Colonel Vetch, assembled at Boston, with their transports and stores, — eager to behold the signal of action in the arrival of the promised fleet from Britain, and fixed in expectation of a decisive and successful campaign. But the hopes of America were fated to be again deferred. The two armaments continued, in this state of prep- aration, and without the slightest intelligence from England, to await the arrival of her fleet till the month of September, when the advanced season of the year finally terminated the public suspense, and proclaimed that the expedition was no longer practicable. About a month after, a vessel arrived at Boston with despatches from the British government, w^hich announced that the troops prepared for America had been suddenly re- quired in Portugal to reinforce the defeated armies of the English and their allies in that quarter of Europe. Nicholson, meanwhile, after seeing his forces wasted by sickness during his inactivity at Wood Creek, had retreat- ed, in comphance with orders from New York, whose assembly expressed the liveliest indignation at the public disappointment ; and Vetch, after vainly attempting to promote a substitutional enterprise against Port Royal, which the ministerial despatches suggested to him, but which the English ships of war in the neighbourhood refused to assist, was compelled to dis- band the forces of New England. The chagrin and discontent which this catastrophe produced in the British colonies was proportioned to the ardor of the hopes that were disappointed, and the magnitude of the preparatory efforts that were rendered abortive. All hearts had at first been gladdened with the joyful prospect of a final deliverance from the encroachments and ravages of the French and their Indian alHes, — of a victorious aggrandize- ment of the British empire, and a vast enlargement of the national com- merce. And if the English ministry had fulfilled the encouraging as- surances recently held forth by them, instead of sacrificing the wishes and interests of America to the most insignificant branch of their connection with the continental politics of Europe, it is impossible to doubt that this prospect would have been realized, and the French empire in America completely overthrown. It redounded, perhaps, to the lasting advantage of the American provinces, that events w^ere otherwise ordered. Among other topics of regret which were suggested to the Americans by this signal disappointment, was the mortality which had wasted the forces at Wood Creek, If we may credit the representation of the his- torian of the French colonies, the English owed this calamity to the treach- ery of their Indian auxiliaries, — w^hom the selfish policy formerly pursued ' The expenditure of New York on this occasion amounted to twenty thousand pounds; that of New Jersey to three thousand pounds. W. Smith. S. Smith. 28 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. by New York had taught to calculate the advantage of their own neutrality between France and England, and of preventing either of these rival powers from obtaining a complete ascendency over the other. According to the statements of this author, the Five Nations, or at least some of their leading politicians (whether from French suggestion or their own unaided sagacity) , had embraced the opinion, that, situated between two powerful states, either of which was capalDle of totally extirpating them, they would in- fallibly be destroyed by the one, which, by conquering the other, should cease to depend on the aid or intervention of the Five Nations. Entertain- ing these views, and apprehending the conquest of Montreal by the arms of the English, a party of the Indians are said to have insidiously corrupted the water of which their unsuspecting allies drank, by throwing the skins, and other refuse, of the game which they procured by hunting, into the river on whose banks the forces of Nicholson were posted.^ A congress (as this memorable term was then, for the first time, em- ployed in America) of the governors and delegates of the colonies which had sustained loss and disappointment from the late enterprise was assembled in the close of the year at Rehoboth, in Massachusetts, and attended by Vetch and Nicholson. Addresses of remonstrance and solicitation to the parent state were recommended by this assembly, and adopted by the re- spective provincial governments. Nicholson repaired shortly after to Eng- land, for the purpose of aiding the petitions of the colonists by his own per- sonal influence and counsel ; and Colonel Schuyler, whom the recent events inspired with equal surprise and dissatisfaction, resolved, at his own private expense, to undertake a similar mission ; and conceived the idea of enhanc- ing its efficacy by the imitation of a politic device, of which the example had been given by the French governor, Vaudreuil. With the approbation of the assembly of New York, which bestowed the highest praise on his patriotism and generosity, and made him the bearer of an address to the queen, he prevailed on five sachems or chiefs of the confederacy of the Five Nations to accompany him as ambassadors from their people to the court of England, and unite in soliciting the aid of a British force for the invasion of Canada. The object of this embassy (which appears strangely irrecon- cilable with the alleged transactions at Wood Creek) was not merely to second the application of the colonists to the queen, but to impress the Indian tribes with a lofty idea of the power and greatness of the English monarchy, and counteract the representations by which the French depre- ciated its claims to respect, and magnified the glory and advantage of an alliance with the sovereign of France. [1710.] The arrival of the Indian sachems strongly excited the interest and curiosity of the people of Eng- land ; nor could a more effectual means have been devised of awakening a general attention in the parent state to the condition and wishes of the col- onies. Vast multitudes of people continually followed the sachems with wondering gaze ; engravings of their figures were circulated through the whole kingdom ; the principal nobility displayed to them the magnificence Hnd hospitality of England, in the most sumptuous banquets ; they were conducted to a review of the guards in Hyde Park by the Duke of Or- mond, and entertained on board the admiral's ship, in the midst of a fleet that was riding at anchor near Southampton. The skill of the directors of the London theatre, and the resources of its wardrobe, w^ere employed ^ Charlevoix. Oldmixon. W. Smith. Hutchinson. S. Smith. Belknap. Proud. Trum- bull * ^ CHAP. I] CONaUEST OF PORT ROYAL AND ACADIA. £9 to deck the persons of the ambassadors in apparel at once appropriate to their barbarian character and suitable to European conceptions of royalty. They were introduced to the queen with extraordinary solemnity [April, 1710], and addressed her in a speech importing that they had waged a long war, in conjunction with her children, against her enemies, the French, and had formed a defensive bulwark to her colonies, even at the expense of the blood of their own bravest warriors ; that they had mightily rejoiced, on hearing the intention of their great queen to send an army to invade Canada, and had thereupon, with one consent, hung up the kettle of peace, and grasped the hatchet of war in aid of General Nicholson ; but that, when they heard that their great queen was diverted by other affairs from her design of subduing the French, their hearts had been saddened by the ap- prehension of the contempt of an enemy who had hitherto regarded them with dread. They declared, in conclusion, that they were deeply inter- ested in the reduction of Canada ; and that, if their interests should be disregarded by the great queen to whose gracious consideration they were now commended, the Five Nations must either forsake their territories, or dissolve their alliance with England by a treaty of perpetual peace with France. In compliance with the soHcitations of the provincial assemblies and their Indian allies, the English government once more engaged to despatch an armament for the invasion of Canada ; but only faint hopes were afforded of its arrival in America before the following year. These hopes, how- ever, backed by the arrival of Nicholson from Europe with five small ships of war, were sufficient to induce the New England States once more to collect a naval and military force, which again assembled at Boston to await the succour of the parent state, and to endure another disappoint- ment. Nicholson, discerning at last that no farther aid was this year to be expected from England, in order to lessen the mortification and ani- mate the spirit of the colonists, determined to lead his forces against Port Royal, on which he had reason to beheve, that, notwithstanding the ad- vancement of the season, a bold attack could harjdly fail of success, from the mutinous and extenuated condition of the French garrison. Arriving at Port Royal [September 24, 1710], the troops were landed with little op- position ; and Subercase, the governor, perceiving, that, from the superiority of the invaders and the temper of his own soldiers, neither victory nor an honorable resistance was to be expected, waited only till a few discharges of the British artillery afforded him a decent pretext for capitulation. The fort and settlement of Port Royal, together with the whole province of Acadia, were accordingly surrendered to the crown of Great Britain. [Oc- tober 2, 1710.] Colonel Vetch was appointed by Nicholson to the com- mand of Port Royal, which, in honor of the queen, now received the name of Annapolis ; and intimation was made to Vaudreuil, the governor of Canada, that, if he should continue to despatch his Indian allies to rav- age the frontiers and slaughter the colonists of New England, the most am- ple retribution would be inflicted on his subjugated countrymen in Acadia. This threat, which Vaudreuil entirely disregarded, was never carried into effect by the people of New England. Harassed by the continual depre- dations on their frontiers by the Canadian Indians, they applied to Hunter, who was now appointed governor of New York, and besought him to en- gage the Five Nations to act for the common behoof, and check those 30 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. hostilities which were prompted by the instigation and waged by the aux- iliaries of the common enemy. But as the Five Nations, notwithstanding all the demonstration of enmity to the French that was recently elicited from them, had never yet by actual warfare departed from their treaty of neutral- ity, and as New York was indebted for the repose of her frontiers to the respect which was still professed for this treaty by France and her allies, Hunter refused to embroil the Five Nations, for the sake of New England, with an enemy whom the pretext of neutrality still precluded from carrying hostilities into the territory of New York.^ Elated by his recent successful exploit, and by the popularity which re- warded his exertions to accomplish the favorite object of the colonists, Nicholson again repaired to England, in order to urge upon the British gov- ernment the fulfilment of its promise to undertake the invasion of Canada. But, in consequence of the signal change that the ministerial cabinet of Queen Anne had now undergone, the colonists no longer expected a favorable issue to this appHcation. A contest, of which the interest was extended to America, had prevailed ever since the Revolution between the Whigs and the Tories of England, and was inflamed of late years by the near probabil- ity of an emergence which promised to develope the farthest efficacy of the revolutionary principles, and once more to illustrate their features in broad and living display. It was now manifest that Queen Anne would die with- out leaving issue ; and, according to the Act of Settlement of the crown, the principle of hereditary succession was, in that event, again to be violat- ed, and the Elector of Hanover called to the throne in preference to the exiled brother of the queen. This was a catastrophe which all the Tories contemplated with reluctance, and which a considerable party among them sought to avert with assiduous exertion and intrigue. This party was op- posed to the continuance of the war with France, and endeavoured, neither unsuccessfully nor altogether groundlessly, to persuade their countrymen that the hostilities on the continent of Europe had been latterly prolonged at a heavy and unprofitable expense to England, for the advantage of the Whig ministers, the commanders of their armies, and their continental allies. In the speeches and writings of the Tory politicians, though the Revolution was not expressly arraigned, the legitimacy of the principles on which it re- posed, and of any farther extension or practical application of them, was openly disowned. A violent controversy ensued between the two parties ; in which the one defended the principles of the Revolution, — maintaining that they were indissolubly blended with the political system of England, and urging the people to contend for them as the national property and glory ; — while the other, with a passionate and contagious zeal, strove to pledge the pub- lic sentiment to an abjuration of principles which they reproached as re- pugnant alike to the English constitution and the Christian religion. Sach- everell, the pulpit champion of the Tories, proclaimed that monarchy was of divine origin, and hereditary succession to the crown an indefeasible right ; he denounced the Presbyterians and other Dissenters, who were universally favorable to the Revolution, as the enemies of England ; and, exclaiming that the church was in danger^ sounded an alarm which has often transported Englishmen beyond the bounds of reason and moderation. The University of Oxford, at the same time, in full convocation, affixed ' Oldmixon. W. Smith. S. Smith. Hutchinson. Trumbull. Belknap. CHAP. I] EXPEDITION AGAINST CANADA. 3 J its sanction to a decree that passive obedience and non-resistance were fun- damental principles of the English constitution,^ And though the House of Lords condemned both Sacheverell's sermons and the Oxford decree to be burned by the hands of the common executioner, and requested the queen to promote Dr. Hoadley, who had preached a discourse in vindication of the right of resistance to evil rulers, — it was obvious that the sentiments of the Tories were cordially espoused both by the queen and by a numerous party among the people. The mass of mankind, when unenlightened by education or experience, have always been partial to royalty, and suscepti- ble of impressions favorable even to its most arrogant pretensions, — not only from their proneness to idolize visible greatness, but from the concur- rent, though seemingly opposite, sentiment of a jealous aversion to brook the superiority of those who seem not to be lifted a great way above them- selves. The grandeur and peerless supremacy of the master seem at once to elevate the general condition and to efface the particular distinctions of his slaves ; and the maxim of the father of epic poetry, that one prince is preferable to a number of princes, may be regarded as expressing the uni- versal persuasion of mankind that equality is more perfectly reahzed under a monarchical than under an aristocratical system of government. The queen had been swayed all her life by female favorites ; and the influence which the Whigs at first enjoyed with her, and which her attachment to the Duch- ess of Marlborough contributed not a little to preserve, incurred a propor- tional detriment from her quarrel with this imperious favorite, and the trans- ference of her regards to Mrs. Masham, who was devoted to the Tories. The expulsion of the Whigs from office followed very soon after, and was beheld with much regret and disapprobation by the people of New England. One of the first acts of the Tory ministry was the abandonment and reproba- tion of a policy which had proved highly advantageous to the American prov- inces. By the advice of her Whig counsellors, the queen had encouraged and assisted a great number of Palatine exiles to emigrate to her dominions in America ; and several thousands of useful and industrious settlers were latterly added to the population of New York and Pennsylvania. Whether from apprehension that these people would render America a manufacturing country, or from mere enmity and contradiction to the Whigs, the Tory ministers prevailed with the House of Commons to pass a vote of censure of the assistance which the Palatines had received, and to declare that the advisers of this measure were enemies to the queen and the realm. It was the recent change of ministry which led the people of New England to doubt the success of Nicholson's mission, and to despair of receiving aid for ex- tended warfare on France from the Tory ministers who now guided the councils of the queen. The utmost surprise was consequently excited by the return of Nicholson to Boston [June, 1711], bearing the royal command to the several govern- ments of New England, New York, Pennsj^lvania, and New Jersey, again to collect their forces to act in conjunction with an English fleet which they were desired forthwith to expect, and which actually arrived a very few days after. It was further remarked as extraordinary, that the fleet was not victualled, and that a supply of provisions for ten weeks was abruptly re- quired from Massachusetts, for the use of the English troops. These cir- cumstances, conspiring with the idea entertained by the colonists of the ^ And yet this University sent its plate to the Prince of Orange, when he invaded England! 32 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. policy of the royal cabinet, induced a general suspicion that the British gov- ernment had never seriously contemplated the conquest of Canada, and that the design of the present ministers was that the expedition should prove abortive, and the blame of its miscarriage be imputed to New England. This suspicion served only to excite the provincial governments to increased diligence of preparation ; in which their activity was amply seconded by the ardor of the people, who, especially in New England, readily incurred every sacrifice that their rulers proposed, and even zealously anticipated and exceeded their requisitions. Even the Pennsylvanian assembly, with some- what less delay than usual, voted a present of two thousand pounds to the queen. The neighbouring colonies exerted all their vigor and ability ; New York once more prevailed with the Five Nations to send six hundred of their warriors to join her mihtia ; Connecticut, in addition to her own share in the general equipment, aided New York with provisions ; and in the other New England States, so active and industrious was the preparation, that, httle more than a month after the arrival of the English fleet, it was enabled to set sail from Boston for Canada. [July 30, 1711.] The fleet consisted of fifteen ships of war, forty transports, and six store-ships, with a complete train of artillery ; while the land army on board was composed of five regi- ments drawn from England and Flanders, and two which had been raised in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. Sir Hovenden Walker commanded the fleet ; and Brigadier Hill, brother to the queen's favorite, Mrs. Masham, commanded the land force, amounting to about seven thousand men, and consequently very nearly equal to the army, which, under Wolfe, subsequently reduced Quebec, when the defensive resources of this city were much greater than what it now possessed. On the same day on which the fleet sailed from Boston, General Nicholson commenced his march from New York to Albany, where he shortly after appeared at the head of four thousand men levied in the colonies of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. He had advanced but a little way towards Canada, when tidings of the failure of the naval enterprise compelled him to return. Admiral Walker, on arriving in the mouth of the river Sti Lawrence, betrayed a want of judgment in needlessly staying the progress of the voyage for some days. [August 14, 1711.] Soon after it was resumed, the fleet was overtaken by a thick fog and a heavy gale, in the most perilous part of the navigation. The admiral, disregarding the advice of the New England pilots, preferred to consult certain French pilots whom he had procured ; and, whether from receiving treacherous or erroneous counsel from these per- sons, or from his own jealous conceit and obstinacy in not adhering punctually to their directions, — for thus differently has the matter been represented by difl?erent writers, — the fleet was manoeuvred so unfortunately as to be driven on shore in circumstances of imminent and general danger. Some of the ships sustained considerable damage ; eight or nine of the transports were wrecked, and nearly a thousand «ien buried in the waves. The wind, in- stantly after, shifted to a point which would have speedily conveyed the fleet to Quebec ; but, in consequence of the disaster that had befallen him, the admiral bore away for Spanish River Bay. Here a council of naval and military officers was assembled, and, after a short dehberation, resolved, that, as they had but ten weeks' provisions on board, and could not expect a farther supply from New England, it was expedient to abandon the enter- prise altogether. The British fleet accordingly set sail for England, where CHAP. I] DISASTROUS RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION. QQ it had hardly arrived, when one of its vessels, the Edgar, a ship of seventy- guns, with a crew of four hundred men, blew up ; and as all the admiral's papers and journals were on board of her at the time, the real circumstances of the expedition and the causes of its failure were never satisfactorily explained. Admiral Walker and the other Enghsh officers endeavoured to exculpate themselves, by reproaching the provincial governments with un- necessary delay in raising their forces and victualling the fleet, and with neg- ligence in supplying unskilful pilots. Nothing could be more unjust or more irritating to the colonists than such calumnious charges. The Whigs in [England generally censured the ministry for the conduct of the enterprise : and Harley, Earl of Oxford, although a member of the ministerial cabinet by which it was undertaken, subsequently affirmed, in a memorial to the queen, that the whole affiiir was a contrivance of Lord Bolingbroke and the Lord Chancellor Harcourt to defraud the pubhc of twenty thousand pounds. Lord Harcourt, in particular, was reported to have said that " no govern- ment was worth serving that would not admit of such jobs." In America, the failure of the enterprise and the circumstances with which it was attended excited the keenest emotions of grief and indignation. Retorting the injustice with which they were calumniated by the English commanders, many of the colonists declared their conviction that they had been wantonly duped, betrayed, and pillaged by the queen and her officers ; they insisted, with more circumstantial plausibility than so violent an impu- tation might be thought to admit, that the disaster in the river St. Law- rence was wilfully incurred ; and some persons entertained farther the mon- strous conjecture that the Edgar had been designedly blown up in order to conceal the documents of disgrace and treachery from public view. Persons of greater moderation rejoiced, in the midst of their pecuniary embarrass- ments, that none of the provincial troops had perished. A journal of all the relative proceedings of the New England governments and their forces was transmitted by Massachusetts to the queen ; and three of the pilots were sent to Britain, in the hope that they would be examined by a court of in- quiry. But no pubhc investigation whatever took place of the causes of the disastrous issue of the expedition. Many pious people in New England, astonished at the numerous disappointments of their favorite project, re- nounced all farther expectation of the conquest of Canada ; concluding that it was not the design of Providence that the northern continent of America should ever wholly belong to any one European nation.^ At New York, the pubhc disappointment was aggravated by the appre- hension of vindictive hostihties from the enemy. The most active endeav- ours were now employed by numerous emissaries of the French authorities in Canada to seduce the Five Nations from their attachment to Britain ; and nothing could have more effectually contributed to aid their machina- tions than the recent instances of the retreat of the English from an en- counter with the forces of France. Even the wisest of the Indian tribes were rather susceptible of politic impressions, than equal to the compre- hension, espousal, and r.teady prosecution of an extended scheme of judicious and considerate policy. Strong symptoms of disaffection were manifested by some of the confederated tribes ; and demonstrations were even made of an intention to embrace the French interest and declare war against Eng- ' Charlevoix. Smollett's History of England. Oldmixon. Hutchinson. W. Smith' S.Smith. Trumbull. Belknap. Proud. Holmes. VOL. II. 5 ^ 34 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. land. This extremity, however, was eluded for the present ; though the probability of its occurrence at a subsequent period was strengthened by an event which distinguished the following year, and which at once aug- mented the forces of the Indian confederacy, and communicated to it an additional savor of unfriendly feeling towards the English. The province of North Carolina, which had been totally sequestered from the hostilities by which so many of her sister colonies were harassed, now sustained a severe and dangerous blow from a conspiracy of the Coree and Tuscarora tribes of Indians [1712], who, resenting a real or supposed encroachment on their hunting lands, formed an aUiance and project, with amazing secrecy and guile, for the total destruction of the European settle- ments in their neighbourhood. A general attack, in which a hundred and thirty-seven of the colonists of North Carolina were massacred in one night, ^ gave the first intelligence of Indian displeasure and hostility. Hap- pily, the alarm was communicated before the work of destruction proceeded farther ; and, after an obstinate resistance, the colonists were able to keep the enemy in check till a powerful force was despatched to their assistance by the assembly of South Carolina, and by Craven, who had recently been appointed governor of this province. An expedition was then under- taken by the combined forces of the two provinces against the hostile Indians, who were defeated with great slaughter, and compelled to abandon the country. The assembly of South Carolina appropriated four thousand pounds to the service of this war ; and during the continuance of it, the as- sembly of the northern province was compelled to issue bills of credit to the amount of eight thousand pounds. Before a decisive ascendency was ob- tained over the Indians in North Carolina, the colonists fled from this prov- ince in such numbers, that, to prevent its entire desertion, a law was enact- ed prohibiting all persons from quitting the territory without a passport from the governor. In cooperation with this ordinance, the government of Vir- ginia issued an edict, commanding that all fugitives from Carohna, unpro- vided with passports, should be apprehended and compelled to return.^ Of the two Indian tribes which were expelled from the vicinity of North Carolina, the Tuscarora fugitives proposed, and were permitted by the Five Nations, to repair their broken political estate by engrafting it on this pow- erful confederacy : and as, in consequence of a supposition (founded on sim- ilarity of language) of their being a cognate race derived from the stock to which they now reannexed themselves, they were associated as a new mem- ber of the general union, instead of being intermingled with any particular portion of it, the confederacy soon after obtained the name of The Six JYations.^ The frontiers of New England still continued to sustain occasional ravages ' The Indians took a number of prisoners on this occasion, among whom were John Law- son, surveyor-general of the province, and author of a descriptive account, which has been improperly termed a history, of Carolina ; and Baron GrafFenried, the leader of a troop of Palatine emigrants. Lawson was murdered at leisure by the savages ; but Graifenried extri- cated himself from the same fate, to which he was designed, by persuading the Indians that he was the king or chief of a distinct tribe, lately arrived in the province, and totally unconnected with the English. ^ W. Smith. Hewit. Williamson. To defray the expenses of their military operations, a« well as to promote domestic trade, the assembly of South Carolina now established a public bank, which issued bills of credit that were lent at interest on landed or personal security. By the same assembly the common law of England was declared to be the common law of South Carolina. Hewit. Drayton's View of South Carolina. '^ Col^GXiS History of the Five Nations. ^ CHAP. I] HUNTER AND THE NEW YORK ASSEMBLY. 35 from the incursions of the Indian allies of the French. Without the actual experience of similar calamity, the inhabitants of New York endured the continual apprehension of it ; and their uneasiness derived no small increase from a series of disputes with Governor Hunter, which at first threatened to render his administration extremely unpopular. This man, the fugitive apprentice of an apothecary of his native country of Scotland, had enlisted in the British army as a common soldier. His wit recommended him to the friendship of Swift and Addison ; and the graces of his person and man- ners enabled him to marry a peeress, by whose interest he was advanced to the dignity of governor of New York. In one of his first speeches to the assembly, he signified to them a repetition of the queen's commands, that they should attach an augmented and permanent salary to his office ; vain- ly attempting to cloak the obnoxious purpose of rendering the governor in- dependent of the people, by protesting that her Majesty was actuated solely by a tender regard to her colonial subjects, and an anxious desire to relieve them from the oppressive burden of occasional and uncertain grants to her officers ; and asserting, with little regard to accuracy, that the royal wishes in this respect had received a cheerful and grateful compliance from every other colony in North America. The people of New York, he declared, had been distinguished above all the other provincials by an extraordinary measure of the queen's bounty and care ; and he advised them to express their sense of this grace by suitable returns, " lest some insinuations, much repeated of late years, should gain credit at last, that, however your re- sentment has fallen upon the governor ^ it is the government you dislike." " It is necessary, at this time," he continued, " that you be told, also, that giving money for the support of government, and disposing of it at your pleasure, is the same with giving none at all. Her Majesty is the sole judge of the merits of her servants." He concluded with a hint that they were to obey and not argue with him, by observing, — " If I have tired you by a long speech, I shall make amends by putting you to the trouble of a very short answer." The arbitrary tone of this harangue, coupled with an en- croachment which the provincial council attempted shortly after on the privileges of the assembly, and which they supported by a declaration that the assembly, like the council, existed " by the mere grace of the crown," ^ threatened to revive all the disgust that had been excited by Lord Corn- bury's administration. The assembly refused to comply with the governor's demand, and ad- hered to their favorite system of providing by temporary arrangements for the expenses of government. To the doctrine propounded by the council they opposed a spirited resolution, importing that the council, indeed, not consisting, like the English House of Lords, of a distinct order or rank of persons in the constitution, owed their functions to the mere pleasure of the crown ; but that the assembly enjoyed its privileges, and especially its ' This pretension was never abandoned by the British court, which, in conformity with the opinions of the crown lawyers, maintained that the constitutions of all the unchartered prov- inces arose from and depended upon the mere will and pleasure of the king. " On a question from New Jersey, in 1723, with respect to the number of representatives from certain counties or places, the attorney-general, Raymond, advised the king that he might regulate the number to be sent from each place, or might restrain them from, sending any, at his pleasure. In 1747, on a similar question from New Hampshire, the crown lawyers, Ryder and Murray, informed his Majesty that the right of sending representatives to the assembly was founded originally on the commissions and instructions given by the crown to the governors of New Hampshire." Pitkin. These questions, Pitkin very justly observes, could be settled only by a revolution. 36 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. exclusive control over the public money, by inherent right, derived '' not from any commission, letters patent, or other grant from the crown, but from the free choice and election of the people, who ought not to be divested of their property (nor justly can) without their consent." Hunter, who was exceedingly bent on accumulating a fortune, and was often reduced to straits by the failure of gambling speculations which he pursued for this purpose, found means to increase his emoluments by estabhshing a provincial court of chancery, in which he himself presided as judge. This was resented by the assembly as an unconstitutional act of power, inferring dangerous consequences to the liberty and properties of the colonists. But the dis- sensions which seemed likely to ensue from these occurrences were in- tercepted by the policy of the governor and the generosity of the people, whose conduct plainly showed that a resolute spirit is by no means in- compatible with moderation and placability. Hunter — prudently lowering the haughty tone which he at first assumed, expressing both in New York and New Jersey an increased deference to the pubhc will, and cultivating popularity by the exercise of those graceful accomplishments which had elevated him from the obscurity of his primitive condition — succeeded in establishing a harmonious correspondence with the provincial assembly, and in rendering himself the object of general and even affectionate regard.^ The conduct of Great Britain during the war was productive of disap- pointment and disgust to all the American colonies to which the sphere of hostilities extended ; and the intelligence w^hich now arrived of the peace of Utrecht was far from communicating general satisfaction. [1713.] Many of the colonists united with the English Whigs in regarding the treaty, which Britain concluded on this occasion with France and Spain, as a treacherous desertion of the allies, and of the purposes she had pledged herself to support, and as a preparatory step to the great design of the Tories to counteract the principle of the British Revolution, and exalt the Pretender to the throne of his ancestors, on the demise of the queen. Some articles in the treaty of peace related expressly to America. The conquered settle^ ment in Annapohs, with the relative province of Acadia or Nova Scotia, was ceded to England, but the French were permitted to retain a settlement at Cape Breton ; the Five Nations, or, as the} came now to be termed, the Six Nations, were recognized as the subjects of England ; and the French and English governments respectively engaged not to molest or interfere with the other Indian tribes, claimed as the subjects of either of the crowns. But the appropriation of this latter provision, as well as the precise definition of the boundaries of Nova Scotia and of the territories of the Six Nations, were deferred for the present by common consent, and with a great defect of good policy on the part of England. After numerous ineffectual attempts of the Duke of Shrewsbury and Prior the poet, who were the Enghsh plen- ipotentiaries, to adjust these important points with the ministers of France, they were professedly remitted to the adjudication of commissioners to be subsequently appointed, and practically reserved as the subjects of future contention. One of the provisions of the treaty reflects the deepest dis- honor on the commercial policy of England, and illustrates the deplorable change that English sentiment and opinion had undergone on the subject of the slave-trade, since the sceptre of this kingdom had last been swayed by a female sovereign.^ A French mercantile corporation, established in ' W. Smith. S. Smith. '' ^ • See the account of the rise of the slave-trade, anie^ Book I., Chap. I. CHAP. I] PEACE OF UTRECHT. 37 the year 1701, with the title of the Assiento Company, or Royal Company of Guinea, had contracted to supply the Spanish settlements in South Amer- ica with negroes, in conformity with a relative treaty between the crowns of France and Spain. ^ By the treaty of Utrecht, the Assiento contract, as it was termed, was transferred from the French to the merchants of England ; the king of Spain granting to them for thirty years the exclusive privilege of supplying his colonies with negroes ; and Queen Anne (who had already signalized her patronage of the slave-trade^) engaging that her subjects should, during that period, transport to the Spanish Indies one hundred and forty-four thousand of what were called, in trade language, Indian pieces ^ by which was meant negro slaves, on certain specified terms, and at the rate of four thousand eight hundred negroes a year.^ For such purposes, the Most Catholic King, as the Spanish monarch was proud to style himself, and the Defender of the Faith, as the Protestant sovereign of England was de- nominated, could lay aside their religious and pohtical jealousies and unite in terms of commercial amity. When the peace of Utrecht was known in America, the Indians who ad- joined and had so long harassed the eastern frontiers of New England, per- ceiving that they must no longer expect assistance from the French, or the Canadian tribes dependent upon France, sent a deputation to the govern- ment of New Hampshire, to propose that friendship might also be reestab- lished between the English and them, and that a conference for this purpose should be holden at Casco. But Dudley judged it more accordant with the dignity of his government, that the Indian delegates should attend the English commissioners at Portsmouth ; and there, accordingly, the chiefs of the several hostile tribes again executed a formal treaty, wherein they acknowledged the repeated perfidy they had committed, besought the queen's pardon for their unprovoked rebellion, and engaged to demean themselves in future as faithful and obedient subjects of the British crown. [July 13, 1713.] The frequent repetition and no less frequent breaches of these engagements had by this time much impaired the sense of obligation on the one side, and of confidence on the other. Both parties, however, had suffered so greatly from the war, as to render a present deliverance from its evils mutually welcome ; and with the view of preventing its recur- rence, and obviating the most ordinary occasions of quarrel and complaint, the provincial governments prohibited the colonists from holding private traffic with the Indians, and undertook to establish barter-houses, where public agents should be appointed to conduct or superintend all the com- mercial transactions between the two races of people. Unfortunately, this judicious purpose was not at present carried into effect."* The war proved exceedingly burdensome to all the American provinces which engaged in it, and left the New England States, New York, and South Carohna embarrassed with the debts they had contracted to defray the ex- ' It was entitled, " Traite fait entre les deux rois tres chretien et calholique avec la com- pagnie royale de Guinea etablie en France, concernanl I'introduction des Negres dans I'Amer- ique." Holmes. ' See the royal instructions to Lord Cornbury, ante^ Book VI. ' This arrangement ended in the ruin of the British merchants who attempted to take advantage of it. It was stipulated that they should have leave to erect a factory on the Plata, and that, in case of war between England and Spain, eighteen months should be allowed t(» them for the removal of their effects. But on the breaking out of the war excited by Cardinal Alberoni, when as yet the British traders had made but one voyage, their persons and their property were instantly seized by the Spanish government. _ » Smollett. W. Smith. Hutchinson. Belknap. D 38 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. pense of their military operations. None of the other provinces suffered so severely as Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It was ascertained, during the eighteenth century, that, from the mere progress of native in- crease, a term of twenty-five years was generally sufficient to double the population of the North American colonies. But during the latter part of the seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, the prin- ciple of increase was less efficient in Massachusetts and New Hampshire than in any of the other colonial settlements ; and in the year 1713, Mas- sachusetts did not contain double the number of inhabitants which it pos- sessed fifty years before. The heavy taxes, occasioned by the wars which prevailed during that period, doubtless induced some of the inhabitants to transfer their residence to other provinces ; but the actual carnage of war appears to have chiefly contributed to repress the growth of people. From the year 1675, when Philip's War began, till the close of Queen Anne's War, in 1713, about six thousand of the youth of the country had per- ished by the stroke of the enemy, or by distempers contracted in military service. From the frequency and fertihty of marriages in New England, nine tenths of these men, if they had been spared to their country, would have become fathers of families, and in the course of forty years have multiplied to nearly a hundred thousand souls. But the financial burdens entailed by the late war bequeathed mischiefs more durable and afflicting than the regret occasioned by the destruction of life. In imitation of the policy of Britain, most of the colonies adopted the practice of mortgaging their resources for the purpose of raising larger military supplies than immediate taxation could produce ; and a copious issue of paper money enabled the provincial governments to render the fu- ture tributary to the present, and extend the consumption of war to wealth not yet realized. This dangerous practice was carried to a great extent in Massachusetts, where the current paper money very soon underwent a considerable depreciation, and produced much commercial fraud and gam- bling.^ Public engagements which had been contracted, or at least enlarged, on the principle of evading the immediate pressure of their burden, found no generation willing fairly to fulfil them ; and an increasing reluctance was naturally created by the lapse of time, and by the interest acquired by stock- jobbers and knavish speculators in various delusive expedients by which the public were induced to temporize with the evil, and which, seeming at first to palliate, always eventually increased its malignity. The pernicious in- fluence thus exercised on the character of a numerous portion of the inhab- itants of Massachusetts obtained an unhappy cooperation from the idleness ' " A public credit paper currency," says Dr. Douglass, of Boston, " is a great promoter of military expeditions. 1 have observed that all our paper money-making assemblies have been legislatures o£ debtors^ the representatives of people who, from incogitancy, idleness, and pro- fuseness, have been under a necessity of mortgaging their lands. Lands are a real, permanent estate ; but the debt, in paper currency, by its multiplication, depreciates more and more. Thus their land estate, in nominal value, increases, and their debt, in nominal value, decreas- es ; and the large quantity of paper money is proportionably in favor of the debtors, and to the disadvantage of the creditors, or industrious, frugal part of the colony. This is the wicked mystery of this iniquitous paper currency." — Douglass's Summary. An American writer far superior in sense and genius to Douglass, after a forcible exhibition of the evils of a large emis- sion of paper money, remarks, that, " on the other hand, it was the occasion of good to many ; it was at all times the poor man's friend. While it was current, all kinds of labor very readily found their reward ; none were idle from want of employment, and none were em- ployed without having it in their power to obtain ready payment of their services. No agra- rian law ever had a more extensive operation. The poor became rich, and the rich became poor. Young persons were taught by salutary lessons to depend rather on their own industry rod activity than on paternal acquisitions." Ramsay s American Revolution. CHAP. I] EVIL CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR. 39-. and vice which a military life promotes in its followers, and from the faction and intrigue engendered by Dudley's administration. In Connecticut, the evils that attended the progress, and remained to be endured after the cessation of the war, proved a great deal less afflicting, from the energy of wisdom and virtue that was exerted to counteract them. The assembly of this province had labored during the war, by extending education and cultivating an increased strictness in the practice of moral and religious duties, to resist the contagion of that profaneness and impiety congenial to the habits and propagated by the example of soldiers. To facihtate the exertions of the clergy, they were released from all pubhc tax- es ; and a similar exemption was extended for a certain number of years to all infant towns and settlements, on condition of their forthwith erect- ing institutions for religious education. Voluntary associations were formed to animate the public zeal ; and addresses were circulated by these bodies, recommending '' that there be a strict inquiry which and what are the sins and evils that provoke the just majesty of Heaven to walk contrary unto us in the ways of his providence ; that thereby all possible means may be used for our heahng and recovery from our degeneracy." For a consid- erable period of time, both during and subsequent to the war, the acts of the government of Connecticut consisted chiefly of a series of pious and judicious measures for cherishing religion and morahty, and for discharging the pubhc engagements that had been contracted by the issue of paper money. The government of Massachusetts was by no means entirely neg- ligent of similar attempts to elevate and purify the character of its people. A few years after the peace of Utrecht, the pernicious institution of lotter- ies, which had been created by the spirit of gambling, and was contributhig to spread and strengthen it by exercise, was suppressed by the assembly of Massachusetts ; which at the same time passed a law restoring the primitive ordinances against idleness and immorality, and enacting that " no single persons of either sex, under the age of twenty-one years, shall be suffered to live at their own hand, but under some orderly family government." But in Connecticut, piety was now more widely and warmly prevalent than in Massachusetts ; and was happily preserved from the insidious and de- praving influence of domestic faction and political intrigue. The leading persons in Connecticut, too, were distinguished by the soundness of their views and the prudence and vigor of their measures in relation to the circulating medium of the province. A stable currency they clearly per- ceived to be essential alike to the civil and the moral prosperity of every commonwealth. Without it, the principles of commutative justice are un- hinged, and the property and rights of the citizens rendered insecure. It serves to guard public morality by withholding numerous temptations to in- justice, and disabling gamblers and speculators from perpetrating those frauds to which a fluctuating state of the currency affords scope and temptation. An unstable and depreciating currency is an engine of public injustice, imposing an unfair and injurious tax on the sober and industrious part of every community where it prevails. It disappoints all men, who are sup- ported by salaries, of a part of their due ; and tempts debtors to defraud their creditors, by withholding payment of their debts as long as possible, and then paying them w ith paper depreciated far below its nominal value. ^ * " The Novanglians in general, the Rhode Islanders in particular," says Dr. McSporran, a writer whom we shall afterwards have occasion to notice, " are the only people on earth who have hit on the art of enriching themselves by running in debt." 40 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIIJ It tends thus to impoverish the fair-deahng, laborious, and useful members of society, for the benefit of dishonest adventurers, whose gains and prac- tices it is the interest of society to discourage ; and in these and a great variety of other ways, proves a source of public and private injustice, and of incalculable injury to the morals of a people. Sensible of these truths, the legislature of Connecticut acted with the most scrupulous caution in limiting the issues of their bills of credit, and with the strictest honor and resolution in providing funds and imposing taxes for their seasonable re- demption. The consequence of this wise policy (aided by the general addiction of the people to agricultural instead of mercantile pursuits) was, that, amidst the gambling and embarrassments that prevailed in Massachu- setts, there was no redundance and little or no depreciation of the circulat- ing medium in Connecticut, where a well regulated issue of paper money proved rather beneficial than injurious to the industry and prosperity of the people. 1 Various statutory enactments relative to the American colonies were framed by the parent state since the accession of Queen Anne. The ship- builders of England had long depended for their chief supplies of pitch and tar on Sweden, which, in the year 1703, was so blind to her own interest as to confer a monopoly of this important commerce on a mercantile corpo- ration. The sudden and unreasonable increase in the price of those com- modities, which ensued upon this measure, suggested to the English mer- chants and ministers the policy of drawing the national supplies of them from a different quarter ; and the result of their dehberations was the adop- tion of a parliamentary statute,^ in 1704, for encouraging the importation of naval stores from the American plantations. It was stated in the pre- amble of this act, that the stores required for the mercantile shipping and the royal navy of England were imported from foreign states, but might be obtained more advantageously from certain quarters of the queen's own do- minions, and in particular from the American colonies, which, says the act, " were at first settled, and are still maintained and protected, at a great expense of the treasure of this kingdom, with a design to render them as useful as may be to England, and the labor and industry of the people there profitable to themselves." Truth was never more grossly outraged than by this pretence of the expenditure of the public resources of England in founding and protecting colonies, of which every one (except New York) was gained to the English empire by the unaided efforts of private indi- viduals ; all of which had defended themselves, without assistance from the parent state ; and most of w^hich were actually struggling with the ex- pense and danger of a war in which the parent state herself had involved them. Premiums were tendered by this statute to all persons w^ho should import (in vessels manned according to the requirements of the Acts of Navigation) into England, from America, masts, tar, hemp, and other naval stores ; and in order to secure the materials of a part of this supply, the colonists of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey were prohibited, under high penalties, from cutting down any pitch, pine, or tar trees, of certain dimensions, growing on lands not already appropriated by private owners, and actually inclosed within their fences. By a subsequent act of the Bnitish parliament,^ in the year 1710, the surveyor-general of the royal woods in those parts was ' Hutchinson. W. Smith. Trumbull. Holmes. - « .3 and 4 Anne, Cap. X. Raynal. » 9 Anne, Cap. XVII. V' • CHAP. 11] EARL OF ORKNEY GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. J^ ^•equired to affix a mark on the trees which he considered fit for naval pur- poses ; and all persons, presuming to cut down trees so marked, were subjected to a heavy fine. In the year 1707, an act^ was passed by the British parliament 'Tor encouraging the trade to North America." - The chief purpose of this act was to regulate the duties payable by the captors of hostile vessels carried into American ports, and to confer upon mariners employed in merchant ships trading to any of the North American settle- ments a temporary exemption from impressment into tlje service of the royal navy. ^ CHAPTER II Affairs of Virginia — Passage across the Appalachian Mountains ascertained. — Affairs of New England — Attempt to subvert the New England Charters. — Indian War in South Carolina. — Affairs of Pennsylvania — Administration of Sir William Keith. — Affairs of Carolina — Piracy on the American Coasts. — Theach, or Blackbeard, the Pirate. — Revolt of South Carolina against its Proprietary Government. — Affairs of New York — Administration of Burnet. — South Sea Scheme and commercial Gambling in Britain. — Affairs of New Eng- land — Administration of Shute — Disputes — and War with the Indians. — Massachusetts incurs the Displeasure of the King — and receives an explanatory Charter. — Dispute re- specting fixed Salary between the Assembly and Royal Governor — terminates in Favor of tne Assembly. — Affairs of New York. — Transactions in Carolina — Surrender of the Char- ter of Carolina to the Crown. — Affairs of Pennsylvania. — British Legislation. — Bishop Berkeley's Project. Virginia and Maryland were the only two of the North American provinces, which, during the period that elapsed from the British Revolution till the peace of Utrecht [1713], enjoyed an entire exemption from the cost and the spoil of war. On the removal of Nicholson from the presi- dency of Virginia in 1704, this dignity was conferred as a sinecure office on George, Earl of Orkney, who enjoyed it for thirty-six years, and received forty-two thousand pounds of salary ^ from a people who never once beheld him among them. This arrangement, notwithstanding the praise which it obtained from some courtly writers and politicians,^ appears discreditable alike to the justice and the wisdom of the parent state, which encumbered the colonists with the attendant burdens, without entertaining them with the show and splendor, of aristocratical institutions. But the mischievous ef- fects of this policy were counteracted by the wisdom and prudence of the lieutenants to whom the actual administration of the government was confided by the English ministry. Edward Nott, the first of these, was rendered ac- ceptable to the colonists by the moderation of his sentiments and the mild- » 6 Anne, Cap. XXXVII. * The ann\ial salary was two thousand pounds, of which one thousand two hundred pounds was paid to the earl as chief governor, and eight hundred pounds to the lieutenant-governor, who was also appointed by the crown. ' Sir William Keith, in particular, who, though he adniits that worthless and incapable men were frequently appointed by the British court to the government of the American colo- nies, extols the appointment of Lord Orkney, as a measure which must have proved beneficial to the Virginians, by rendering a powerful courtier the advocate of their interests in England. But " I must own," says Oldmixon, in reference to the doctrine of Keith, " I have different sentiments of the fitness of a nobleman to be agent for a colony in England ; and as the in- habitants of the American colonies have a natural right to the protection of their mother state in all cases, and do otherwise pay well for it, they surely will never stand in need of any other mediation than the justice and reason of the thing." VOL. II. 6 D * ' 42 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. ness of his manners ; and, in the year 1710, he was succeeded by Colonel Alexander Spottiswoode, a Scottish gentleman of upright and honorable character, who had already distinguished himself by his attainments in sci- ence and his military valor and skill, and who now acquired additional celeb- rity by the ardor of his exertions and the genius and compass of his views for the improvement of the condition of Virginia, and the enlargement and security of the British empire in America. He applied his mathematical knowledge to the construction of roads and other works of public utility and convenience ; he promoted establishments for the education of the Indians, and introduced the most judicious regulations of the Indian trade. Outstripping the sagacity of all the contemporary politicians of Britain, Spottiswoode was the first of his countrymen who penetrated the great de- sign of France for uniting her scattered settlements in America, which, though explicitly unfolded at a later period, was still, and continued for many years after to be, disguised from general perception by the insignificance of its initial operations. His attention was early directed to the means of ex- tending the western frontier of Virginia, in order to intercept the communi- cation of the French between Canada and the Mississippi. For this purpose it was necessary, as a prehminary step, to explore a practicable route over the Appalachian Mountains, — an object which had formerly engaged the consideration, but baflled the exertions, of Sir William Berkeley. The French alone were acquainted with the geography and resources of the re- gions beyond those mountains ; and they made it a capital maxim of their American policy that this knowledge should be carefully withheld from the English, who had no farther acquaintance with the country than what they derived from the imperfect reports of a few straggling travellers and erratic savages. It had long been a prevalent opinion with the Virginians, that an insurmountable barrier to their progress was interposed by the Appalachian Mountains, whose rugged and desolate heights were trodden only by the wolf, the bear, the panther, and the Indians.. Animated, however, by the spirit of Governor Spottiswoode, the assembly of Virginia consented to de- fray the expense of an expedition, which he offered personally to lead, for the discovery of a passage over this long respected barrier ; and which, being reinforced by the accession of some of the most considerable persons in the province, who desired to partake the peril and honor of the attempt, was conducted with a great deal of parade and solemnity. The enterprise was crowned with success ; a passage across the Appalachian ridge ascer- tained [1714] ; and an increasing scope of British colonization suggested by a view of the fertile and beautiful region of which the barrier was thus surmounted, and which, as it was beheld for the first time by the colonists from the summits of the mountains, appeared to stretch on every side to an immeasurable distance. When the pubhc solicitude, which had been strongly excited by the supposed danger and difficulty of the expedition, was dispelled by the safe return of the adventurers, with the tidings of their successful achievement, Spottiswoode was hailed by the Virginians with acclamations of grateful, and, indeed, hyperbolical praise, which exalted him to an approach to the glory of Hannibal. His genius, however, was most conspicuously displayed in a project of which the honor was greater than the success. The passage of the Appalachian Mountains, and the knowledge he acquired of the ter- ritory beyond them, suggested to him the means of anticipating and defeating CHAP. II.] DUDLEY SUPERSEDED IN MASSACHUSETTS. 43 the latent purposes of aggrandizement which he discerned in the colonial enterprises of the French ; and in a memorial to the British government, he predicted the course of operations, by which the system of the rival power, unless seasonably counteracted, would be progressively developed ; and strongly, but vainly, suggested the precautionary measure of construct- ing a chain of forts along a line and in positions which he himself had examined with the eye of a skilful engineer. His conjectures were sub- sequently verified ; and the event more fully demonstrated his sagacity than if readier credit had been given to it. No better success attended the coun- sels he repeatedly addressed to the British government to adopt the prudent and liberal policy of indemnifying the Virginians for the expenses of the Appalachian expedition, — a policy which the parent state might have plainly perceived to be essential to her dignity and her consideration with the colonists, and which she could not neglect without suggesting to them the idea of distinct and separate interests. With less wisdom, Spottiswoode himself established a temporary order of knighthood in Virginia, under the title of " The Tramontane Order, or the Knights of the Golden Horse- shoe." Each of the knights was entitled to wear a golden horseshoe on his breast, as a mark of distinction for having surmounted the Appalachian ridge. For many years after the expedition, this province continued to ad- vance in a steady, but silent and monotonous, course of increasing culture and population, — so barren of remarkable incident, and so totally destitute of the irradiation of literature, that an ingenious historian has termed this the Dark Age of Virginia.^ During this mute, inglorious interval, however, the foundations of national strength and greatness were securely laid ; and a generation of statesmen, orators, patriots, and heroes begotten. The accession of George the First to the British throne excited very little interest in any of the North American provinces, except Nev/ England, where it was joyfully hailed as a triumph of revolutionary principles over the views and designs which the Tories had entertained, and hoped to ac- complish on the demise of Queen Anne. In consequence of this event, the English friends of Governor Dudley were deprived of their interest at court, and the government of Massachusetts and New Hampshire was shortly after withdrawn from his hands, and conferred on Colonel Burgess, as a recom- pense of this officer's services in the late continental campaigns of the Brit- ish army. [1715.] This intelligence was wholly unexpected by Dudley, who had lately gained a considerable accession to his provincial partisans ; but it announced a fall from which he could not hope to rise again ; and calmly resigning himself to the final farewell of ambition, hope, and political fortune, he withdrew for ever from public life ; bequeathing to his country a long continuance of party rage and cabal ; and having excited a vehement jealousy of British prerogative, which lasted as long as the connection be- tween Massachusetts and the parent state. The last official acts which ter- minated his administration seemed to denote an extinction in his own bosom of the interests and animosities which he had hitherto cherished, and graced his political demise with an unwonted show of forgiving mildness and liber- ' Oldmixon. Carver's Travels in JVorth America. Wynne. Burk. Campbell. The his- torian of T/te Decline and Fall of the Rowan Empire^ in alluding to a particular era, ascribes to it " the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history ; which is, indeed, littlrt more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." Gibbon. This is a just enough view of the actuality, but not of the capability, of history. Every social scene Presents a spectacle and movement which genius and opportunity might interestingly portray, t is easier to paint a hilly than a flat landscape. 44 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. dity.* Sir William Ashurst and Jeremiah Dummer, the agents for the province at London, conceived somehow an apprehension that the appoint- ment of Burgess would prove unacceptable to the colonists ; and in con- junction with Jonathan Belcher, a wealthy inhabitant of Massachusetts, who was in England at the time, endeavoured to prevail with him to resign his pretensions in favor of another individual. Burgess, in consideration of one thousand pounds, which was contributed for the purpose by Belcher and Dummer, consented to gratify their wish ; and the office, thus again vacated, was conferred on Colonel Shute, who, in addition to the reputation of principles friendly to liberty, and of a humane and generous temper, enjoyed the advantage of being connected with that party in England which was most esteemed by the colonists, and formed their chief engine of in- fluence at the British court. He was the descendant of a family long dis- tinguished among the dissenters from the established church ; and his broth- er, afterwards Lord Barrington, was at this time a member of parliament and a leading supporter of what was termed the Dissenting interest in Eng- land. Shute had served with distinction under the Duke of Marlborough in Germany ; and the address with which his arrival at Boston was greeted by the provincial assembly contained a flattering allusion to the honorable wounds he had received in the cause of Hberty and religion. Tranquillity and harmony attended the commencement of his administration. But the satisfaction with which the colonists of New England beheld the accession of the House of Hanover to the throne, and which a wise policy might have improved to the advantage of the parent state, was soon di- minished by measures which demonstrated to them that their liberties were no dearer to the new dynasty than they had been to the old. In the very first year of the king's reign, a bill was introduced into the British parlia- ment for abolishing all the charters of the various provinces of New England. Connecticut, on this occasion, distinguished herself by her exertions in the common cause. Her alarm was increased by the cooperation which the enemies of American liberty received from the descendant of the Winthrops, who was discontented, because an honorable reputation was the sole reward of the patriotic virtue of his ancestors. But his defection was more than counterbalanced by the generosity and public spirit of Governor Saltonstall, who, enjoying a large pecuniary credit in England, cheerfully transferred the command of it to the province and its English agent, and risked all his fortune in defence of the hberties of his country. Dummer, the provincial agent, was instructed to employ every possible engine of influence to defeat the bill, and to spare no expense for this purpose. He was also employed to compose and publish a Defence of the JYeio England Charters ; and, being an accomplished and ingenious man, he acquitted himself of this duty in a manner highly creditable to himself and satisfactory to his constituents. He maintained that the colonists of New England, by the dangers and difficulties they haid braved and sur- mounted for the enlargement of the British empire and commerce, had given a valuable consideration to the parent state for all the benefits that her charters conferred ; that these benefits consisted solely of the privileges attached to the provincial constitutions ; for the property of the soil had been purchased by the colonists themselves from the aboriginal inhabitants, to whom, and not to England, it rightfully belonged ; and hence, to abolish ' He died in the year 1720, at the age of seventy-three. He was an accomplished scholar, and proved a zealous patron and liberal benefactor of Harvard College. CHAP. II.] BILL TO ABOLISH NEW ENGLAND CHARTERS. 45 the provincial constitutions was to defraud the colonists of all the stipulated reward that they had earned from the parent state, and accepted in reli- ance on her honor and justice. He derided the supposed expediency of guarding against the independence of the colonies ; protesting that a father might as rationally propose to plant a guard of soldiers around his new- born child, to prevent the infant from sallying from its cradle to cut his throat ; and that, besides the feebleness of their estate, the several colonies were so much estranged from each other by religious and political distinc- tions, that it was impossible they should ever unite in an enterprise of so much magnitude and danger as opposition to Great Britain. 1 By the co- gency of these arguments, and the powerful support which the colonial cause received from the English Dissenters, the promoters of the bill were ultimately corripelled to withdraw it. Nothing could have been devised of more effectual tendency to foster in America the growth of sentiments and ideas unfavorable to British supremacy, than the prosecution and the fail- ure of such projects ; which left the colonists in possession of the animating impulse and enjoyment of liberty, and taught them, at the same time, to regard it as a benefit they had preserved by resistance to the wishes and pretensions of the parent state. Disputes of such a nature, and so adjusted, have a procreative faculty, and invariably leave behind them a quarrelsome posterity of jealousies and discontents. New Hampshire, not possessing a charter, had been no farther interested in the attempt which was thus defeated, than as it betokened the encroach- ing policy of the British government and the general insecurity of Ameri- can hberty. But a spirit of discontent and opposition was now provoked in this province by the conduct of the individual who was appointed the deputy of Colonel Shute. George Vaughan, the son of one of the most popular and public-spirited citizens of New Hampshire, had been employed for some time as the provincial agent at London, where he forsook the interests of his constituents, and cultivated the favor of the court, by sug- gesting measures calculated for the advancement of the royal authority. In a memorial which he presented to the king and ministry, he recommended the extension of the land-tax of Great Britain to New England ; and, proposing that a receiver of this tribute should forthwith be appointed by the crown, devised an office which he probably hoped would be conferred on himself. His counsel was not embraced ; but his subserviency was re- warded by the royal appointment of deputy-governor of New Hampshire. Here the peremptory style in which he admonished the assembly to es- tablish a perpetual revenue to the crown excited general disgust and im- patience, which he increased by his arbitrary conduct in suspending coun- sellors and dissolving assemblies.^ Happily for the peace of the province, ' " It is for this reason I have often wondered to hear some great men profess their belief of the feasibleness of it, and the probability of its some time or other actually coming to pass, who yet with the same breath advise that all the governments on the continent be formed into one, by being brought under one viceroy and into one assembly. For, surely, if we in earnest believed that there was, or would be hereafter, a disposition in the provinces to rebel and declare themselves independent, it would be good policy to keep them disunited ; be- cause, if it were possible that they could contrive so wild and rash an undertaking, yet they would not be hardy enough to put it in execution, unless they could first strengthen them- selves by a confederacy of all the parts." Dummer's Defence of the JYew Evfftaiid Charters. ' One of his speeches at the council board of New Hampshire is preserved by Belknap, and forms a most ridiculous specimen of pompous pretension, domineering insolence, and bombastic elocution. Personal slanders against himself he declares to be unworthy of his regard, — " but when revenge's mother utters bold challenges, raiseth batteries, and begins to cannon- 46 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. his administration was but shortlived. Prompted by vauhing ambition and insolent confidence, he attempted to restrict the control which Shute was entitled to exercise by his superior command ; and asserted his own rival pretensions in a style so impetuous and disrespectful, that Shute was provoked to suspend him from his office. Vaughan then found that he had presumed too far on the support of the British court. The justice of the case, and the stronger interest of Shute, caused him to be divested of his ill-earned dignity, which was conferred on John Wentworth, a wealthy and respectable inhabitant of New Hampshire. The spirit that was thus ex- cited in this province was probably the cause why Shute was unable to ob- tain, like his predecessor, a fixed salary from its assembly.^ The province of South Carolina was this year reduced to the brink of ruin by an extensive conspiracy of Indian tribes, which exploded in a fu- rious and formidable war [1715], inflicting a bloody retribution of the wrongs that the Indian race sustained heretofore from the planters of Car- olina. The numerous and powerful tribe of the Yamassees, who possessed a large territory adjacent to Port Royal Island, stretching along the north- east side of Savannah River, were the most active promoters of the con- spiracy. By the Carolinians this tribe had long been regarded as friends and allies ; they admitted Enghsh traders to reside in their towns, assisted the military enterprises of the colonists, and displayed a fierce and inveterate enmity towards the Spaniards. For many years they were accustomed to make incursions into the Spanish territories, for the purpose of war- ring with their own Indian enemies in that region. In their return from these southern expeditions, it was a frequent practice with them to lurk in the woods round Augustine, till they surprised some of the Spaniards, whom they carried off as prisoners to their towns, and put to death with the most barbarous and excruciating tortures. To prevent such atrocities from being committed and endured by human beings, the legislature of South Carolina passed a law offering a reward of five pounds for every Spanish prisoner whom the Indians should surrender alive and unhurt at Charleston. The Yamassees, tempted by this reward, sacrificed cruelty to avarice, and on various occasions dehvered up their Spanish captives to the governor of South Carolina. Charles Craven, who now held this office, was distinguished alike by humanity and valor. He invariably sent back the ransomed prisoners to Augustine, charging the governor of this settlement with the expenses of their passage and the reward to the Yamas- sees. But this practice, while it illustrated English humanity, begot an in- tercourse between the Indians and their ancient enemies, of which the issue was injurious in the highest degree to the interests of Carolina, and not less discreditable to Spanish honor and gratitude. The Carolinian traders among the Yamassees had observed for some time past, that the chiefs of this tribe made unusually frequent journeys to Augustine, and returned from it, not with prisoners, but with presents. ade the powers established by my sovereign, I acknowledge myself alarmed, which I will in no wise tolerate or endure." — "I cannot but wonder at the arrogance and pride of those who do not consider I am a superior match, as being armed with power from my prince, who doth execution at the utterance of a word," &c. ^ Oldmixon. Hutchinson. Trumbull. Dummer's Defence^ &-c. There is a great deal of interesting information and ingenious argument in Dummer's little tract. Belknap. John Wentworth received his commission in 1717. "The celebrated Mr. Addison being then secretary of state, this commission is countersigned by a name particularly dear to the friends of liberty and literature." Belknap. CHAP. II.] THE YAMASSEE WAR. 47 It was obvious that pacific relations were formed by the Yamassees with their enemies, without any communication of this important event to the governor of CaroHna ; and at length some of the Indians were heard to boast that they had dined at the table of the governor of Augustine, that they had washed his face, in token of intimate friendship, and that they now considered him their king. As this was an honorary tide which they formerly ascribed to the governor of South Carolina, the transference of it to the commander of a rival settlement ought reasonably to have excited more attention and suspicion than it appears to have done. From the jeal- ous rivalry that subsisted between the two European races, it -was impossi- ble that the Indians should cleave to the one, without falling off from the other. But the English, at peace with the Spaniards, and remembering their recent claims on Spanish benevolence, regarded with indifference the close connection that was formed between their rivals and an apostate ally, of whose ferocious and sanguinary disposition they had received number- less proofs. A short time before the security of the Carohnians was fatally dispelled, a Scotch Highlander, named Eraser, who traded among the Yamassees, was visited by Sanute, one of these people, with whom he had contracted a solemn covenant of friendship, refreshed, on various occa- sions, by mutual gifts and tokens of esteem. To Eraser's wife, a beautiful woman, whom Sanute had recently admitted into the covenant by the cere-, mony of washing her face, he communicated the warning intelligence that Spain had completely supplanted England in the friendly regards of the Yamassees, who now acknowledged the sway and the faith of the governor of Augustine ; that they had learned to account the English a race of hell- doomed heretics, and were apprehensive of sharing their spiritual perdition if they should suffer them to live any longer in the country ; that the Span- iards had confederated with the Yamassees, the Creeks, the Cherokees, and many other Indian nations, to wage a terrible war with the colonists of Car- olina ; and that they waited only the return of the bloody stick ^ from the Creeks as the signal for its commencement. He acquitted himself of his debt of friendship by counselling Eraser and his wife to fly from the ap- proaching danger ; offering them the use of his own boat for this purpose ; and withal assuring them, that, if they were determined to remain, he himself, at the approaching crisis, would claim from his countrymen the privilege of acting as their executioner, and would despatch them with his tomahawk, in order to prevent them from expiring in tortures. The imputation of such designs to the Spaniards induced Eraser at first to distrust the whole story ; but, infected at last with the terrors that alarm- ed his wife, he collected his goods in haste, and took shelter in Charleston. Whether from his doubts, or from the hurry of his flight, he foolishly or selfishly neglected to propagate the warning he had himself received ; and no precautions were taken by his fellow-traders to avoid or repel the im- pending blow. But about a week afterwards. Captain Nairn, the provincial agent for Indian affairs, who resided along with several Carolinian traders at Pocotaligo, the largest town of the Yamassees, was startled by observing an unusual gloom on the savage countenances of these people, accompanied with a demeanour that indicated at once constraint and agitation of spirit. Foreboding evil from these moody symptoms, Nairn and a deputation of the ' This symbol ought to have the more strongly impressed Eraser, from its resemblance to the Highland ceremonial of summoning clansmen to war by sending /he fiery cross from sta lion to station. 48 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VI H. traders repaired to the Indian chiefs, and begged to know the cause of their uneasiness ; assuring them, that, if they had sustained injury from any of the people of CaroHna, they had only to demand, in order to obtain, redress and satisfaction. The chiefs replied, that they had no complaints whatever to make, but were busied in preparation for a great hunt the next morning ; and the traders, deceived by the perfidy of this enigmatical ex- pression, retired at night to their unguarded huts, and resigned themselves to a sleep from which many of them were never to awaken. The next morning, at break of day, the cries of war resounded on all sides ; and in a few hours above ninety persons were massacred in Pocotaligo and the neighbouring settlements. A captain of militia, escaping to Port Royal, communicated the alarm to this small town ; and an English vessel happen- ing seasonably to enter the harbour, the inhabitants rushed precipitately on board of her, and, sailing for Charleston, were narrowly snatched from destruction. A few other planters and their families on the island, not having received timely notice of the danger, fell into the hands of the savages. While some Indian tribes were thus spreading havoc along the southern frontiers of the province, numerous parties detached by other tribes were penetrating into the settlements on the northern borders ; for every savage tribe from Florida to Cape Fear had united in the hostile confederacy. The safety of Charleston itself seemed precarious ; and the whole province was desolated by the ravage, or agitated by the rumor, of war and massacre. In the midst of the general panic, and though the muster-roll of the capital enumerated, it is said, little more than twelve hundred free men fit to bear arms, Governor Craven resolved at once to make head against the enemy. He proclaimed martial law ; laid an embargo on all ships, to prevent the transportation of aught that might be subservient to the common defence ; and obtained an act of assembly empowering him to impress men, and seize arms, ammunition, and stores, wherever they could be found ; to arm trusty negroes ; and to do every thing that might be requisite to bring the struggle to a speedy and successful issue. Agents were sent to England to solicit assistance ; and bills were stamped for the pay of the army and other neces- sary expenses. The apphcation to England proved ineffectual ; neither aid to sustain the war, nor supplies to repair its ravage, being aflbrded by the selfish proprietaries of Carolina. Yet, in this hour of need, the people were not left entirely destitute of friendly support. North Carolina now showed her willingness to repay the seasonable succour which she obtained three years before from her sister province, and promptly despatched a body of troops to her assistance. A liberal contribution of arms and ammunition was also furnished to South Carohna by the States of New England. The Indian invaders who advanced from the northern quarter of the province having destroyed a settlement about fifty miles from Charleston, Captain Barker, with a party of provincial cavalry, was despatched to at- tack them. But, trusting to the information of an Indian guide, who be- trayed him into an ambush of the enemy, this officer was circumvented and slain with several of his men ; and the rest were compelled to retreat in confusion. A troop of four hundred Indians now penetrated as far as Goose Creek ; where seventy of the colonists and forty negroes had sur- rounded themselves with a breastwork, and seemed determined to maintain their post. But, disheartened by the first attack, they rashly agreed to a capitulation, which the enemy readily tendered, and then violated without CHAP. II.] GOOKIN AND THE PENNSYLVANIA QUAKERS. J^ scruple, by the prompt assassination or lingering torture of all the pris- oners, whom their assurance of safety induced to submit. The Indians now advanced still nearer to Charleston ; but their treachery and cruelty had roused the energy of despair, and eradicated all notions of treaty or surrender ; and after some sharp encounter^, the invaders in this quarter were finally repulsed by the provincial militia and their allies. In the mean time the Yamassees, and the tribes united with their forces, spread destruction thro-ugh the parish of St. Bartholomew, and advanced as far as Stono. Governor Craven, dispersing in his march the straggling par- ties of this wily foe, advanced with cautious steps to Saltcatchers, where they had pitched their principal camp in a situation which was well adapted to their peculiar style of warfare, by enabling them to shelter their troops behind trees and bushes. Here was fought an obstinate and bloody batde, in which the Indians, animating their fury by the terrific sound of the war- whoop, successively attacked, retreated, and again returned to the charge. Craven, undismayed by their ferocious rage, and supported by the steady intrepidity of his people, succeeded in totally vanquishing their force ; drove them from their position, pursued them across Savannah River, and finally expelled them from the territory of South Carolina. This victory put an end to the war, which occasioned a vast destruction of property, and the slaughter of at least four hundred of the inhabitants of South Carolina. The Yamassees, expelled from their own proper territories, retired to the Spanish possessions in Florida, where they were received with the strongest demonstrations of friendship and hospitality ; which convinced the Carolin- ians of the accession of Spain to the recent war, though they were unable to tax her with any overt act of hostile interposition. Two statutes w^ere subsequently framed by the assembly of South Carolina, appropriating the lands that were gained by conquest from the Yamassees to the use of such British subjects as would adventure to occupy them. Relying on this as- surance, a troop of five hundred men from Ireland transported themselves to Carolina ; but they had scarcely taken possession of the lands, when, to their entire ruin, and w^ith the most audacious disregard of the provincial faith and interest, the proprietaries caused the whole district to be surveyed and partitioned into domains reserved for their ow^n private advantage. They reaped, indeed, no actual benefit from the appropriation of lands which there were no tenants to cultivate ; but, unfortunately, it was the unoffending colonists who were the chief sufierers by this act of selfish injustice. The old settlers, losing the protection they had hoped to derive from the new comers, deserted their plantations, and again left the frontiers of the prov- ince exposed to the enemy ; while the deceived and disappointed Irish emi- grants either miserably perished, or retired to the northern colonies. ^ Pennsylvania, meanwhile, blessed with liberty, prosperity, and a total exemption from the flames of war, and chiefly colonized by a race of men distinguished by the sobriety of their manners and the moderation of their sentiments and views, seemed to possess all the elements of national contentment. [1716.] Yet even this fortunate scene was not entirely un- visited by the bitter waters of strife and spleen ; and in the present year an address to Governor Gookin by the assembly, of which a majority still ^ Hewit. Williamson. Dummer's Defence of the New England Charters. Hewit is a most perplexing writer. A phrase of continual recurrence with him is " about this time," — the meaning of which he leaves to the conjecture of readers and the laborious investigation of scholars, as he scarcely ever particularizes a date. VOL. II. 7 E go HISTORY OF NORTh AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. continued to be Quakers, after a prolix detail of their petty grievances, concluded with the preposterous lamentation that they were debarred from participation in the happiness which was so plentifully enjoyed by the other American colonies. There was, indeed, one subject of just complaint which the Quakers in Pennsylvania ^ared with their brethren in New Jersey. In both these States, the affirmation of a Quaker had been accepted by the provincial tribunal as equivalent to an oath, till the year 1705, when this privilege was withdrawn by Queen Anne, and Quaker testimony excluded (except by inevitable connivance) from the courts of justice, till the year 1725, when the British government, after numerous petitions and remon- strances, consented to the revival of the original regulation.^ This serious grievance, however, produced no abatement of Quaker loyalty to the crown, which was attested by frequent expressions of dutiful homage, and particu- larly, in the present year, by an address of cordial congratulation on the suppression of "the unnatural rebellion" w^hich, in 1715, broke forth in Scotland and the North of England. But no share of the reverence enter- tained for the king was extended to the provincial governor ; against whom every cause of complaint, however trivial or inapplicable, served to minister occasion of ill-humor and obloquy. The high repute of the province, as a scene of ease, abundance, and well rewarded industry, had latterly at- tracted increasing numbers of settlers who did not belong to the Quaker persuasion ; some of whom were persons of very loose morals, and all of whom were averse to the policy by which the Quakers interwove their own sectarian usages and principles into the fabric of the general provincial law. Gookin, who was neither a votary of the principles nor a courtier of the especial favor of the Quakers, was suspected by them of inclining to their rivals, and favoring, in the distribution of office and otherwise, the recent settlers and poorer classes of people, in preference to the more ancient and wealthy Quaker aristocracy of Pennsylvania. Numberless disputes and recriminations occurred between the governor and the assembly ; in which he strongly denied the justice of their suspi- cions, and sharply reprehended their disrespectful behaviour to himself, while they retorted upon him with a ready flow of grave yet fretful rhetoric, and indefatigable reiteration. One of their most important disputes was oc- casioned by a riotous assemblage of people at Philadelphia, who interposed to prevent the trial of a clergyman of the Episcopal persuasion by the Quaker laws and judges, on a charge of fornication. The rioters insisted that the Quakers had no right to convert a charge, which, by the laws of the parent state, was reserved exclusively for ecclesiastical inquiry and censure, into a secular felony or misdemeanour, cognizable by courts of common law ; and though the governor asserted the claims of the provincial jurisprudence, and suppressed the tumult, he was rated by the assembly for its occurrence with as much austerity and perseverance of rebuke as if he himself had been its open ringleader. The governor solemnly and indig- nantly repelled these insinuations ; and the Quakers repeated them with their usual pertinacity and prolixity. In the commencement of his adminis- tration, Gookin heard himself extolled by this people, and William Penn decried by them as an unjust, ambitious, and illiberal man. But now he was assured by the assembly that all their grievances were occasioned by the> eclipse of the proprietary's understanding, which abandoned the governor, ' The affirmation of Quakers had been previously' declared admissible in Britain, in all civil suits, by an act of parliament in 1714. CHAP. II.] SIR WILLIAM KEITH'S ADxMINISTRATIONc 51 whom he would have wisely controlled, to the pernicious counsels of evil men. Shortly after this disagreeable communication, Gookin, in a brief address to the assembly, apprized them that he was now to take his last leave of them, as he was assured that he would presently be superseded in his office ; he requested them to consider the expensive voyage that awaited him ; and without farther reflection on their conduct, declared that the re- membrance of the prospects he had sacrificed in the hope of serving the proprietary and the people of Pennsylvania, the disappointments he had sustained, and the uncertainty of obtaining in England any provision for his old age, altogether weighed so heavily on his spirits, that he must pray the assembly to excuse him for the fewness of his words-. Though possessed with a spirit of peevish, pragmatical disputation and self-conceit, the assem- bly was not entirely divested of a sense of justice even towards the ob- jects of its jealousy ; and this touching address elicited an immediate vote of two hundred pounds to the governor, to defray the expenses of his home- ward voyage. Gookin was succeeded in the government of Pennsylvania by Sir William Keith [1717], formerly surveyor-general of the customs in America ; a man of insinuating .address ; a shrewd, plausible, supple, and unprincipled adven- turer ; devoid of honor and benevolence ; governed entirely by mean vanity and selfish interest. His political career presents a moral picture not un- worthy of attention. Owing his appointment to the crown, and intrusted with the protection of the interest of the proprietary, he began by devoting himself skilfully, but unreservedly, to the pleasure of the most powerful party in the province ; and by his blandishments and dexterity soon gained in a very high degree the favor and good-will of the Pennsylvanian Qua- kers. In the prosecution of this policy, and aided by his natural sagacity, he promoted many useful measures, and became a popular governor. But he sacrificed without scruple the interest of the proprietary ; and when, by the death of William Penn, this interest devolved to persons who were capable of discerning and asserting it, the wishes and orders of the pro- prietary family experienced equal neglect from the governor. Keith, per- ceiving that the Pennsylvanian Quakers were bent on promoting the absolute authority of their provincial assembly, lent himself cordially to their de- sign ; and in spite of the remonstrances of the widow and children of Penn, who insisted that he was bound to conform his conduct to the opin- ion of the provincial counsellors whom they appointed, he continued to be guided solely by the wishes and views of the majority of the assembly, and treated the injunctions of the council with the most open disregard, whenever they dissented from this standard of his pohcy. He occupied the chair of government for nine years ; and when at length he was dis- placed by the proprietaries, the same cause that produced this mark of their displeasure procured him a seat and the possession of considerable influence in the assembly. Here he indulged the hope of being again ele- vated to honor and distinction by the subsidiary rage of party zeal, which he forthwith essayed to enkindle by intrigues that caused the second act of this political drama to prove shorter than the first, and quickly rendered him as odious to the people as he had already become to the proprietaries. For- saken, then, by every provincial party and authority, he returned to Eng- land ; and, as a last resource, betook himself to the favor of the crown, which he studiously cultivated by suggesting and advocating measures for 52 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VHL the advancement of royal prerogative in the colonies. He recommended, in particular, the immediate taxation of America by the British parliament. But his counsels obtained no contemporary notice ; his servility was per- mitted to be its own sole reward ; and he closed his hfe at London in poverty, obscurity, and contempt.^ One of the first transactions that signalized the administration of Gov- ernor ^ Keith was suggested by the numerous influx of strangers into the province. Perceiving that the wealthier class of the inhabitants were less desirous of increasing the strength and population of Pennsylvania than of preserving the Quaker ascendency, which was endangered by the increas- ing resort of foreigners and necessitous persons of a different religious per- suasion, he proposed to the assembly that some legislative ordinance should be enacted for obstructing such unhmited infusion of heterogeneous senti- ments and manners. This illiberal counsel, clothed with the specious pre- text of danger to the British dominion, and to the stability of peace with the Indians, from the number of German emigrants ^ who resorted to Penn- sylvania, proved exceedingly palatable to the assembly, who urged the gov- ernor to adopt or suggest some measure for carrying his judicious policy into immediate effect. But Keith, having gained his end by demonstrating a spirit so agreeable to the views of a powerful party which he studied to please, was too prudent to proceed farther in a matter of such importance, without consulting the British government ; and apprising the assembly that he had besought the king's ministers to interpose in the defence of the province against an inundation of foreigners, he gratified them with this addi- tional proof of zeal, and with the hope that they might obtain the benefit they desired, without being compelled themselves to undertake the ungra- cious measure which they contemplated. But the British government would lend no encouragement to Keith's propositions ; and the Pennsylva- nian Quakers were not yet prepared to incur the odium of closing the re- sources of their large vacant territories against destitute strangers, and fugi- tives from misery and persecution. Keith's counsel, however, was not forgotten ; and we shall find that it was actually carried into effect a few years after he was displaced from the government. He continued meanwhile to gratify the assembly by an entire devotion to its wishes ; restored to the Quakers (of whom many have al- ways demonstrated a far stricter fidelity to the manners than to the princi- ples of their sectarian society) their interrupted privilege of wearing their hats in courts of justice ; and extolled with the warmest praise their " du- tiful loyalty and amiable spirit with respect to government." The only in- stance in which he dissented from the opinion of the prevailing party in the province was in the support he gave to the proposition of a paper cur- rency, which was eagerly desired by the poorer and more enterprising classes of the inhabitants ; and which, though carried into effect, was restricted within very narrow limits by the apprehensive caution of the Quakers and other wealthy planters. In renewing the provincial treaties with the Indians, he commended to them the philanthropy of their old friend, William Penn, 1 He died in 1749. His scheme for taxing America was published in a periodical work, entitled The Citizen. Some account of it is preserved in another periodical work, which, though replete with curious matter, is now almost entirely forgotten, — The Folit.ical Register for 1767. The original draught of the scheme is published in Burk's Histonj of Virginia. 2 Proud, the Quaker historian, suggests, apologetically, that the persecuted Mennonists of Germany were at this time resorting in considerable numbers to Pennsylvania. CHAP. II.] PIRACY ON THE AMERICAN COASTS. 53 and the pacific principles of Quakerism, to which he imputed the early advancement of Pennsylvania to a wealthy and powerful estate ; but he en- forced his recommendation of their continued friendship with the colonists, by assuring them that he could bring several thousands of armed men into the field for the defence of his people and their Indian allies. Some manifestation was made of the repugnance of Quaker principles to negro slavery by an act of assembly [1722] which imposed a duty on the importa- tion of negroes into the province. Exempted now from political broils, and continuing happily unacquainted with the rage and desolation of war, Penn- sylvania enjoyed a rapid increase of agricultural improvement, commercial enterprise, and the wealth and numbers of her people. But amidst this flourishing scene, the controversial leaven of human nature disclosed its virulence in a great increase of forensic litigation ; a civil strife prevailed, less fatal, but more inglorious, than martial broil ; and notwithstanding the institution of Peacemakers^^ and the solemn and repeated remonstrances of the more pious members of the Quaker society, the surprising number of lawsuits, and the unchristian keenness and pertinacity with which vexatious claims and frivolous disagreements were pursued and prolonged, continued to afford a theme of sincere regret and benevolent counsel to all wise and good men.^ The situation of Carolina at this time exhibited a deplorable contrast to the prosperous condition of Pennsylvania. Recently afflicted with the scourge of war, embarrassed by their pubHc debt, yet alarmed with the rumors of farther hostile designs of the Spaniards and the Indians, and filled with aver- sion and contempt for the selfish and oppressive proprietaries who claimed the sovereignty of the province, the Carolinians had now to endure a heavy accession to dieir calamities from the prevalence of piracy on their coasts. The commercial restrictions imposed by Great Britain gave rise to a great deal of smuggling in almost all the American colonies ; and, under color of aiding in the evasion of those obnoxious restrictions, pirates were able, not unfrequently, to induce m.any of the colonists to trafiic with them in their nefarious acquisitions. Some of the provincial smugglers, too, became pi- rates. Exasperated by seizures of their vessels and cargoes, and by the persuasion they entertained, in common with many of their countrymen, of the injustice of British pohcy, — hardened by the disgrace of detected fraud, and depraved by a life of lawless gambling and danger, — a slight exaggera- tion, rather than a startling change, of their habits was sufficient to transport them from the practice of illicit trade to the guilt of piratical depredation. These gangs of naval robbers were likewise frequently recruited by British sailors, who had been trained to ferocity and injustice by the legalized piracy of the slave-trade. Undeterred by the fate of Kidd, Captain Quelch, the commander of a brigantine which had committed numerous piracies, ven- tured to take shelter, with his crew, in Massachusetts, in the year 1704. A discovery soon took place of their guilty practices ; and having been brought to trial at Boston, Quelch and six of his accomplices died by the hands of the executioner. In the year 1717, several vessels were captured on the coast of New England by Captain Bellamy, a noted pirate, who commanded a vessel carrying twenty-three guns, and a crew of one hundred and thirty men. This vessel being wrecked shortly after on Cape Cod, the captain perished in the waves with the whole of his naval banditti, except six, who, gaining ^See Book VII., Chap. U.^anle. * Oldmixon. Proud. £ # 54 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. the shore, were tried and executed at Boston. During the first presidency of Nicholson, a piratical band was captured on the coast of Virginia ; and during the presidency of Spottiswoode, a troop of pirates were detected, in the disguise of merchants, in the same province, and four of them were ex- ecuted and hung in chains. In consequence of repeated complaints, from the British merchants trading to the West Indies and America, of the dep- redations of these freebooters, who had formed their principal station and a regular settlement in the island of New Providence, George the First issued a proclamation, offering pardon to all pirates who should surrender to any of his colonial governors within twelve months, and, at the same time, de- spatched a few ships of war, under Captain Woods Rogers, who, repairing to New Providence, assumed possession of this insular den of robbers. Al- most all the pirates, who were stationed there at the time, took the benefit of the royal proclamation, and desisted from their lawless pursuits.^ [1718.] None of the colonies was more harassed by the resort and the depreda- tions of pirates than Carolina ; and here, notwithstanding the proclamation of the king and the operations at New Providence, the evil continued to pre- vail with undiminished extent and mahgnity. Charles Craven, who, next to Archdale, was the most respectable and popular governor whom the Caro- linians ever yet obeyed, had recently been succeeded in the presidency of South Carolina by Robert Johnson, the son of a previous governor. Sir Na- thaniel Johnson. The new governor was a man whose wisdom, integrity, and moderation might have rendered the people contented and happy ; but he was fettered by instructions from the proprietaries that provoked univer- sal impatience and disaffection. Yet the people were discriminating enough to acknowledge Johnson's personal claims on their respect : and the vigor and courage he exerted for the extirpation of piracy gained him a great accession of popularity. Steed Bonnet and Richard Worley, two pirate chiefs who had fled from New Providence at the approach of Woods Rog- ers, took possession, with their vessels, of the mouth of Cape Fear River, where they again s, -tempted to form a stronghold of piracy, and kept all the adjacent coast in terror. The governor with one vessel, and Captain Rhett with another, sailed Irom Charleston against these marauders ; and, attacking them with soiperior bravery and skill, compelled them, after a severe engage- ment, to surrender. Steed Bonnet, who was a man of letters, and had held the rank of major in the British army, together with forty-one of his ac- complices, was executed .at Charleston. But piracy prevailed still more extensively on the coast of North Carolina ; and this region had been for some time the haunt of the most desperate adventurer of the age, in piratical enterprise, and in every kindred crime. John Theach was the name of this barbarous miscreant ; but he was more commonly designated by his favorite appellation of Blackbeard^ de- rived from his attempt to heighten the ferocious aspect of his countenance, by suffering a beard of unusually dark hue to grow to an immoderate length, and adjusting it with elaborate care in such an inhuman disposition as was cal- culated to excite surprise, aversion, and horror. He had once been ac- knowledged supreme commander of the banded pirates at New Providence ; but for some reason forsook that preeminence, and, confining himself to the sway of a single crew, preferred to retire to the mouth of Pamlico River, in North Carohna, whenever he desired to refit his vessel or refresh himself on * Oldmixon. Hutchinson. Universal History. Holmes. Howell's State Trials. CHAP. II.] THEACH, OR BLACKBEARD, THE PIRATE. 55- shore. In battle, he has been represented with the look and demeanour of a fury, carrying three brace of pistols in holsters slung over his shoulders, and lighted matches under his hat, protruding over his ears. The authority and admiration which the pirate chiefs enjoyed among their fellows was proportioned to the audacity and extravagance of their outrages on humani- ty ; and none in this respect ever challenged a rivalship with Theach. The force of his pretensions may be conceived from the character of his jests and the style of his convivial humor. Having frequently undertaken to personify a demon for the entertainment of his followers, he proposed on one occasion to gratify them still further by an anticipated representation of hell ; and in this attempt he nearly stifled the whole crew with the fumes of brimstone under the hatches of his vessel. In one of his ecsta- sies, whilst heated with liquor, and sitting in his cabin, he took a pistol in each hand, and, cocking them under the table, blew out the lights, and then with crossed hands fired on each side at his companions, one of whom received a shot that maimed him for hfe. He kept fourteen women whom he called his wives, and who were alternately the objects of his dalliance and the victims of his cruelty. The county of Bath, adjacent to the scene of his retirement in Pamhco River, was thinly peopled ; and Theach, protected by a strong guard, re- paired frequently on shore, and visited some of the inhabitants who did not disdain to associate with such a monster, or who dreaded to provoke his vengeance by rejecting his advances. But his chief security was derived from the profligacy of Charles Eden, the governor, and Tobias Knight, the secretary, of the province, who were corrupted by the pirate's gold, and consented to protect him in return for a share of it. The notoriety of this league between the principal officers of the proprietary government and the most infamous ruffian of the age discouraged and disgusted every honest man in North Carolina, relaxed the bonds of civil government, and promoted a general depravation of manners. Enriched with his guilty spoil, and ap- prized of the operations of Woods Rogers at New Providence, Theach judged it expedient to secure an indemnity for the past, by accepting the benefit of the king's proclamation ; and for this purpose surrendered himself with twenty of his men to his patron. Governor Eden, who administered the oath of allegiance to wretches by whom oaths were habitually employed as the instruments of fraud, the expressions of rage and fury, and the con- comitants of rapine and bloodshed. A few of the pirates betook them- selves to honest pursuits ; while the greater number, still at war with human welfare, insulted and contaminated, by the spectacle of their wealthy impu- nity and the example of their vices, the society which they had plundered by their maritime robberies. But it was impossible for a man like Theach, whose mind was loaded with such a weight of dark and horrible remembrance, to exist without madness or compunction in a state that admitted even the shortest inter- vals of calm reflection ; and seeking a substitute for the vehement inter- est of battle, and a refuge from the torment of his conscience, in the excite- ment of gambling and the stupefaction of debauchery, he soon dissipated his riches and w^as reduced to want. Without a moment's scruple, he deter- mined on a return to his former occupation ; and having enlisted a suitable crew, and fitted out a sloop which he entered at the custom-house as a common trader, he embarked, as he said, for a commercial adventure. In 56 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. a few weeks he returned to North Carolina, bringing with him a French ship in a state of perfect soundness and with a valuable cargo, which he deposed on oath that he had found deserted at sea ; — a statement which Eden and Knight accepted without hesitation. But it obtained credit from no body else ; and some of the Carolinians who had formerly suffered from Theach's depredations, instead of vainly invoking the justice of a governor w^ho openly connived at his villany, despatched information of this occur- rence to the government of Virginia. Colonel Spottiswoode and the Vir- ginian assembly straightway proclaimed a large reward for the apprehension of the pirate ; and Maynard, the heutenant of a ship of war which was stationed in the Bay of Chesapeake, collecting a chosen crew in two small vessels, set sail in quest of Theach, with instructions to hunt down and destroy this plague and disgrace of humanity, w^herever he could be found. Approaching Pamlico Sound in the evening, Maynard descried the pirate at a distance, watching for prey. [Novembers] , 1718.] Theach, surprised by the sudden appearance of an enemy, but determined to conquer or die, prepared his vessel over night for action, and then, sitting down to his bot- tle, proceeded to stimulate his spirits to that pitch of frenzy in which he had often passed victorious through a whirlwind of danger and crime. From the difficult navigation of the inlet through which the assailants had to penetrate in order to approach him, and from his own superior acquaintance with the soundings of the coast, Theach was able next day to manoeuvre for a while with advantage, and maintain a running fight. At length, however, a close encounter ensued ; in which, after great slaughter on both sides, the steady, deliberate valor of Maynard and his crew prevailed over the rage and des- peration of the pirates. Such is generally the result of contests in which the courage of the one party is supported by sentiments of justice, honor, and duty, while the spirit of the other is corrupted by conscious wrong and divided by ignoble and bewildering impressions of disgrace and shame. Foreboding defeat, Theach had posted one of his followers with a lighted match over his powder magazine ; that, in the last extremity, he might defraud human justice of a part of its retributive triumph. But some acci- dent or mistake prevented the execution of this act of despair. Theach, himself, surrounded by slaughtered foes and followers, and bleeding from numerous wounds, in the act of stepping back to cock a pistol, fainted from loss of blood, and expired on the spot. The few survivors of the piratical crew threw down their arms, and, suing for life, were spared from the sword, and delivered over to a more suitable death. ^ Though piracy sus- tained an important check from the various operations to which we have adverted, it still continued to linger in the American seas ; and about five years after this period, no fewer than twenty-six pirates were executed at the same time by the sentence of an admiralty court in Rhode Island.'^ The extirpation of the pirates who had infested the coasts of Carolina, though it delivered the inhabitants from a grievous calamity, nowise tended to mitigate the discontent which the conduct of their proprietary sovereigns had provoked. In the southern province, the people subdued the pirates ' Oldmixon. Wynne. Hewit. Williamson. M'Kinnen's Tour through the British West Indies. Howell's State Trials. One of the earliest literary compositions of Dr. Franklin (at this time apprentice to a printer in Massachusetts) was a ballad on the death of the pirate Theach, which was sung through the streets of Boston. Franklin's Memoirs. ^ Oldmixon. Holmes. Some of the pirates executed on this last occasion were natives of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia. CHAP. II.] CHIEF- JUSTICE TROTT. 57 and defended themselves against the Spaniards and the Indians by their own unassisted exertions ; and in the northern province, piracy had been abetted by the unprincipled venahty of the proprietary officers. Yet it was in South Carolina that impatience and disaffection most strongly and generally pre- vailed. To this, as the wealthiest of the two provinces, the proprietaries devoted the largest share of their attention ; and their policy of late years was increasingly offensive to the people. They not only repealed some useful and important laws which had been ratified by their own provincial deputies and suffered for a while to endure, but latterly commanded the gov- ernor to give assent to no law whatever till after a draught of it had been submitted to themselves in England and sanctioned by their express ap- probation. Among other measures which the colonists were desirous of adopting was one intended to counteract the inconvenience arising from the scarcity of money occasioned by the late wars, to the expenses of which the proprietaries had contributed nothing, though they owed the preservation of their large estates to the repulse of the enemy. The assembly proposed to appreciate the exchangeable value of country commodities, and declare them, at such estimated price, a legal tender for the payment of all debts. But this was firmly resisted by the proprietaries. Instead of demonstrating a liberal confidence in the people, they sought to divide them by party spirit, and manage them by corruption and intrigue. Of the agents whom they employed for this purpose the most notable was Nicholas Trott, a man whose talents, information, and apparent zeal for provincial liberty had gained him a high consideration with his fellow- colonists of South Carolina. Finding Trott willing to exchange honor for profit, the proprietaries appointed him chief justice of the province, and added to this promotion various other offices of power and emolument. In return for their favors, he traduced to them the people whose interests he had deserted, encouraged their most unjust pretensions, and reinforced by his counsel their objections to every liberal and popular design. Univer- sal disgust attended the detection of Trott's perfidious intrigues ; and the proprietaries gained nothing from their connection with him but a copious supply of pernicious counsel, and a just share of the detestation with which his apostasy was regarded. In addition to his other demerits, Trott, who had now contracted an insatiable appetite for money, was guilty of gross partiality and corruption in the discharge of his judicial functions. The assembly proposed to impeach him for this offence ; but he defied their resentment, and, relying on his commission from the proprietaries, protested that he was answerable to them alone for the manner in which he dis- charged the trust conferred by it. Governor Johnson and a majority of the council united with the assembly in strongly reprobating the judicial malversation of Trott, but lamented their inabihty to suspend his functions. They offered, however, to join with the assembly in demanding redress in a competent form ; and a commissioner was accordingly deputed from the province to England, to solicit from the proprietaries the removal of their chief justice, and a remission or modification of the illiberal instructions which had been lately communicated to the governor. On the arrival of the commissioner at London [1719 1], he found that Lord Carteret, the ' Londonderry, in New Hampshire, was colonized this year by about a hundred families of emigrants from Ulster, in Ireland. They were the descendants of Scotch Presbyterians, who were induced, in the reign of James the First, to settle in Ireland ; and, sharing the sufferings of that unhappy country in the reigns of Charles the First and James the Second, VOL. II. 8 58 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VHI. palatine of the province, was absent as the an'ibassador of Great Britain at the court of Sweden ; and after an attendance of three months on the other proprietaries, he was at last informed by them that they had ascer- tained from Trott's letters that the complaints against him originated solely in a factious opposition to the proprietary government ; and that, confiding in the fidelity of their minister and the wisdom of their own policy, they would neither displace the one nor retract the other. They signified in haughty strains to the governor, the council, and the assembly, that the pro- prietaries had received their disloyal and presumptuous application with the highest displeasure and surprise. In farther testimony of these sentiments, they commanded the governor to displace all the counsellors who had united with him and the assembly in promoting the late deputation, and to fill the vacated offices with certain individuals whom they particularized, and who had been gained by Trott, and recommended by him to their favor. On receiving this communication, Johnson plainly foresaw, from the temper of the people, that a social convulsion would ensue ; but, true to imagined duty, he shrunk not from executing his orders. About this time a rupture having taken place between the courts of Great Britain and Spain, a project of invading South Carolina and the island of New Providence was formed at Havana, the capital of the Spanish settlements in the island of Cuba, and an armament was collected there for the expedition. Johnson, apprized of the danger, summoned the provincial assernbly to assist him in putting their country in a posture of defence. This requisition brought the dissensions between the proprietary government and the people to a crisis. The assembly refused to bestow the smallest pittance of the public money ; and their resolution, far from being weakened, was confirmed and precipitated by the officious interposition of the chief justice in support of the governor's demand. But, though determined no longer to spend their resources in defence of the proprietary system, it was not their intention to leave the colony a defenceless prey to the Spaniards. An association was promptly formed by them for uniting the whole provincial population in opposition at once to the foreign enemy and the proprietary government ; and the instrument of union which expressed this purpose was instantly circulated through the province, and subscribed by every one of the inhabitants, except a very few retainers of the disowned au- thority. Governor Johnson, after a fruitless altercation with the assembly, who vainly solicited him to unite with them, and accept a delegation of su- preme authority from their hands, attempted to dissolve them by procla- mation, and retired from Charleston to the country, in the hope that the pop- ular ferment would gradually subside. But the assembly ordered the proc- lamation to be wrested from the marshal's hands ; and allowing no time for a relaxation of the general ardor, proceeded vigorously to consummate the provincial revolt. Meeting on the summons of their own speaker, and with the entire acquiescence of their fellow-citizens, they chose Colonel Moore, liad conceived an ardent and inextinguishable thirst for civil and religious liberty. Notwith- standing the triumph of the Protestant cause at the British Revolution, some penal law^s which were still permitted to subsist against Protestant Dissenters in Ireland, together with the in- conveniences of tithes and high rents, prompted a number of these people to emigrate to North America. They regarded the residence of their race in Ireland as a state of bondage, and nothing was more offensive to them than to be termed Irish people. They introduced the foot-spinning-wheel and the culture of potatoes into America. Thus Ireland repaid America for her original boon. Belknap. Jnte, Book I., Chap. I. In the same year the Aurora Borealis was first descried in New England, and beheld with general alarm ; being regarded as a sign of the last judgment. Holmes. See Note I., at the end of the volume. CHAP. II.] JIEVOLT OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 59^ a man of bold, enterprising temper, to fill the office they had tendered to Johnson ; and on a day which they previously announced, proclaimed him governor of South Carolina, not under the proprietaries, but in the name of the king. To the new governor, and to the individual whom they ap- pointed chief justice, they assigned salaries twice as large as the emoluments which were attached to these offices under the proprietary system. They next chose twelve counsellors, of whom Sir Hovenden Walker (who had emigrated to this province) was named president ; and thus completed the structure of a provincial government framed in conformity with the general will. The late governor, who had attempted meanwhile to disconcert their measures, and succeeded in creating some embarrassment, now made his last and boldest effiart to compel the recognition of his authority. He en- gaged the commanders of some British ships of war to bring their vessels in front of Charleston ; and threatened to lay the city in ashes, unless an immediate submission to the proprietary dominion were declared. But the people, having arms in their hands and forts in their possession, bade defiance to his menace ; and now finding the proprietary cause hopeless, he abandoned all farther attempts to support it. The conduct of Rhett, who had more than once distinguished himself as a naval officer in the service of his fellow-colonists, was, during this revolution, strangely equivocal. He had accepted offices of emolument from the proprietaries, and for some time prior to the revolt was accounted their partisan and the coadjutor of Trott. But he refused to act in concert with Johnson ; and, uniting with the insurgents, obtained their confidence, and preserved his emoluments. "Not- withstanding this, Rhett preserved his credit with the proprietaries, to whom he represented his acceptance of a popular commission as a device to which he resorted for the purpose of more effectually serving their interests ; protesting, moreover, that the inflexibility of Johnson was one of the main sources of the discontent and defection of the people, and utterly incon- sistent with good pohcy ; and that, in the experience of every country, there were seasons when the minds of men would not bend to mere cus- tomary authority, when the rigid exertion of official power tended inevitably to defeat its own object, and when lenity proved a far more efficacious rem- edy than severity to counteract the stream of disaffection against existing rulers and established institutions. During this revolutionary movement, the Spaniards sailed from Havana with a fleet of fourteen ships, and a land force consisting of twelve hundred men, against South Carolina and the island of New Providence. Johnson represented to the Carolinians the dangerous consequences of military op- erations under illegitimate command, assuring them, that, in case of defeat, they could expect only the treatment of pirates ; but the people adhered firmly to their purpose ; and the provincial assembly, or convention (as they styled themselves) , continued to Vansact business with the governor whom they had appointed. Martial law was proclaimed ; all the inhabitants of the province were summoned to Charleston, for the defence of the capital ; and heavy taxes were imposed, — from which, by a rare instance of gen- erous forbearance, the late Governor Johnson and his estates alone w^ere exempted. This magnanimous people were averse to render the fortune of a brave and honorable man, whom circumstances, rather than his own dis- position, had placed in a state of controversy with them, tributary to a 60 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. triumph over his own principles and dignity. Happily for Carolina, the Spaniards, eager to acquire possession of the Gulf of Florida, resolved that their expedition should commence with the attack of New Providence. They were vigorously repulsed from this island by Commodore Rogers ; and soon after lost the greater part of their fleet in a storm. From a repetition of their enterprise, which they subsequently prepared to undertake, they were deterred by the arrival on the provincial coast of a British ship of war commanded by Captain (afterwards Lord) Anson, so renowned at a later period by his voyage round the world, who displayed a skill and vigor in behalf of the province that procured him the most flattering and valuable testimonials of grateful approbation from its inhabitants. What might have been the result of these revolutionary measures of the people of South Carolina, if they had been disallowed by the British government, it is impossible to divine. During the absence from Britain of George the First, who was visiting his Hanoverian dominions [1720], the agent for the people of South Carolina and the proprietaries of this prov- ince maintained their controversy before the Lords of Regency and Coun- cil at London, who pronounced as their opinion that the proprietaries had forfeited their charter. In conformity with this censure, the attorney-general was ordered to institute legal proceedings for accomplishing the formal dis- solution of the charter ; and in the mean time, that active and ambitious adventurer, who now bore the rank of general and the title of Sir Francis Nicholson, was appointed governor of South Carolina by a commission from the king. Thus the colonists of this province, after an irksome en- durance of the odious and despicable sway of their proprietaries, by one bold and irregular effort, succeeded in emancipating themselves from the proprietary system, and in placing their country under the immediate protec- tion of the crown of Great Britain. It had long been suspected that the spirit of discontent and turbulence, so strongly manifested in both the prov- inces of Carolina, was nourished in a great measure by the nature of their government ; and that the colonists scanned the administration of an officer appointed by their own fellow-subjects with less reverence and indulgence than they might be expected to bestow on the conduct of one who claimed the dazzling title of the representative of royalty. In South Carolina, though the forms of proprietary government were abolished, the legal substance of proprietary right still subsisted. In North Carolina, the forms of obedience to proprietary jurisdiction were still observed ; but the people continued sullen, disorderly, and discontented with their situation.^ Hunter was succeeded this year in the government of New York and New Jersey by William Burnet, son of the celebrated Enghsh bishop and histo- rian ; a man of superior sense, talent, and address ; pious, though of a con- vivial disposition ; a learned scholar and astronomer, and yet a shrewd politician and both active and skilful in the conduct of business. He labored with equal wisdom and assiduity to promote the welfare of the province, and cultivated the favor of the people with a success which only the clamors and intrigues of an interested faction prevented from being as entire and immediate as it proved lasting and honorable. Though, in the close of his administration, his popularity was eclipsed by the artifices of those who opposed his views, the testimony that farther experience afforded of the tendency of these views to promote the general good gained him a ^ Hewit. Raxnssiy ' 8 History of the Revolution of South Caiolina. Williamson. Life of Lord Anson. CHAP. II.] TRADE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND CANADA. g| time-honored name, and a reputation coequal with his deserts ; and more than twenty years after his death, the Swedish philosopher Kalm, during his travels in America, heard Burnet's worth commemorated with grateful praise by this people, who lamented him as the best governor they had ever obeyed. He had been comptroller-general of the customs at London, and now made an exchange of official position with Governor Hunter. Aided by the counsels of Livingston and Alexander, two of the most considerable inhabitants of New York, Morris, the chief justice, and the learned and in- genious Dr. Golden, author of the history of the Five Nations, and after- wards deputy-governor of the province, — Burnet pursued with indefatiga- ble zeal and industry the most judicious plans for improving the relations between the colonists and their ancient Indian aUies. In the competition that prevailed between the English and the French colonies for the possession of trade and influence with the Indians, the English (as Gharlevoix remarks) enjoyed the advantage of being able to afford their commodities to the Indians at much cheaper prices than the French were constrained to demand. But the important benefit that might have been derived from this advantage was almost wholly intercepted by a commercial intercourse that had been formed since the peace of Utrecht, and by which the French became the purchasers, at Albany and New York, of the commodities imported by the English for the Indian market. The increased communication and superior influence which the French were thus enabled to acquire with the Indian race was perceived by some friendly chiefs of the Six Nations, and pressed by them on the attention of Governor Hunter and the officers whom the government now employed under the title of Commissioners for Indian Afl^airs.^ But no remedy was applied to the mischief, till Burnet prevailed on the assembly to pass an act for a tempora- ry suspension of trade between New York and Canada. As the immedi- ate operation of this act was to diminish the importation of the English goods which heretofore were customarily sold to the French, till substitutional relations of commerce were formed with the Indians, it excited the com- plaints of the American importers and the London merchants, whose intrigues affected the governor's popularity, and proportionally embarrassed his ad- ministration ; and notwithstanding the penalties attached to a transgression of the act, it was repeatedly violated by the contraband dealings of the traders of Albany. But the beneficial consequences of the measure ere long became sensibly apparent ; and when the duration of the act expired, the assembly renewed its provisions by a law to which no period was as- signed. Burnet cultivated the favor of the Indians by presents, treaties, and com- plimentary attentions ; and having acquainted himself with the geography of the country, he was struck with the expediency of obtaining the command of Lake Ontario, as well for the appropriation of the trade and the security of the friendship of the Six Nations, as to frustrate the French design of confining the British dominion to narrow limits along the sea-coast, by means of a chain of forts stretching from Canada to Louisiana. To that ' The residence of the governors at New York rendered it necessary that some person.«» should be commissioned at Albany to maintain immediate communication with the Indians, receive intelligence from them, and treat with them in sudden emergencies. This gave rise to the office of Commissioners for Indian Affairs, who ordinarily represented the British gov- ernment in transactions with the Indians. These functionaries received no salaries ; but con- siderable sums were deposited in their hands for occasional presents to the savages. F 52 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. end, he commenced the erection of a trading-house at Oswego, in the country of the Senecas, one of the confederated tribes of the Six Nations, — a measure which the French, whose vigilant jealousy it failed not to awaken, promptly endeavoured to counteract ; and by their interest with the Onondagas, another of the confederated tribes, they obtained permission to rebuild a fort which France had once possessed in their peculiar territory at Niagara, and also to erect a mercantile storehouse at the same place. As soon as this latter transaction was known to the other members of the Indian confederacy, they declared the permission granted by the Onondagas abso- lutely null and void, and sent deputies to the French, commanding them forthwith to discontinue the operations which they had hastily begun. The French, however, advanced their buildings with increased activity, while the Indians were amused and beguiled of their purpose by the arts and influence of the Chevalier Joncaire, a French gentleman, whom the force and pliancy of his genius, concurring wuth the bent of his taste, rendered a masterly practitioner of diplomacy and intrigue. He had lived among the Indians from the beginning of Queen Anne's reign, — assuming their man- ners, and speaking their language, with an eloquent embellishment of their peculiar style that captivated their highest admiration. He was adopted as a brother by the Senecas, and enjoyed much consideration with the Onon- dagas. All these advantages he improved to the advancement of his coun- try's influence and dominion ; facilitating the admission of French mission- aries to the Indian settlements, and excelling the most industrious and ac- complished of the Jesuits in the zeal and success of his endeavours to dis- solve the existing relations of friendship between the Indians and the Enghsh. Governor Burnet exerted himself with great diligence and ability, and not entirely without success, to counteract the intrigues of Joncaire, and rouse the British government and the Six Nations to a resolute opposition to the encroachments of France. At his own private expense he completed the building of a fort and trading-house at Oswego, in defiance of the menaces of the governor of Canada. But, unfortunately, his influence was now im- paired and his administration embarrassed by the factious intrigues of the Albany traders and their commercial correspondents at London, who, for the sake of a few years' immediate gain, were willing to sacrifice the lasting prosperity of New York, and the security of the British colonial empire. While the Albany traders labored to destroy his popularity in the province, the merchants of London who were connected with them exerted all their interest at the British court to obtain his removal from New York, — an ob- ject which their unworthy machinations finally succeeded in accomphshing.^ Burnet, whose patrimony had fallen a prey to the fraud and delusion of the famous adventure, called the South Sea Scheme^ was originally induced to accept the government of New York by circumstances not more credita- ble to the character of England in that age, than the narrow policy and mean intrigue which ultimately deprived him of his command. France and England had been plunged for some time in a national delirium not less wild, and far more fatal, than the mania of the tulip trade, which broke forth in Holland about a century before. The frenzy that signalized the pres- ent epoch was excited by that spirit of commercial gambling to which the first impulse was given by the projects of the notorious John Law, a Scotchman, and the son of an obscure goldsmith in Edinburgh. * Charlevoix's Le«er5. Kalm's Travels. Oldmixon. W.Smith. Laws of J^ew York (ed- ited by Livingston and Smith), from 1691 to 1751. CHAP. II.] JOHN LAW. Q$ This extraordinary person was endowed by nature with a wonderful capacity of profound and extensive calculation, and a strong concurrent taste for every pursuit and research that was fitted to cultivate and develope his peculiar genius. He applied himself to the investigation of every branch of knowledge relative to banks, lotteries, and the trading companies of Lon- don ; he studied the means of supporting them, and of cherishing the public hope and confidence on which they mainly depended. Having penetrated the innermost secrets of the policy of these establishments, he increased his knowledge by obtaining a mercantile situation in Holland, where he succeeded in fully acquainting himself not only with the springs and princi- ples, but with the minutest practical details, of the system pursued in that masterpiece of financial establishments, the Bank of Amsterdam. By dint of reflecting on the information he had acquired, and of combining such a variety of knowledge, he composed a system which was admirable for its order and the concatenation of the numerous and diversified operations which it involved, — a system founded at least as much upon skilful ac- quaintance with the human mind, as upon the science of numbers, — but which implied an entire disregard of good faith, equity, and humanity, and afforded the amplest scope to fraud, perfidy, and injustice. The author of this scheme was an abandoned villain, devoid of all sense of religion, morality, or real honor. Having slain a man in a duel, he fled from Britain, 1 and was accompanied in his exile by an adulterous paramour, whom he had seduced from her husband. His avarice was insatiable ; and all his extensive schemes and combinations were subservient to the gratification of that ignoble passion. His taste for gaming (in the practice of which he was remarkably successful) , together with his elegant manners and sprightly conversation, procured him the intimate acquaintance of many persons of distinction, who disgraced their rank and impaired their fortunes by their commerce with such an associate. In the exhausted state to which the late war had reduced the exchequers of all the European potentates, he foresaw that they must necessarily adopt some extraordinary measures to re- cruit their finances ; and the hopes he indulged of successfully reahzing his great project were increased by the allurement which it presented to any government that would not scruple to prefer a speedy to an honest extrication from financial embarrassment. His system was calculated to enable a sove- reign to pay his debts, not by retrenching his luxury and profusion, but by attracting, under specious pretences, to himself, all the gold and silver of his subjects ; and the machinery by which this end was to be accomplished consisted of a bank, the real capital of which was to be the revenues of the state, and the accruing capital some branch of commerce little known, and therefore easily misrepresented and exaggerated. The engines on which he mainly relied were the covetousness and credulity of mankind. Law the less regretted his exile, when he reflected that such a scheme would be most efficaciously conducted in a country where the sovereign enjoyed ab- solute power. Repairing to France, he unfolded his views, to Louis the Fourteenth, who, notwithstanding the extenuated condition of his treasury, is reported, on the bare exposition of the project, to have rejected it with expressions of abhor- rence. But Law found a less scrupulous patron in the regent, Duke of Or- * It appears from Wood's Life of Law that this adventurer was actually tried and con- demned to be hanged, but escaped from prison while his fate was in suspense. 64 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. leans ; and in the year 1717, with the encouragement of this infamous prince, he commenced his operations by the estabhshment of a national bank, which was followed soon after by the memorable Western^ or JVIississippi Com- pany. The professed object of this association was the aggrandizement and cultivation of the colonies of France in North America ; and the French government enhanced its delusive credit by assigning to it the whole territo- ry of Louisiana.! The detail of the projector's success, — of the frantic eagerness with which Frenchmen of all ranks plunged their fortunes into the gulf which his profound and masterly villany had prepared for them, — and of the wide-spread ruin and misery that ensued, — is foreign to our purpose, and belongs to the historian of France. But the operation of Law's evil genius was not confined to that country. There is a diffusively contagious influence in the ferment of any strong passion among a multi^ tude of people ; and while the French delusion lasted, a kindred spirit of daring fraud and desperate gambling was awakened in England. From the Mississippi Scheme of Law, the project, scarcely less famous, of the South Sea Company of England was borrowed, by the imitative craft of Sir John Blunt, a member of the House of Commons, and successfully recommended to the inhabitants of this country by the cooperation of a crew of artful and rapacious associates. A frenzy ensued, which, if more tran- sient, was also more general and more extravagant, than that which pos- sessed the French ; and productive of scenes and adventures, in which it is difficult to discriminate the mingling shades of crime and folly, — to distinguish between the gambling of fools and knaves, alike transported with a rage for sudden enrichment. New projects were proclaimed, and joint- stock companies ^ were formed every day for carrying them into effect, under the patronage of many of the royal ministers and the chief nobility, and even of the Prince of Wales. The most chimerical desij^ns were embraced and seconded by persons of all ranks, high and low, rich and poor, professional, commercial, and literary ; and one obscure projector, in par- ticular, received in a single morning the subscriptions of a thousand persons for the execution of a project which he declined to explain at the time, but promised to disclose a month after, — as he effectually did, by decamping with his booty. Some persons, whom sincere delusion had originally plunged into tlie prevalent speculations, were ultimately hurried by the temptation of gain, or driven by the fear of ruin, consciously to promote the general error, in order to sell their stock with advantage, or shift from themselves the consequences of its approaching depreciation. In other in- stances a contrary progress of sentiment was manifested ; and the South Sea Scheme, in particular, at one time raised such a flood of eager avidity ' A great many persons were induced by Law's representations to repair to this territory and undertake its colonization. Of these, a body of German emigrants alone succeeded in rearing a flourishing settlement. Most of the others, ruined or disappointed by the fall of the Mississippi Company, forsook the province. Jefferys' History of the French Dominions in North and South America. To recruit the colonial population, an edict was issued by the French nt, commanding the apprehension and by \ ^ ■■ -: "" man and admirable philosopher, George Edwards, the famous British ornithologist, during his government, commanding the apprehension and transportation to America of all the vaga- bonds by whom the cities and highways of France were infested. To this edict an excellent travels in France, in the year 1720, had very nearly fallen a victim. Annual Register for 1776. Law, revisiting his native country, acquired a small estate, under the name of which his descendants not only veiled their ancestral infamy, but actually procured a title of nobility in France ! One of them attained the rank of Marshal, under the Emperor Napoleon. 2 About a hundred years later we have seen this commercial gambling reappear as a nation- al epidemic in England; though, happily, with less extent and mischief. CHAP. II.] ADMINISTRATION OF SHUTE IN MASSACHUSETtS. Q^ and extravagant hope, that the majority of the directors were themselves swept along with it, in opposition to their own better knowledge and original purpose and inclhiation. With the rapacity there was blended the prodi- gality and improvidence congenial to habits of ignoble hazard ; sudden wealth, actually amassed, or immediately expected, was spent or anticipated with reckless profusion ; and tasteless luxury, extravagance, and sensuality prevailed with unprecedented sway in England. At length the various Bubbles, as they were aptly termed, burst, one after another, in rapid succession [September, 1720] ; public credit received a staggering shock, and mercantile character and morality an odious and per- nicious taint ; vast multitudes of people found themselves reduced from afflu- ent or competent estate to absolute beggary ; and all England resounded with the waihng of grief and disappointment, or the raving of indignation and despair. The spirit of commercial gambling, which had lately prevailed in some of the American colonies, was doubtless animated in some degree by the contagious fervor of the delusion that reigned in the parent state ; and an additional excitement to it was at one time portended by an over- flowing of the stream of folly and frantic enterprise in England. A joint- stock company was formed at London for the purchase and cultivation of waste lands in Massachusetts. But the project dissolved in the general wreck of kindred speculations, before there was time to obtain the accession of any tributary associates in America.^ The monstrous fraud and folly dis- played by the people of England, and the infamy reflected by the foregoing transactions on their princes, nobles, statesmen,^ and merchants, were cal- culated to promote other sentiments than respect and attachment to the parent state in the minds of the sensible and discerning part of the colonial population. We shall find in the sequel, that the deplorable scene to which we have now adverted was attended with consequences important to the progress of society in America, by suggesting, or at least promoting, the project which issued in the plantation of Georgia. * It was happy for New England that the seasonable close of the British commercial frenzy prevented the communication of a share of this malady from enlarging the catalogue of evils which her history at the present epoch discloses. The administration of Governor Shute in Massachusetts was by no means productive of the harmony and satisfaction which its commence- ment betokened. Shute was a humane and honorable man, — diverted from ambition by the love of ease and social pleasure, — totally unaccustomed to the conduct of civil affairs, — and afflicted with a hasty and impatient temper, which habits of military command had not tended to moderate. His English friends had received and imparted to him a strong prepossession against the provincial party opposed to Governor Dudley ; and his un- guarded demonstration of this prejudice speedily rendered the party which was the object of it inimical to himself. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire, at this period, a great deal of discontent was excited by the proceedings of certain officers of the crown with regard to the pine-trees reserved for the use of the royal navy on vacant lands. The second par- ^ Private Life of Louis the Fifteenth. Smollett. Hutchinson. ' Among other distinguished persons, the Earl of Sunderland, Aislabie, the chancellor of the exchequer (who was expelled the House of Commons), and Craggs, the secretary of state, were judged to have corruptly promoted the delusion of the South Sea Scheme. A season- able death preserved Craggs from sharing the disgrace of Aislabie, and allowed his name to repose under the shade of the poetical wreath by which it was decked by the Muse of Pope. VOL. II. 9 F* QQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII liamentary statute on this subject ordained that the offence of cutting down any of these trees might be proved by the oath of a single witness, and pun- ished, without the intervention of a jury, by a judge of the admiralty court, who owed his office to the crown, and enjoyed it only during the royal pleasure. Notwithstanding this arbitrary provision, which was highly resented by the colonists, there were many more accusations than convic- tions of infraction of the law. The people retorted the complaints of the royal surveyor of woods, and declared that he sometimes neglected to mark distinctly the trees he meant to reserve, at other times laid claim to trees which were unsuitable to the objects of the act, and perpetually harassed them with vexatious litigation. These disputes provoked a ques- tion of the abstract right of the British government to appropriate the trees at all ; and the people and their assemblies openly expressed their opinion that they were unjustly deprived of the produce of land which their own money had purchased and their own exertions defended and preserved. The cheap hberality of allowing a small price for suitable trees furnished to the British government by the colonists themselves would have accom- plished the purposes of the acts of parliament in a manner much more effectual and advantageous. Shute, offended with a remonstrance of the Massachusetts assembly, in which they hinted that he had not fairly represented to the king the con- troversy between the surveyor and the people, requested that this remon- strance might not be printed ; and when the assembly answered that it was their duty and their purpose to print it, he announced to them, in the heat of anger, and with an ignorance and rashness which he had occasion to deplore during the remainder of his presidency, that " the king had com- mitted to him the power of the press," and that nothing could be lawfully published in the province w^ithout his permission. This declaration ren- dered him ever after an object of jealous dislike and suspicion to the colo- nists. In another instance, he broached a new and offensive pretension which was equally unsuccessful. It was the custom that the assembly, on electing a speaker, should present to the governor the person on whom their choice had fallen, and who was to be the organ of their official com- munications with him. Shute attempted to construe this practice into a recognition of the governor's right to negative the appointment of the as- sembly, and refused to acknowledge the speakership of Cooke, a distin- guished patriot, and the leader of the party who were accounted Dudley's opponents ; but as the provincial charter afforded no sanction to this preten- sion, his assertion of it, though backed by an opinion he produced from the attorney-general of England and the Lords of Trade, only involved him in a fruitless and irritating controversy. His importunities with the assembly to attach a fixed salary to his own office were equally unsuccessful. So far from gratifying him in this particular, they progressively diminished the allowance which was annually voted to him, — even while the depreciation of the provincial currency was daily reducing the real value of the salary far below its nominal amount. To the deputy -governor, William Dummer, they voted the niggardly pittance of thirty-five pounds ; which he refused to accept, protesting that he would not disparage the honor of serving the king by uniting it with a pecuniary recompense so paltry and affronting. Shute subsequently attempted to soothe the assembly by conciliating lan- guage and moderation of demeanour ; but it would have required more CHAP. II.J VIOLENT OPPOSITION TO SHUTE. ' 67 patience than he possessed to disarm the jealousy which he had akeady excited. The state of the currency tended to increase the pubhc discontent, while it sapped the foundations of honor and morahty. Creditors, clergy- men, and all persons subsisting on salaries or the interest of money, com- plained of their losses and hardships ; and executors, agents, and trustees of every other description were exposed to the most potent temptations unjustly to retain the property of their constituents. The governor, who probably perceived that this evil could be radically cured only by paying the public debts and restraining the emission of paper money, increased his own unpopularity by opposing the project of a state bank, and other delusive schemes which were suggested for relieving the country of its financial difficulties. Through the gloom of general discontent and appre- hension, the real blemishes in Shute's conduct were beheld in an exag- gerated view ; the mistakes of inexperience and the effusions of intemperate passion were maligned as the indications of deep and deliberate design to establish arbitrary government ; and the whole province of Massachusetts was pervaded by the conviction, that public liberty was in the utmost dan- ger, and could be saved only by a vigorous and united opposition to Shute's administration. Never did any people, in pursuit of a generous purpose, commit a wider departure from moderation, good sense, and equity. To such a violent and unreasonable pitch did the suspicion and ill-humor of the Massachusetts assembly mount, that all who were reckoned the gov- ernor's friends, or who honestly counselled a more moderate demeanour towards him, became the objects of its displeasure ; and Jeremiah Dum- mer, the provincial agent at London, having apprized them that Shute's conduct was generally approved in England, and that vindictive measures against Massachusetts were meditated by the British ministry, and would assuredly be embraced unless the people should evince a more reason- able temper, was dismissed from his office by the blind wilfulness which misconstrued his warning intelligence.^ The assembly repeatedly compelled the governor to yield to their desires, by explicitly declaring that they would not vote his salary till he had done so ; and Britain was punished for her injustice in depriving the colonists of their old charter, by the habit they now acquired of contending with and prevaihng over the representative of royalty. In the Indian war by which the presidency of Shute was signal- ized, the assembly openly invaded his functions, by assuming the direction of mihtary operations, and requiring the officers to maintain correspond- ence with them ; declaring (with more manly sense than constitutional for- mality) that all who were paid by the public were the responsible servants of the public ; though they subsequently perceived the prudence of re- tracting and apologizing for this pretension. In short, the people of Massa- chusetts were at this time transported to such an excess of opposition and animosity against the royal governor, and the policy, real or supposed, of the parent state, that the assembly of Connecticut trembled for the con- sequences that might result to the general liberties of New England, and instructed their agent at London to keep a watchful eye on the proceedings of the parliament, and give heed that Connecticut might not be involved in the vengeance whiclvMassachusetts seemed determined to provoke and brave. ' Yet the agent's intelligence was confirmed by communications from various English friends of the colonists. Neal, in particular, the historian of the Puritans and of New England, strongly urged the Massachusetts assembly to retrace its steps, "if it meant to save the country." g3 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. The war which broke out, during Shute's administration, between the States of New England and their ancient enemies, the Indians inhabiting the eastern territory betwixt New England and Nova Scotia, was ushered by a long prologue of reproachful complaint, menace, and violence on the part of the savages, prompted by the insidious counsels of the French and their provincial officers in Canada. These Indians had repeatedly acknowledged themselves the subjects of the British monarchy, and in every treaty of peace with the English had penitentially designated their wars with them as rebellions ; seemingly without attaching much importance to this language, or even entertaining any just or fixed notion of its meaning. Extensive territories on the rivers Kennebec and St. George w^ere purchased by the New England governments from the chiefs of these tribes at an early period ; but the lands remaining long unoccupied by the purchasers, the precise extent of the acquisitions was in some instances forgotten by the vendors, who possessed no written records, and who were permitted by the courtesy of the colonists to hunt and fish in every part of the purchased territory not actually subjected to cultivation. In some instances disagreements arose be- tween the two races from bargains being differently understood by the Eng- lish and the Indians, even when they had been conducted with much care and solemnity. As few of either race understood well the other's language, their treaties and other arrangements required the offices of an interpreter ■whose honesty could not always be relied on, and whose deceptions it was not always possible to detect.^ The Indians, moreover, were not at first aware, that the Europeans, by their system of agriculture, and the erection of mills and dams, would diminish the supphes of game and fish which the land and its waters had previously affiarded ; and when they found by ex- perience that this was actually the consequence of admitting foreigners to settle among them, they repented of their hospitality, and were inclined to eject their new neighbours, as the only means of restoring the country to its pristine state. Their enmity to the Enghsh was industriously fomented by the French, whose interests they preferably espoused, and to whose rehgious faith they had for many years been warmly devoted. Of late they were chiefly direct- ed by the counsels of Sebastian Rasles, an aged Jesuit of great learning, genius, and talent, and still greater zeal for the propagation of the Catholic faith and the enlargement of the French dominion in America. He had now resided about forty years among the Indians, contentedly burying in savage deserts the finest accomplishments of European education ; and deprived of all opportunity of exercising his high proficiency as a critic and classical linguist, except when his missionary labors afforded him leisure for episto- lary controversy with the ministers of Boston. He corresponded in the Indian tongue with many of his savage converts, male and female, whom he had taught to read and wTite ; and strengthened his claims on the in- terest and admiration of their countrymen by successful attempts in Indian poetry, — or, to speak more properly, in poetical compositions, of which the language, imagery, and strain of sentiment were derived from Indian ^ It is curious to find that Indian tradition has ascribed to some of the earliest European colonists a trick precisely similar to the fabled device of Queen Dido for enlarging the site of the colonial settlement she founded at Carthage. This coincidence ©f sentiment and tradition is ascribed by an accomplished American writer to " the proneness of barbarous people, while they feel the superiority of civilized men, to attribute all the difference which results from the intercourse to cunning rather than to wisdom." General Cass's Discourse before the American Historical Society^ 1836. efiAP. 11] INTRIGUES OF RASLES. (J9 models.^ His intrepid courage, fervent zeal, and ceaseless intrigue in behalf of his faith and his country rendered him an object of remarkable detesta- tion to the colonists of New England,^ and gained him the repute of a saint and a hero with the French. By the. Indians among whom he lived at Norridgewock he was regarded with unbounded love and admiration, and they were always ready to hazard their hves in his defence. His ascenden- cy over them was diligently employed to promote the interests of France. He made even the offices of devotion serve as incentives to their ferocity^ and kept a flag, whereon was depicted a cross surrounded by bows and ar- rows, which he used to hoist on a pole at the door of his chapel, when he gave them absolution, previously to their engaging in any martial enter- prise. He encouraged them to believe that their forefathers were deceived and abused in the ancient venditions of their lands to the colonists of New England, and that these colonists w^ere committing encroachments beyond the limits even of the titles which they had dishonestly acquired ; and he labored strongly to impress upon them that the English traders by whom they were visited dealt fraudulently with them, and, by vending spirituous liquors among them, debauched their morals, and frustrated the good work that he himself was laboring to accomphsh.^ This last topic was not less efficacious than the others ; though the Jesuit's allusibns to it were much more successful in provoking his Indian disciples to anger against the British colonists, than in persuading them to a virtuous amendment of their own habits. It was, indeed, quite natural that the Indians should at once indulge themselves in copious enjoyment of the pleasures of intoxication, and yet blame and hate the purveyors and instruments of this vice. The dissensions between Governor Shute and the assembly of Massachusetts had unfortunately prevented the erection of public barter-houses ; and the In- dians were still exposed to all the causes of quarrel and complaint supplied by the fraud and selfishness of private traders. Acquainted with the hostile influence which was thus exerted upon his savage neighbours. Governor Shute, soon after his accession to the com- mand of Massachusetts, held a conference with their chiefs, and vainly urged them to admit a New England clergyman to reside among their people. Rasles interposed in the discussion that took place, with a protestation, that, although the French king had ceded Nova Scotia to England, he never in- tended to include in this cession any territory to which the Indians them- selves might justly lay claim. At first, it seemed likely that a mutual decla- ration of war would have resulted from the conference, as the Indians be- gan by angrily reclaiming a great part of the territory sold by their ancestors ; but that extremity was avoided and the reclamation abandoned by the advice of the elder sachems, who apologized for the language of their brethren, to the great disappointment of Rasles, who, in his letters to the governor of Canada, lamented the unsteady and irresolute behaviour of the Indians. An ' See Note II., at the end of the volume. * When some of the New England traders, who occasionally met with him, threatened him with the vengeance of their countrymen, if they should ever take Norridgewock, his answer was merely a significant accentuation of the monosyllable, " /f." 3 The conduct of his own countrymen, in this respect, to the savages was at least equally reprehensible. "We know," says Charlevoix, " that an Indian will give all that he is worth for one glass of brandy. -Against this strong temptation to our traders, neither the exclama- tions of tiieir pastors, nor the zeal and authority of the magistrates, nor respect for the laws, nor the dread of the judgments of the Almighty, have proved of anv avail. Even in the streets of Montreal are seen the most shocking spectacles, the never-failing effects of the di-unkenness of these savages," &c. 70 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. unfriendly peace ensued, checkered with abundance of dispute, and at length, in the autumn of this year [August, 1720], more seriously interrupted by an attack on some traders who resorted annually from Massachusetts to Canso, in Nova Scotia, where the^ Indians, overpowering them by surprise, robbed them of all their wares, and put several of them to death. This outrage excited the greater indignation, when it was known that some of the French at Cape Breton had openly assisted the Indian enterprise ; and notwithstanding the anxious desire of Governor Shute to avoid an imme- diate recourse to hostihties, the Massachusetts assembly passed an ordi- nance for levying a force and compelling the Indians to make satisfaction for the insult and injury they had committed. This ordinance was resented by Shute as an invasion of his prerogative ; and as the council united with him in denying its validity, no farther prosecution of its vindictive purpose was attempted for the present. Encouraged by their impunity, the Indians continued to repeat their insults and menaces ; and a strong party of them, marching with French colors to a frontier settlement of New England, ve- hemently accused the colonists of wresting from them the territory which God had bestowed on their race, and declared that they had now come to expel the intruders for ever. [1721.] After a long conference with some of the provincial officers, their fickleness, or their sense of equity, again pre- vailed ; they freely acknowledged that the claims of the colonists were just, and solemnly protested that they would never in future molest them. On returning to their settlements around Norridgewock, they were ashamed to confess the dereliction of their hostile purpose, and at once consoled their vanity, and deceived their pastor, Rasles, by vaunting the courage and firmness they pretended to have exerted in menacing the English, and in sternly refusing to make any concessions to those hostile heretics.^ But whatever pleasure Rasles might have derived from this assurance was speed- ily counterbalanced by an open demonstration of pacific purpose towards the rivals of his countrymen. On the death of their chief, the Indians, in opposition to Rasles' urgent advice, elected for his successor a sachem who had always deprecated war with the Enghsh ; and by his influence the tribes were persuaded to send hostages to Boston as sureties for their good behaviour, and for the indem- nification of the injury inflicted on the colonists at Canso. Vaudreuil, the governor of Canada, was highly displeased and alarmed by this intelligence. In a letter to Rasles, he condemned the faint-hearted demeanour, as he termed it, of the Indians, and entreated the priest still to persist in stimu- lating, them to warlike purpose. In aid of Rasles' exertions, Vaudreuil pre- vailed with all his Indian alhes in Canada to send deputies to Norridgewock, to assure the Indians there of powerful support in any war they might under- take with New England. The government of Massachusetts, apprized of these transactions, indignantly complained of the perfidious hostility of the French governor in thus stirring up enemies against them during the sub- sistence of peace between France and England. But Vaudreuil was able to justify himself to his sovereign ; and apprehended Httle danger to his rep- utation from charges which the accusers were not likely ever to be able to substantiate by satisfactory proof. An application was then made to the In- dians, requiring them to deliver up Rasles ; and on their refusal, a party of ^ To such tergiversation as this we may impute the erroneous accounts of these treaties and transactions by Charlevoix and other French writers. CHAP. II.] LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR DUMMER. 7| New England militia made a sudden incursion into the territory of Norridge- vvock, and would have seized the priest, if the Indians had not seasonably conveyed him beyond their reach. [November, 1721.] The assailants, however, obtained possession of Rasles' strong-box and of all his papers, which were found to contain the amplest proof of the intrigues by which he and Vaudreuil fomented the hostility of the Indians against the English. ^ This insult to their principal settlement and their beloved pastor failed not to excite the resentment of the Indians ; though the expediency of deliberate preparation restrained the infliction of their vengeance for a while. [1722.^] At length, however, it broke forth in such a burst of predatory hostility on the frontiers of New England, as provoked a declaration of war from the governments of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Nev- ertheless, hopes of peace were still indulged by Governor Shute, who, though a brave officer, and incapable of declining the hostile overtures of a civilized antagonist, displayed extreme reluctance to martial controversy with savages ; and an attempt was made to intimidate the Eastern Indians into submission by the intervention of the Six Nations, whose friendship the State of New York, by the wise counsels of Governor Burnet, was sedulously endeavouring to recultivate. By the persuasions of Burnet, the Six Nations were induced to send deputies to New England, who, after a conference with Shute and the Massachusetts assembly (whose disagree- ment seems not to have escaped their penetration), consented to threaten the Eastern Indians with an invasion from the confederated tribes, unless an immediate peace were concluded with the Enghsh. But whether the threat was feebly expressed, or the Eastern Indians were fortified by rage and hope against its influence, they paid no attention to it ; and a series of skirmish- ing engagements ensued between them and the provincial militia. The savages, to whose success surprise and sudden attack were essential, sus- tained some defeats ; but the military operations of the colonists were un- important, and the efficacy of them was obstructed by the incessant disputes and collisions between Shute and the assembly of Massachusetts. In the close of this year, Shute, finding that the public prejudice against him daily increased, and having privately obtained permission from the king, sud- denly departed from the scene of his authority, and returned to England. The supreme command in Massachusetts devolved, in consequence, on WiUiam Dummer, the Heutenant-governor, who, though he had incurred some popular jealousy from his friendship with Shute, never ceased to de- mean himself with decent dignity, real patriotism, and sound discretion. He was a stranger to that punctilious pride which magnifies disagreements, prolongs collisions, and never graciously yields the strictness of political the- ory and ordinance to the irregular, but irresistible, movements of the general will. When he first convoked the two houses of assembly, — and, without alluding to the unhappy dissensions that had prevailed, announced that he was ready to unite with them in any measure calculated to promote the king's service and the good of the province, — Sewell, an aged counsellor, former- ly a judge, and who had held office during the subsistence of the first pro- ' Among his papers was found a dictionary, which he had composed, of the Norridgewock language, and which was deposited in the library of Harvard College. Hohnes. ' This year the French colony of Louisiana was reduced to such straits, that many of the in- habitants forsook it, and united themselves to the English colonists in Carolina. The number of these emigrants was so great, that the Carolinians were much incommoded by them, and advised Bienville, the French governor of Louisiana, to take measures for preventing the far- ther desertion of his province. Holmes. 72 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [COOK VHI. vincial charter, addressed the audience with a gravity and simplicity of manner, and a primitive style of eloquence, characteristic of the fathers of New England. " If your Honor and the honorable board please to give me leave," he said, " I would speak a word or two upon this solemn oc- casion. Although the unerring providence of God has brought your Honor to the chair of government in a cloudy and tempestuous season, yet you have this for your encouragement, that the people you have to do with are a part of the Israel of God, and you may expect to have of the prudence and patience of Moses communicated to you for your conduct. It is evident that our Almighty Saviour counselled the first planters to remove hither and settle here ; and they dutifully followed his advice ; and therefore he will never leave nor forsake them nor theirs : so that your Honor must needs be happy in sincerely seeking their happiness and welfare, which your birth and education will incline you to do. Difficilia qua;, pulchra, I promise myself that they who sit at this board will yield their faithful ad- vice to your Honor, according to the duty of their place." The prediction of this venerable counsellor was fulfilled : and, though some jealousy con- tinued for a while to attach to the deputy-governor, and prompted the assem- bly to various acts of encroachment upon his functions, yet he finally suc- ceeded in refuting injurious suspicion by steady virtue and unaffected mod- eration ; and was enabled to conduct the government with harmony, satis- faction, and respect.^ The Norridgewock Indians, aided now by the cooperation of all the other tribes in alliance with the French, carried on the war with great fury and havoc on the frontiers of New England. [1723.^] Among other inhabitants of New Hampshire who endured their ravages, were certain families of the Quaker persuasion ; of whom some were killed and scalped, and others, carried away into captivity, were treated with peculiar cruelty, for refusing, at the command of their captors, to dance^ — a pastime pro- hibited by the sober canons of Quakerism. The escape of one Quaker was ascribed to his practice of keeping firearms in his house, a circumstance which perhaps contributed to the destruction of his brethren, by weakening the safeguard of their pacific principles. The Indian hostilities were en- countered and retorted with the utmost skill and bravery by the govern- ment and the militia of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, aided by a subsidiary force from Connecticut. The assembly of Connecticut at first declined to participate in the war, judging it a mere insignificant partial quarrel with the Norridgewocks, and being induced to doubt of its justice by the reluctance to engage in it that Governor Shute manifested. But, finally ascertaining that their doubts had wronged the people of Massachu- setts, and perceiving the extended hostilities in which this people were in- volved by French intrigue, they readily furnished a liberal contingent of troops and money to aid their friends in a war, from the troubles of which their own local situation might have enabled them to enjoy a cheap and selfish exemption. The Six Nations, notwithstanding the assurance they gave in the preceding year, declined publicly or generally to espouse the quarrel of the colonists ; but declared that they had signified to their young men, that any who were so disposed might unite themselves with the New England forces. Only a very few of the Mohawks embraced this per- ' Oldmixon. Hutchinson. W. Smith. Belknap. Trumbull. Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society. * Dr. Increase Mather died this year at Boston, at the age of eighty-five. , ' ' ' CHAP. II.] WAR WITH THE EASTERN INDIANS. 73 mission, and their services were brief and inefficient. To particularize the successive expeditions and petty engagements of which this Indian war was productive would involve a detail too cumbrous and minute for general history. The skilful vigor and heroic intrepidity of the colonists have been honorably commemorated by the provincial annalists, in their ample narrations of the various martial achievements, which, among other im- portant results, contributed to preserve among the colonial population a spirit of military enterprise, and familiarized great numbers of persons with the hardships, dangers, and operations of war. The most remarkable event by which the war was signalized was the sudden attack and entire destruction of the Indian settlement of Norridge- wock by a force consisting of four companies of the provincial militia, amounting in all to two hundred and eight men. [1724.] The Indians were completely surprised, and defeated with great slaughter. The New England officers had given orders to spare Rasles, the Jesuit, whom they ardently desired to take prisoner ; but, to their great disappointment, this re- markable man was slain by a soldier to whom he refused to surrender ^ Both the Catholic Indians and their French allies were much scandalized by what they deemed the sacrilegious impiety of the victors, who account- ed it no sacrilege at all to strip Rasles' chapel of its plate, and valued themselves on testifying a zealous abhorrence of idolatry by destroying the crucifixes and other Cathohc imagery which the chapel and village displayed. The Norridgewock tribe, after this fatal blow, never recovered their former strength or spirit ; but the war was still continued by their allies, the Pe- nobscots, and the Canadian auxiliaries. The conduct which the British colonists imputed to Vaudreuil, the gov- ernor of Canada, was so flagrant a breach of the treaty of peace subsisting between the crowns of England and France, and was so strongly attested by the additional evidence recently obtained by the colonists, that, in spite of the failure of their previous application, they were induced again to hope that a spirited remonstrance might inspire him with alarm at the responsi- bility he was incurring, and produce some beneficial effect. [1725.] With this view, commissioners were despatched to Canada by Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with instructions to demand from Vaudreuil restitution of the captives who had been carried within his jurisdiction, and to remon- strate with him on his unjust and dishonorable policy in instigating the In- dians to hostilities with the people of New England. Vaudreuil received the envoys with great politeness, and at first attempted to deny that he had given any countenance whatever to the enemies of their countrymen ; but, closely pressed with proofs of his intrigues, which he was unprepared to meet, and especially with the production of his letters to Rasles, the Jesuit, which appeared to strike him with a penetrative shame, he could not help perceiving that the interest of his reputation, as a man of honor, im- periously demanded that the complaints of New England should be stifled as quickly as possible ; and, accordingly, he promised to do everything in his power to dispose the Indians to peace, and to induce them to re- s-tore their captives for a reasonable ransom. The English commissioners remarked that th ey found the governor much more candid and amenable ' About twenty vears after the death of Rasles, his hostile policy among the Indians was re- sumed and employed by another Jesuit, of equal, if not higher, capacity, against the English in Georgia. See a note to Book IX., post. VOL. II. 10 74 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. to reason, justice, and humanity, when they conversed with him alone, than when any of the French Jesuits were present ; and that Vaudreuil, no less than the Indians, was manifestly awed and controlled by these ecclesiastics, who possessed at this time a flourishing seminary and extensive influence in Canada. The benefit of this embassy was experienced soon after in the discontin- uance of hostilities by the Indians of Canada, and the proposition of peace and friendship by the tribes inhabiting the eastern quarters of New England. A treaty was accordingly negotiated with them soon after by Dummer and Wentworth, the deputy-governors of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and by one of the officers of the British government in Nova Scotia ; and, unlike the fate of former pactions, it was followed by a peace of long du- ration. This unusual result proceeded from no peculiar excellence in the treaty, which differed not from the former ones in any material respect ; but from the prudence of Dummer and the Massachusetts assembly, in es- tablishing without farther delay the trading-houses formerly projected at the rivers St. George, Kennebec, and Saco, where the Indians speedily found, that, in exchange for their furs and skins, they were supplied with the European goods which they wanted on better terms than they obtained from the French, or even the private English traders. A law was then en- acted for restraining private traffic with the Indians ; but the estabhshment of the pubhc trading-houses, where goods were furnished at a cheaper rate than private traders could aflx)rd, rendered the law as superfluous, as, with- out this measure, it would have been unavailing. Dummer engaged that the Indians should be suppHed with goods at the same prices for which they were sold in Boston ; and the government endeavoured to reconcile this paction with commercial advantage, by making wholesale purchases of goods, which were afterwards disposed of to the Indians at the Boston retail prices. But the profit thence accruing was so inadequate to the charge of trading-houses, truck-masters, garrisons, and the vessels employed in transporting the goods, that the province was practically subjected to a considerable tribute for the benefit of the Indians. However, the measure was generally approved, as tending to the preservation of peace, and more reputable than the payment of a pension expressly assigned for this pur- pose.^ Meanwhile, Governor Shute was actively employed in prosecuting vin- dictive measures at the court of London against the assembly of Massachu- setts ; to which there was communicated, in the year 1723, a summons to answer the complaint he exhibited to the king in council. This complaint charged the assembly with various encroachments on the royal prerogative ; particularly in the tenor of their resolutions with respect to the reserved pine-trees ; in refusing to admit the governor's negative on their choice of a speaker ; in assuming the appointment of public fasts ; in interrupting their own sessions by long adjournments ; and in suspending military officers, and arrogating the direction of military operations. The house of representa- * The cruelties which the Indians had committed during this war seem to have created the most violent antipathy against the whole Indian race in the minds of the settlers on the fron- tiers of New Hampshire. The Indians kept these feelings alive after the peace by visiting the survivors of families who had suffered from their hostilities, and boasting of the tortures they had inflicted on their relatives. The consequence was, that, " when any person was arrested for killing an Indian in time of peace, he was either forcibly rescued from the hands of justice, or, if brought to trial, invariably acquitted ; it being impossible to empanel a jury, some of whom had not suffered by the Indians, either in their persons or families." Belknap. CHAP. II.] EXPLANATORY CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS. 75 lives at first received this formidable intimation with more spirit than pru- dence, — voting, with contemptuous brevity, that the complaint was ground- less, and that an agent should be instructed to employ lawyers to justify their conduct. But as the council unanimously refused to concur in a proceeding so wantonly insolent, the assembly transmitted a particular an- swer to the several articles of complaint, and an address to the king, in which they justified every part of their behaviour. They also despatched Cooke, who had been the chief advocate of all the obnoxious measures, to defend them in England. The provincial council, who dissented from the house of representatives on every point embraced in the governor's complaint, except the disputed negative on the choice of a speaker, composed an ad- dress to the king on this point, but forbore to allude to the others, lest they should strengthen the hands of the enemies of provincial liberty at the British court. A more moderate temper, meanwhile, was gradually dis- closed in the house of representatives, of which one of the first indications was the prudent measure of reappointing their experienced friend and advocate, Jeremiah Dummer, to the office of provincial agent in Britain. But, at length, after divers debates and discussions at London respecting the articles of complaint, the reports of the attorney and solicitor-general, and of the Lords of Trade, and finally the determination of the king in coun- cil, proved, all, in the most unqualified terms, unfavorable to the Massachu- setts assembly. The provincial agents, in this emergency, by the advice of their English friends, consented to acknowledge that the proceedings of the assembly had been faulty in relation to the king's woods and the mterference with military operations, and pledged themselves that such violation of constitutional principles would not again be repeated. By the prudent conduct of the agents, and the interest of the English friends of the province, the British government was induced to propose merely that an explanatory charter should be accepted by the assembly, ex- pressly declaring the governor's power to negative the speaker, and limiting the assembly's adjournment by act of its own will to two days ; — with the intimation, that, if this lenient ofl^er were rejected, the whole controversy between Shute and the assembly would be submitted to the British par- liament. An explanatory charter to the foregoing effect was accordingly prepared, and transmitted to Boston for the approbation or rejection of the assembly. [August 20, 1725.] Though the temper of the house was now reduced to a far more moderate strain than it had formerly indulged, yet, of eighty representatives of the people, no fewer than thirty-two voted that the charter should be rejected ; and a similar opposition was made by four members of the council. [Jan. 15, 1726.] But, by a majority in both these chambers, a resolution was carried for accepting the charter, and couched in terms of loyalty and satisfaction that imported rather the reception of a favor than the resignation of a right. This accommodating behaviour of the assembly, by which a controversy that at one time be- tokened the most dangerous consequences was amicably composed, has been ascribed in a considerable degree to the prudence of William "Dum- mer, the lieutenant-governor, and the influence which his liberal administra- tion had enabled him to acquire. An interruption of the general harmony was portended by the announcement of Shute's approaching return, which, hovyever, he was happily induced to defer by reflecting that he had strangely omitted to complain of the treatment he had received in respect of salary, 76 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. and to obtain any favorable provision with regard to a matter so deeply- interesting to him. While he was assailing the provincial agents with re- newed complaints on this subject, and tarrying at London in lingering diffi- dence of their soothing assurances that the province would doubtless provide for him in a handsome manner, his return was intercepted for ever by the death of the king. On the accession of George the Second to the British throne, the intrigues of some London merchants and of a faction in the prov- ince of New York, aided by the interest of Colonel Montgomery, who had been groom of the bedchamber to the new monarch while he was Prince of Wales, caused Burnet to be removed from New York, — the command of which and of New Jersey was committed to Montgomery ; and, as a compensation to Burnet, the government of Massachusetts and New Hamp- shire, withdrawn from Shute, was conferred upon him.^ The disappointment which Burnet sustained by these ministerial arrange- ments was very severe, and perceptibly affected his health and spirits. Though embarrassed in his pecuniary circumstances, and an enemy to pomp and parade, he had conducted himself with such disinterestedness and generosity in New York and New Jersey, that he carried thence noth- ing with him to New England but the hbrary which accompanied him from Britain. The hopes he had begun to indulge of repairing his fortune, and of executing his political schemes for the advantage of New York, he was now compelled to forego, in order to assume the direction of a people whose reported jealousy of their governors excited in his mind the most disagreeable forebodings of an unquiet administration. Very different were the sentiments which his appointment inspired in the people of New England, who regarded the name of Burnet as a pledge of civil and re- ligious liberty, and beheld with approving eye the wisdom and integrity by which already this name was illustrated in America. A deputation was sent to conduct him in state to his new government ;^ and such a multhude of carriages and horsemen thronged to meet his approach to Boston, that he entered the town with a more numerous attendance and more splendid cavalcade than ever before or after graced the arrival of a British governor. But the apprehensions of Burnet were unhappily fulfilled, and the provincial expectations completely disappointed. In New York and New Jersey he was distinguished by his indifference with respect to his own official .emoluments ; but, either from a change in his temper, or from the strain and tenor of the instructions which he now received from Britain, this was the object of his earhest and most eager concern in Massachusetts and New Hampshire ; and the people heard with little pleasure the magnificent reception they had given him cited as a mani- fest proof of the abihty of the country to afford him a large and perma- * Hutchinson. Belknap. Douglass. Trumbull. Holmes. W. Smith. 2 " One of the committee who went from Boston to meet him on the borders of Rhode Island, and conduct him to the seat of government, was the facetious Colonel Tailer. Burnet complained of the long graces which were said by clergymen on the road, and asked Tailer when they would shorten. He answered, ' The graces will increase in length till you come to Boston ; after that, they will shorten till you come to your government of New Hampshire, where your Excellency will find no grace at all.' " Belknap. Though a pious man, Burnet laid very little stress on modes and forms. "A little more caution and conformity to the different ages, manners, customs, and even prejudices of different companies would have been more politic ; but his open, undisguised mind could not submit to it. Being asked to iline with an old charier senator^ who retained the custom of saying grace sitting, the grave gentleman desired to know which would be more agreeable to his Excellency, that grace should be said standing or sitting; the governor replied, ' Standing or sitting, any way or no way, just CHAP. II.] BURNET GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 77 nent income. The assembly of New Hampshire consented to settle on him for three years an annual salary of two hundred pounds ; ^ but the assem- bly of Massachusetts, though they voted to him at once the sum of four- teen hundred pounds, besides handsome presents for his travelling expenses, refused to enact any ordinance for a fixed or permanent salary. It was in vain that he reminded them, that the wisdom of parliament, in the parent state, had made it an established custom to grant the civil list to the king for life, and expressed his hope that the representatives of the people in Massachusetts would not acknowledge themselves exceeded in duty to his Majesty by any portion of his subjects. It was forcibly answered by the assembly, that the cases were widely different ; that the king was the com- mon father of his people, and that his interests were inseparably united with theirs ; whereas a provincial governor, after the close of his brief administration, was affected neither by the welfare nor by the decay of the society over which he had presided, and could not, therefore, justly expect the same confidence from it which the nation at large reposed in the monarch. The governor demanded if it were consistent with reason or justice, that he should be fettered in the discharge of his duty to the king by dependence on the people for the means of subsistence ; and the assembly endeavoured to defeat or diminish the force of this, his strongest plea, by declaring their willingness to determine, annually, his salary, by a vote referring to the cur- rent and not to the past year ; protesting withal that it would be time for him to complain when an inadequate or dishonorable provision was ten- dered. Burnet replied by reminding them reproachfully of the manner in which they had dealt with Shute ; and in addition to the impohcy of thus identifying himself with the case of that unpopular governor, he committed the imprudence of threatening that the legislature of Great Britain would allocate a fixed salary upon the province, '•'■ and 'perhaps do something else besides ^^^ — a vague menace of danger, which excited equal jealousy and in- dignation. He explained the meaning of it, in the progress of the contro- versy, by assuring them, that, if the British government should be provoked to call the attention of parliament to their conduct, the provincial charter would be dissolved without the slightest scruple or opposition. The assem- bly vainly solicited him to accept the sums they had voted, and to adjourn their session. He declared he was not at liberty to accept any thing but a fixed salary ; and, availing himself of the powers conferred on the gov- ernor by the late explanatory charter, he refused to prorogue them, un- less they would comply with his demands. Some time after, he adjourned the session from Boston to the town of Salem, which he remarked, with unbecoming levity, was a name propitious to harmony ; and declared that he would next try the effect of a session at the town of Concord. But this jocular treatment of an affair of great public interest and importance was not more effectual than his arguments and menaces had been ; and the as- sembly, in their several migrations, evinced a spirit not to be affected by change of place. ^ Some of the members now began to regret Governor Shute, who had declared that he would contentedly accept a salary of five hundred pounds a year ; while Burnet refused to accept a tender of more ' By this assembly it was enacted that the qualification of an elector of New Hampshire should be a real estate of the value of fifty pounds. ' The dispute between Burnet and the Massachusetts assembly excited a good deal of in- terest in the other American provinces, and in particular attracted the comments of the Vennsylvanian newspapers, which were first established about this time. Franklin's Meinoirg. 78 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIIl. than double this amount. Strongly impressed with the justice of their cause, the assembly, in an address to the crown, declared that they were resolved, and were convinced that the same purpose would also prevail with succeeding assemblies, to provide " ample and honorable support " to the royal governor ; but that their fidelity to their constituents would not per- mit them, by the estabhshment of a fixed salary, to separate the interest of the governor from the general interest of the province. The presentation of this address, and the support of the assembly's plea at the court of London, were confided to the provincial agent, in conjunction with Jonathan Belcher, whose public spirit on a former occasion we have already re- marked, and who now exerted the utmost zeal to promote the success of his countrymen in a controversy so warmly and deeply interesting to them. As the assembly were precluded, by their disagreement with the govern- or, from levying money to defray the expenses incurred by their agents in England, the funds requisite for this purpose were contributed by the mer- chants of Boston, whom the assembly thanked for their patriotism, and promised with all convenient speed to reimburse. But they were very soon apprized that their address to the king had been unfavorably received, and that the Lords of Trade had pronounced in a report to the privy council, that Massachusetts, with the most ungrateful disloyalty, was endeavouring to wrest the small remains of prerogative from the hands of the crown, in order to render itself independent of the parent state ; and had recom- mended an immediate introduction of the controversy between the provin- cial assembly and the governor to the attention of parhament. Grieved, but not dismayed, by this intelHgence, the assembly still refused to yield to the governor's demand ; protesting that it was better that the liberties of the people should be withdrawn by the British parliament, than surren- dered by their own representatives. In this determination they were en- couraged to persist by the advice of the provincial agents at London, who soon after communicated their private opinion, that, notwithstanding the rec- ommendation of the Lords of Trade and the privy council, the royal min- isters had no serious intention of bringing the matter under the consideration of parhament. The assembly, in order to animate the popular resolution, caused this private communication from the agents to be printed and pub- lished ; — an imprudent step, which might have been attended with the most injurious consequences to the province, if an alteration of the posture of affairs had not been produced by the sudden and unexpected death of the governor. The resentment he had excited did not survive him for a moment ; so great a peacemaker and tamer of human enmity, sometimes, is death. It was universally acknowledged that he had displayed an hon- orable, disinterested, and generous disposition in every particular of his short administration, except in the one unhappy instance in which he of- fended by an inflexible adherence to illiberal instructions ; and he was conducted to the grave with the respectful solemnity of a public funeral, and with demonstrations of esteem creditable alike to the liberality of those who entertained this sentiment, and to the merit of the individual who inspired it. Jonathan Belcher, who was still in England, on learning Burnet's death, employed all the interest of the connections he had acquired as deputy of the province, to procure for himself the vacant appointment ; and the British government were induced to bestow it upon him by the hope that CHAP. II.] BELCHER GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 79 his influence with his countrymen would be successfully exerted to procure their submission to the royal instructions with regard to a permanent salary. It would seem, indeed, that he gave somq pledge or assurance to this ef- fect ; and perhaps his view of the merits of the controversy was altered by the elevated sphere from which he now regarded it, and by the altered in- terest he acquired in its issue : the same constitutional jealousy of the ad- ministrators of executive authority, which he had hitherto deemed a principle deserving continual and unrelaxed application, might not improbably seem to him illiberal and affronting when it was directed against his own person. On his arrival in the province (in the following year [1730]), his first ad- dress to the assembly conveyed an urgent application in behalf of the very measure against which his counsel and his exertions had been recently di- rected. He read to the assembly the royal instructions, by which he was required to demand a fixed salary, and in which it was signified, that, if this demand were resisted any longer, " his Majesty will find himself under a necessity of laying the undutiful behaviour of the province before the legis- lature of Great Britain, not only in this single instance, but in many others of the same nature and tendency, whereby it manifestly appears that the as- sembly, for some years last past, have attempted, by unwarrantable practices, to weaken, if not cast off, the obedience they owe to the crown, and the dependence which all colonies ought to have on the mother country.''^ The instructions concluded by directing the governor, in case of the non-compli- ance of the assembly, to return straightway to Great Britain. He added, that he was commanded to inform them that the king's great lenity and goodness had hitherto withheld this controversy from the consideration of parliament, in order yet to give them a final opportunity of voluntarily dem- onstrating a due regard to the suggestions of royal wisdom. A merely selfish apostate from popular principles would, perhaps, have added no far- ther comment on this formidable message. But Belcher continued to ad- dress the house in a speech which affords a memorable example of the absurdity into which a man of sense, talent, and honor may be driven, when he swerves from the straight, simple paths of probity and consistency. He reminded the people of the exertions he had made to defend them from the measure which he now required them to adopt ; and declared that his opinion of their past conduct in resisting it was quite unaltered. But they had now, he said, struggled long enough to perceive that farther resistance was unavaihng, and ought accordingly to yield. They had hitherto, he al- lowed, opposed the royal injunctions with the same commendable patriotism with which Cato, in his httle provincial senate of Utica, defied the tyran- nical mandates of Caesar ; but he hoped that they would not imitate the folly of Cato in committing suicide, instead of prudently submitting to irre- sistible power. In conclusion, he cautioned them to remember that the illustrative case of Cato was not in all respects parallel to their situation ; inasmuch as Caesar was a tyrant,, whereas the British king was the protector of the hberties of his subjects. This ridiculous harangue seems to have pro- duced no other effect than that of diminishing, by its glaring absurdity, the displeasure which Belcher's conduct was calculated to provoke. The assembly conceived that they were at once exemplifying the clas- sical parallel which he suggested, and evading the immoral catastrophe which he condemned, by declining all voluntary accession to the injury of their own liberties. They voted him a handsome reward for his services m gQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VHI. England, and the sum of one thousand pounds for the management of public affairs in the province, without any specification of the period of time to which this recompense corresponded ; and firmly declined making any other or farther provision. Belcher, then despairing of success, endeavoured to obtain a relaxation of his instructions, and easily prevailed with the assem- bly to present an address to the crown soliciting pernjission for him to ac- cept the sums that were voted. This permission was granted, on condition of his persisting to urge the royal instructions, — a stipulation to which Belcher ceased to pay any attention, and which at length the British gov- ernment itself abandoned by the communication of a general permission to accept whatever grants the assembly might think proper to bestow. Thus, successfully for Massachusetts, terminated her long and important con- troversy with the crown respecting the emoluments of the royal governors, whose dependence on the popular approbation of their conduct was finally ascertained. This result, and the manifest satisfaction with which it was regarded by Belcher, secured to him some years of tranquil and popular administration in Massachusetts ; but exposed him to the jealous suspicions of the British ministers, of which he experienced the inconvenience in his government of New Hampshire. The functions of the deputy-governor of this province, and of surveyor of the king's woods in New England, had been recently conferred by the British ministers on Colonel Dunbar, an Irish officer, whose only recommendation to such important trusts appears to have been his single-minded devotion to royal prerogative and despotic policy. Convinced of his merit in this respect, the British ministry retained him in his office as a proper counterpoise to Belcher, who, though created by themselves the superior officer of Dunbar, vainly complained of the in- trigues by which his deputy endeavoured to collect a party against him. In the execution of the unpopular duties connected with his office of surveyor of woods, Dunbar conducted himself with a violence and severity that in some instances produced open resistance from the inhabitants ; and because Belcher, sensible of the inexpediency of judicial procedure directed against a whole people, and aware of the provocation that Dunbar's insolence had given, contented himself with issuing a proclamation commanding the magis- trates to execute and warning the people to obey the laws, he was denounced to the British ministers by Dunbar as the patron of the rioters and the ene- my of royal prerogative. ^ It is not easy to understand the policy of the British government in the controversies we have remarked with Massachusetts, nor, indeed, to be- lieve that any consistent scheme of policy w^as actually entertained or pur- sued. So often did the king's ministers forego their own solemn threats to submit the whole controversy between the crown and the province to the consideration of parliament,' that the provincial assembly seems at length to have supposed that this backwardness must have been caused by a secret conviction that the parHament was uiclined to aid the colonists in resisting the royal prerogative. Rashly adopting this erroneous supposition, or some other not less delusive notion, the Massachusetts assembly, a few ' Oldmixon. Hutchinson. Belknap. W.Smith. S.Smith. In a collection of original drafts of state papers, preserved by the late George Chalmers, and kindly submitted to my perusal by his executor, I find a letter (dated the 5th of March, 1731) from the Lords of Trade to the Duke of Newcastle, strongly recommending the support of Colonel Dunbar ; and add- ing, that, " In Massachusetts Bay, it is but too evident that any man who does his duty to the crown makes himself liable to the ill-will of the people. ' CHAP. II.] FRENCH FORT AT CROWN POINT. 81 years after, departed from its usual policy, and itself invoked parliamentary interposition, by presenting a petition to the House of Commons [1733], in which it was contended that the privilege of directing and controlling the issues from the provincial treasury ought to belong, not to the governor (to whom the charter expressly reserved it), but to the representatives of the people. The issue of this proceeding is calculated to increase our sur- prise that the ministry should have hesitated any longer to extend the range of parliamentary interposition beyond this isolated topic of dispute ; for the House of Commons, on considering the Massachusetts petition, voted imme- diately that it " was frivolous and groundless ^ an high insult upon his Ma- jesty'' s government^ and tending to shake off the dependency of the said colony upon this kingdom^ to which by law and right they are and ought to he subject.'''' A member, at the same time, having called the attention of the House to a censure which the Massachusetts assembly had passed on its agent, Jeremiah Dummer, for attending a parliamentary committee which required him to furnish information respecting one of the American trade acts, — the House unanimously resolved, " that the presuming to call any person to account^ or pass a censure upon him^ for evidence given by such person before the House., was an audacious proceedings and a high violation of the privileges of this House.'''' ^ Notwithstanding these demonstrations of the readiness of parliament to lend its powerful aid to promote the ascend- ency of the parent state and curb the provincial assembly, the ministers of the crown, averse to the introduction of a wide and dehcate discussion of colonial affairs and schemes of colonial policy, with which they were but slenderly acquainted, and fearful, perhaps, of strengthening the influence and opposition of the British Tories, and increasing the general distractions of the empire, — or, perhaps, from mere indolence and neglect, — forbore to execute their repeated threats of impeaching the general conduct of Mas- sachusetts before the parliament, and exposing the province to the extremity of parliamentary vengeance. During the period that had already intervened since the peace between New England and the Eastern Indians, and for many years after, the history of Rhode Island and Connecticut consists of nothing more remarkable than the foundation and extension of the towns and villages that were formed within the jurisdictions of these States. At New York, a fallacious tran- quillity was produced by the calm, . negligent indolence of Montgomery, who had abetted the intrigues against Burnet with no other view than to possess himself of an office and salary which a premature death suffered him but a short time to enjoy. The intrigues which had conduced to his elevation now attained their utmost success, in procuring an order from the king in council, by which all the laws suggested by Burnet and enacted by the assembly of New York, with regard to commerce with Canada, were repealed. [1729.] This measure was productive of the most pernicious consequences ; tending to undermine the English trade at Oswego, to pro- mote the French commerce at Niagara, and to alienate the Six Nations from their fidelity to Great Britain.^ The French perceived and diligently im- proved their advantage. Before three years more had elapsed, they erected [1731] a fort at Crown Point, in the very centre of the territories of the Six Nations, and consequently within the provincial limits of New York. This commanding post not only enabled them to prevent the attempts of * Oldmixon. Gordon. 2 Trumbull. W. Smith. VOL. II. 11 32 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. English troops to penetrate into Canada, but afforded a convenient magazine to their own scouting parties, and a stronghold, to which, in future wars, their Indian auxiliaries might retreat from plundering and scalping expedi- tions against the English frontiers. So careless and supine w^as the govern- ment of New York, that the first intimation it received of this encroachment, and of its obvious consequences, proceeded from Governor Belcher and the assembly of Massachusetts, who offered to unite in an embassy to Canada, and in every ulterior measure that might be requisite to compel the French to evacuate their settlement at Crown Point. But this offer, and the important subject to which it related, experienced equal neglect ; although four companies of soldiers were now maintained by the crown, at an annual charge of nearly eight thousand pounds, at New York.^ The change which a revolutionary movement had introduced into the gov- ernment of South Carolina, about nine years before, was now legally ascer- tained and completed. A corresponding change was likewise extended to the northern province. Sir Francis Nicholson, who administered the gov- ernment of South Carohna during four years, conducted himself in this sit- uation with a judicious and spirited attention to the public welfare, which proved highly grateful to the inhabitants, and honorably brightened the clos- ing scene of his political life in America. The intriguing politician seemed now to be lost in the eager, busy, and ostentatious patron of public improve- ment ; and the distinction which he formerly courted from an enlargement of his authority, he w^as now contented to derive from a liberal and pop- ular exercise of it. He promoted the establishment of schools and the spread of education, contributing his own time and money in aid of these useful purposes ; and he prevailed with the English Society for propagating the Gospel to send a number of clergymen to the province, and endow them with liberal salaries in addition to the provincial stipends. He concluded a treaty of peace with the powerful Indian tribe called the Creeks ; and by presents and flattering attentions gained the friendship of the still more powerful Cherokees, whose numbers amounted to twenty thousand persons, of whom six thousand were warriors. Although Britain and Spain had pub- licly signified their commands to Nicholson and the governor of Florida to maintain a friendly intercourse between the two settlements, it was very soon discovered that the remains of the Yamassee tribe, who took refuge after their defeat within the Spanish territory, were encouraged by the Spaniards in the predatory incursions by which they still occasionally har- assed the frontier settlements of Carolina ; and the government of this prov- ince, perceiving the necessity of guarding against the insidious hostility of its rival, began to cultivate the friendship of the Cherokees with a diligence and address that reminds us of the ancient policy of New York with regard to the Six Nations. It was in the present year that the proprietaries of Carolina were finally divested of the authority which they had so long abused, in both the prov- inces distinguished by this name. An act of parliament recognized and sanctioned a treaty that had been concerted with all the proprietaries except Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville (who possessed an eighth share), for the surrender of their titles and interest in Carolina to the king, in con- sideration of the sum of seventeen thousand five hundred pounds.^ Seven ^ W. Smith. Williams's History of Vermont. 2 The proprietaries who sold their shares were Henry, Duke of Beaufort, William, Lord Craven, James Bertie, the Honorable Doddington Greville, Henry Bertie, Mary Danson, Elizabeth More, Sir John Colleton, John Cotton, and Joseph Blake. GHAP. II.] THE CAROLINAS SURREJNDERED TO THE CROWN. g3 eighth parts of the arrears of quitrents due from the colony to the proprieta- ries, and amounting to upwards of nine thousand pounds, were also pur- chased by the crown at the same time for five thousand pounds. Lord Carteret surrendered his interest in the government of the province, but chose to retain his share of the property of the soil, of which an eighth part was assigned to him along the Virginian frontier. The two provinces of North and South Carolina were thus vested in the crown, which hence- forth exercised the prerogative of appointing the governors, by whom the executive power was administered, and nominating the counsellors, who, in concurrence with the provincial representatives, formed the legislative as- semblies. As a boon to the people thus assumed into a nearer connection with the government of the parent state, an act of parliament was passed permitting the planters and merchants of Carolina to export rice directly to any part of Europe southward of Cape Finisterre, in vessels manned ac- cording to the requisitions of the Acts of Navigation.^ In the following year. Sir Alexander Cumming conducted seven chiefs of the Cherokees on a visit to England, where they affixed their marks to a treaty of friendship and alliance with Britain, which was also signed by the Lords of Trade. [1730.] When they were presented to the king, they laid their national emblems of sovereignty at his feet, and formally avowed themselves his subjects, and acknowledged his dominion over all their countrymen, who (they averred) had fully authorized them to declare this recognition. They promised especially to assist the English in the pursuit and recapture of fugitive slaves. They were amazed and con- founded at the splendor of the British court ; comparing the king and queen to the sun and moon, the princes to the stars of heaven, and themselves to invisible motes in the rays of a dazzling effulgence of grandeur ; and, loaded with presents, both useful and ornamental, were reconveyed to their own country by Robert Jolinson, the deposed governor of the proprietaries, to whom the kmg committed, once more, the government of South Carolina, — and whom he enabled to gratify the inhabitants with the intelligence of a total remission of the arrears of their quitrents, and of a royal gift of seventy pieces of cannon for the defence of the colony. [1731.] In consequence of the treaty, and of the impressions which the chiefs received in England and communicated on their return to their countrymen, the Cherokees, for many years, preserved an uninterrupted peace with the colonists. South Carolina now began to make rapid advances in wealth and prosperity. Two years afterwards [1733], anew race of emigrants resorted to it. John Peter Purry, a native of Switzerland, having visited the province and as- certained its resources, applied for a grant of lands to the British govern- ment, which agreed to give him a suitable portion of ground and four hundred pounds sterhng for every hundred able-bodied men whom he should transport from Switzerland to Carolina. He speedily carried thither a hun- dred and seventy poor Switzers, who were not long after joined by two hundred mor^, and founded a town to which they gave the name of Pur- rysburg. The policy adopted by the British government, of employing at the first the same functionaries who had enjoyed commissions under the proprieta- ries, proved more fortunate in South than in North Carohna, where Bur- rington, a weak, imprudent, intemperate man, as governor, and Porter, a * «iut. 2 George II., Caps. 28 and 34. Oldmixon. Hewit. Smollett. Holmes. 34 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. man of the most corrupt disposition and brutal manners, as judge of the Court of Admiralty, rendered the people for a few years as unquiet and unhappy under the royal as they had ever been under the proprietary sway. At length Porter was dismissed, in consequence of an impeachment by the assembly, who ascertained that he had never pronounced a single judgment without having first extorted a bribe ; and Burrington was superseded by Gabriel Johnstone [1734], under whose prudent administration the colony began to reap the benefits of industry, order, and submission to the laws. New settlements were then formed, and the population manifested a vigorous principle of increase. But many years elapsed before the factious, turbu- lent spirit which bad government had nourished among this people subsided. Governor Johnstone, perceiving the necessity of renovating the popular character, at every session pressed the assembly to make some provision for the support of public worship and the education of youth. Attending to the letter, but neglecting the spirit of his advice, they passed a law, totally inconsistent with religious liberty, for the support of a particular church ; and imposed taxes for the professed purpose of founding schools, but always diverted the produce of them to other applications.^ The laws that were enacted for the formation of a religious establishment retained their force, for they were supported by the spirit of party ; but learning (says the histo- rian of this province) was neglected, because she belonged to no party at all. Both in North and in South Carolina, vast emissions of paper money had been made ; a depreciation of the provincial currency ensued to the monstrous extent of seven hundred per cent.; ^ and all the fraud, gambling, and embarrassment naturally consequent on such a state of matters contin- ued long and severely to afflict the inhabitants of both provinces.^ Pennsylvania still continued to enjoy a progressive advance in wealth and population. Sir William Keith was succeeded, in 1725, by Major Gordon, who, conducting himself with firmness, and at the same time with prudence, and moderation, obtained general respect. But the illiberal counsel which Keith had imparted in the commencement of his administration operated af- ter his departure. Crowds of emigrants still continued to flock to Pennsyl- vania ; and in the year 1729 no fewer than six thousand two hundred and eight'* European settlers resorted to this province. Alarmed at such an influx of strangers, the assembly in the same year enacted a law discredita- ble in the highest degree to Pennsylvanian sense and generosity. It was entitled " An Act to prevent Poor and Impotent Persons from being im- ' After the American Revolution, says Williamson, the assembly of North Carolina, aware of the bonds which connect knowledge with liberty, and ignorance with despotism, founded a university in this province. " The honor of endowing a public seminary of learning," he adds, " of instructing the rising generation, and training them up in useful knowledge, was reserved for men, who, by suffering together, had acquired mutual confidence and esteem ; for men, who, by securing their independence, had acquired a proper degree of self-respect and national spirit." * That is, seven hundred pounds of Carolinian money was equivalent to no more than one hundred pounds sterling. ^ Oldmixon. Hewit. Williamson. Charlevoix's Travels. Wynne. ■* They are thus particularized by Anderson, in his Historical Deduction of the Origin of Commerce : — English and Welch passengers and servants ..... 267 Scotch servants 43 Irish passengers and servants 1155 Palatine passengers . 243 At Newcastle, in Delaware, passengers and servants, chiefly from Ireland 4500 Total . . . 6208 CHAP. II.] THOMAS AND JOHN PENN. g5 ported into this Province," and imposed a tax of five shillings per head on all new comers to Pennsylvania.^ This scandalous obstruction of the pro- visions of nature and the common rights of mankind proved far more in- jurious to the authors than to the objects of the law. Many vessels, freighted with industrious and respectable emigrants, altered their original destination to Pennsylvania, and, repairing to New York, New Jersey, and South Carolina, enlarged the strength and prosperity of those colonies with the materials which Pennsylvanian illiberality had so unworthily cast away. Among other pernicious consequences, this Pennsylvanian law tended to rivet the bonds of negro slavery, by increasing the scarcity of free laborers in the province. It was not long before the provincial legislators became sensible of the impolicy of taxing the resort of men to a thinly peopled country, where labor was already inconveniently dear ; and, hastening to repeal their unjust and fooHsh law, they derived, in their turn, a considerable advantage from the oppression which the German emigrants endured shortly after at New York, and which induced great multitudes of these useful settlers to resort to Pennsylvania during the eighteenth century. Thirty-one years were elapsed since Pennsylvania had beheld any member of the family which it acknowledged as its proprietary sovereigns. But now [August, 1732] Thomas Penn, a son of the founder, and himself one of the proprietaries of the province, arrived from England in Penn- sylvania, and continued to reside in it for a number of years. His arrival was greeted with expressions of honor, affection, and esteem from the whole provincial population. Multitudes of people thronged to gaze upon the features of a Penn, and with loud acclamations testified the warmth and sin- cerity of dehght with which they beheld the son of that great man, to whose talent, wisdom, and benevolence they ow^ed their beloved country and happy lot. Entering Philadelphia at the head of a cavalcade of eight hundred horsemen, he received an address of congratulation from the assembly, framed in all the quaint simplicity of Quaker speech, — felicitating him on his arrival, — declaring that the memory of William Penn was an object of everlasting gratitude and honor, — and affirming, with some disregard of accuracy, that all the efforts and artifices of wicked men had ever proved unavailing to disturb the cordiality between the people of Pennsylvania and their proprietaries. [1733.] The Indians received him with equal re- gard ; and, at a conference which he held with them, expressed the pleasure with which they brightened the chain of friendship with a son of Onas. But Thomas Penn was ill fitted to sustain his hereditary honors ; and all trie n dulgence and partiaHty of the colonists were unable to disguise from them how unworthy he was of the sentiments which they associated with the name of Penn. His manners were reserved and forbidding ; his disposition sor- did and illiberal ; and the large private estate which he inherited from his father in Pennsylvania, the only part of his patrimony which he seemed to appreciate or studied to improve. A reception still more affectionate than he had met with attended the arrival of his brother, John Penn, the eldest son of the first proprietary, in the year 1734. " What may we not hope," said the assembly, in their address to him, " from the son of so great a man, educated under his care, and influenced by his example ? " The mild ^ Proud, the Quaker historian, takes no notice of this law. On the contrary, he extols the virtue and wisdom of the Quakers, which, by rendering Pennsylvania a happy country, promoted the rapid increase of its population. 36 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA [BOOK VIII. and benevolent character of John Penn seemed likely to justify these hopes ; but, unfortunately, his stay in the province proved of very short continuance. His return to England was hastened (as his father's had once been) by the conduct of the proprietary of Maryland ; Lord Baltimore having now made one more ineffectual attempt to prevail with the British government to cancel the decree by which his ancestor was deprived of the Delaware territory.^ The act of parliament which we have recently noticed, for promoting the commerce of Carolina, was not the only British statute relative to North America which was enacted since the peace of Utrecht. In the reign of Charles the Second, the provinces of New England were indulged with a free importation of European salt for the encouragement of their fisheries. The- same indulgence was now extended, first to Pennsylvania, and after- wards to New York, by statutes ^ which declared that the interest of Brit- ain required that the inhabitants of these colonies should be induced to extend their fisheries, " which will enable the said inhabitants to purchase more of the British manufactures." In England, landed property had al- ways been exempted from responsibility for debts, except of a rare and peculiar description. But as the English merchants and manufacturers were generally creditors of their American correspondents, it was judged inex- pedient to permit this exemption to have place in the colonies ; and an act of parliament^ was accordingly passed, rendering all lands, houses, negroes, and estates of every description, real or personal, in America, liable for the satisfaction of debts of all kinds whatsoever due by the colonists to British subjects. An absurd attempt was made to enforce in one of the States an assimilation of the English and provincial laws of intestate succession. By an order of the English privy council, the assembly of Connecticut was commanded to repeal its ancient ordinance, by which all the children, male and female, of a parent dying intestate, were admitted to succeed equally to the whole of his estate ; and to substitute in its place the English law of primogeniture. But, happily, this impolitic measure was evaded by the Connecticut assembly.^ The whole strain of British legislation with regard to America disclosed the purpose of raising up a nation of customers for the merchants and manu- facturers of the parent state, and acknowledged the idea that the American communities existed solely for the advantage of Britain. Sir Josiah Child, in his Discourses on Trade, which were published about the year 1670, repre- sented New England as likely to prove rather a rival than a tributary to the commercial greatness of Britain ; adding, that " there is nothing more preju- dicial, and, in prospect, more dangerous, to any mother kingdom, than the increase of shipping in her colonies." The same views were maintained by Dr. Davenant, in his Discourse on the Plantation Trade, composed in the reign of William and Mary. The House of Commons, in the year 1719, passed a resolution declaring "that the erecting manufactories in the colonies tended to lessen their dependence upon Great Britain." George the First, in the speech with which he opened the session of parliament in the year 1721, observed, "that the nation might be supplied with naval stores from our own colonies in North America ; and that the cultivation of this useful and advantageous branch of commerce would divert the colo- ' Oldmixon. Kalm's Travels. Proud. ' 13 George I., Cap. 5., and 3 George II., Cap. 12. 3 5 George II., Cap. 7. Trumbull. CHAP. IL] BISHOP BERKELEY'S PROJECT. 37 nies from setting up manufactures which directly interfered with those of Great Britain." In some of the provinces a manufacture of hats had arisen, both for the supply of the other colonies and for foreign exporta- tion. With the view of stifling or checking this manufacture, an act of parliament^ was passed, in the year 1732, which declared that it was highly prejudicial to the hat-makers of England ; and prohibited the exportation of hats made in America, even from one province to another. By the same act, all American colonists were restrained from undertaking this manufacture, without a previous apprenticeship of seven years ; and all provincial hat-makers were forbidden to engage more than two apprentices at a time, or to employ or instruct negroes to aid them in their business. The colonists had long carried on an extensive trade with the French West India Islands, from which they obtained rum, sugar, and molasses, in return for lumber and provisions. This commerce was menaced with entire de- struction, in the year 1733, by an act of parliament,^ which the English West India merchants and planters had sufficient interest to procure, and which imposed heavy duties on all rum, sugar, and molasses imported into America, except from the West India plantations of Britain. The fate of this statute was remarkable. So generally was it disregarded by the colo- nists, that the British government judged it prudent to connive at their ille- gal proceedings, and prohibited the custom-house officers from levying duties or arresting vessels in conformity with its provisions. Yet the law, which was thus practically admitted to be inexpedient, and suffered to be openly violated and contemned, was continued, by successive reenactments, till the year 1761, when an attempt was made to suppress the extensive smuggling to which it had given rise, by diminishing very considerably the duties it imposed. The Hatters' Act, as it was not a more liberal trait of poHcy, so it proved not a more fortunate exertion of power. Internal smug- gling, which it was impossible to check, rendered it, from the first, almost entirely inoperative ; and, as the provincial communities advanced in strength and spirit, its continuance was regarded by them with displeasure, as a badge of servitude and oppression.^ North America, at the present period, received a visit from one of the most admirable and distinguished philosophers that England or Europe has ever produced ; and whom only a breach of good faith on the part of the mother country prevented from ending his days as an American colonist. Dr. Berkeley,^ afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, in the meridian of his fame, and possessor of one of the wealthiest ecclesiastical endowments in Ire- land, conceived the benevolent project of improving the education of the European colonists, and converting the American Indians to Christianity, by the ministry of a college to be erected at the expense of the parent state ; and offered to resign his opulent preferment, and to dedicate the remainder of his life to the instruction of American youth in this college ; requiring for his labors only the moderate salary of one hundred pounds. So powerful was the influence of this disinterested example, that three junior fellows of Trinity College, at Dublin, consented to exchange their possessions and 1 5 Geoi-ge H., Cap. 22. '6 George H., Cap. 13. It was for affording information to the parliamentary committee which digested this act, that Jeremiah Dummer incurred that censure from his constituents, the Massachusetts assembly, which provoked, as we have seen, the indignation of the House of Commons. 3 Gordon. Pitkin. * " To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." Pope. 38 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK VIII. prospects in tneir native land for a share in Berkeley's pious exile and phi- lanthropic labors. Berkeley, having printed his Proposal ^ caused it to be submitted to King George the First, by the Abbe Altieri, Vi^ho was one of a small society of learned men with whom this monarch delighted to unbend his mind in familiar conversation. The king approved the scheme, and commanded Sir Robert Walpole to introduce and recommend it to the House of Commons. A charter for the erection of the projected college was granted ; and a parliamentary address made provision for its endow- ment, by authorizing the appropriation of a considerable public fund for this purpose. Berkeley, accompanied by his friends, and carrying with him a large collection of books, repaired to Rhode Island^ in 1728, and remained there for several years, preparing to lay the foundation of his institution, and awaiting the remittance of the pubHc donation. An extension of his scheme, suggested by his acquaintance with the actual condition of America, em- braced the rehgious instruction of the unhappy negroes who were detained there in a state of slavery. This was opposed by certain planters (of what particular province has not been specified) , who had conceived the notion that slavery was legally incompatible with the reception of the rite of bap- tism. It was by no means an unnatural supposition of those planters, that the law of England, which declares Christianity to be part and parcel of itself, would refuse to authorize the infliction of slavery on those whom the ordinance of baptism had designated as the objects of divine grace and the adopted brethren of the Saviour of mankind. But there is something monstrous in the consideration, that these planters (except, indeed, such of them as were professed infidels) must, according to their own religious principles, have purposed to frustrate divine grace, and check the spread of Christianity, lest municipal law should compel them to grant temporal freedom to baptized and converted negroes. " To unde- ceive them in this particular," says Berkeley, " it seemed a proper step that the opinion of his Majesty's attorney and solicitor-general (Yorke and Tal- bot) should be procured. This opinion they charitably sent me, signed by their own hands ; and it was accordingly printed at Rhode Island, and dis- persed throughout the plantations." But no opportunity was afforded of as- certaining how far the opposing planters would have been satisfied with this guaranty of the slavery of the negroes' bodies, notwithstanding the emanci- pation of their souls. For Sir Robert Walpole, who never heartily embraced the project of Berkeley, was delivered, by the death of George the First, from the only inducement that had prompted him to support it ; and the celebrated General Oglethorpe found his influence in parliament sufficient to divert the funds that were promised to Berkeley into a different channel. They were assigned to himself for the purpose of transporting foreign and British Protestants to the new colony of Georgia, which he had undertaken to found. After a succession of applications from Berkeley, and of excuses from the minister, Gibson, Bishop of London, at length obtained from Walpole an answer that left nothing farther to be asked or expected. " If you put this question to me as a minister," said Sir Robert, " I must and can assure you that the money shall undoubtedly be paid as soon as the public convenience will allow ; but if you ask me as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America expecting the payment of the twenty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means to return home to Europe and ' During his residence here, he composed his Mciphron, o^ The Minute Philosopher. CHAP. II.] BISHOP BERKELEY'S PPvOJECT. 39 to give up his present expectations." Berkeley, informed of this conference by his friend Gibson, abandoned his scheme, presented a small landed prop- erty which he had purchased, together with a thousand volumes of books, to Yale College, in Connecticut, distributed the remainder of his library among the inhabitants of Rhode Island, and returned to Britain in 1731, — leaving America enriched by his liberality, and improved, or at least in- vited to improvement, by his example.^ * Bishop Stock's Life of Berkeley. Berkeley's Works. Holmes. Berkeley was so forcibly- struck with the grand prospective career of American society, that he poured forth his senti- ments on this theme in the only poetical composition of which he is known to have been the author. It is printed in the second volume ofhis works, and entitled, — VERSES ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA. The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime Barren of every glorious theme. In distant lands now waits a better time, Producing subjects worthy fame. In happy climes, where from the genial sun And virgin earth such scenes ensue, The force of art by nature seems outdone, And fancied beauties by the true. In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where nature guides and virtue rules, Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of courts and schools, — There shall be sung another golden age. The rise of empire and of arts. The good and great, inspiring epic rage. The wisest heads, and noblest hearts : Not such as Europe breeds in her decay, — Such as she bred when fresh and young. When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung. Westward the course of empire takes its way : The first four acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day : Time's noblest ofispring is the last. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Prophecy concerning the Future State of Several Nations., antici- pated Berkeley's conjecture, and predicted that " America will be the seat of the fifth empire." VOL. II. 12 APPENDIX II. State of Population, Laws, Trade, and Manners in the North American Provinces. — Virginia — New England — Comparison of New England and Canadian Manners. — Maryland. — Carolina. — New York. — New Jersey. — Pennsylvania and Delaware — the Tunkers. It is certain that all the North American provinces had made great ad- vances in population [1733], both from native increase and the resort of European emigrants, since the commencement of the eighteenth century ; though, from the total absence of reports of the population of some of the provinces, and the manifest inaccuracy and mutual contradiction of most of the reports that have been transmitted with regard to others, it is but an im- perfect view of the actual advance at this epoch, that we are able to obtain. Partial, also, though somewhat ampler and more interesting, is the infor- mation (additional to what has been conveyed in the preceding chapters) which may be collected with regard to the state of society and manners ex- hibited in those provinces at the present period. In Virginia, as we have already seen,^ the number of inhabitants amount- ed, in the year 1703, to 60,606, — of whom about one half were negro slaves. The militia of the province then reckoned in its ranks the number of 9,522. In the year 1722, the militia-men amounted to 18,000,^ — which, without supposing a proportional, manifestly imphes a very con- siderable, increase of the general population.^ The administration of Colonel Spottiswoode in this province was terminated in the year 1723. His representations of the necessity of vigorous measures for counteracting the encroaching policy of France excited the displeasure of the British ministers, who were unconvinced by his reasoning and offended by his urgency ; and affecting to credit the secret complaints preferred against him by a party of planters and merchants, whose frauds in the tobacco trade he had detected and w^as endeavouring to prevent, they sacrificed to spleen and intrigue a man w^hose enterprising talents and inflexible virtue might have rendered the most valuable service to the interests of Britain in America. "^ It is remarkable that Burnet and Spottiswoode, the two most distinguished opponents of the poHcy of France, should both have been the victims of selfish and dishonest interests and machinations. Spottis- woode was succeeded by Sir Hugh Drysdale, of whose administration nothing farther has been recorded than that it terminated in 1727, when the government was conferred on General Gooch. At Williamsburg, which w^as now the seat of government of this prov- ince, there were three public buildings, which were accounted the most magnificent specimens of architecture in North America, — the College, » Book I., Chap. III., ante. ^ Beverly. ~ 3 Oldmixon's enumeration of 70,000 is certainly too low. * Spottiswoode remained in Virginia, and died there in the year 1739. His merit began to .be generally acknowledged before his death ; and on the breaking out of the Spanish war, in that year, he was appointed to command the colonial forces in an expedition against the set- tlements of Spain. But he did not live to enjoy the returning smiles of royal favor. One of the counties of Virginia was named Spottsylvania, in honor of his services. " The name of Spottiswoode," says Burk, " has descended to us with scarcely sufficient alloy to constitute a human character." APP. II.] STATE OF VIRGINIA. 91 the State-house, and a costly structure which Governor Nicholson had pro- moted, and which bore the pompous title of the Capitol. A luxurious and expensive hospitality, and a great deal of card-playing, prevailed among the upper classes of inhabitants ; and hunting and cock-fighting were favorite amusements of persons of all ranks. A small work, entitled The Present State of Virginia^ by Hugh Jones, was pubHshed at London in 1724. The substance of this uninteresting performance is embraced in the second edition of the work of Oldmixon. " In Virginia," says Jones, who was a clergyman of the church of England, and had been a fellow of William and Mary College, "there is no ecclesiastical court ; so that vice, profane- ness, and immorality are not suppressed. The people hate the very name of the Bishop's Court." — " All which things," he gravely adds, " make it absolutely necessary for a bishop to be settled there, to pave the way for mitres in English America !" Williamsburg contained a theatre for dramatic performances ; the first institution of the kind that arose in the British colo- nies. Many persons of high extraction, but narrow fortune, had repaired from England to this province, as a scene where humble industry was not exposed to the scornful glance of aristocratic pride ; and were soon enabled to exchange a straitened, dependent estate of insolvent gentility in the mother country, for wealth, respect, usefulness, and happiness in Virginia It was customary also for young women, whom misfortune or imprudence had deprived of reputation in Britain, to transport themselves to Virginia, where, in many instances, a second spring of hope, character, and felicity rewarded their expatriation. Printing was first established in this province in the year 1729 ; and the first Virginian newspaper w^as published at Williamsburg in 1736. From Virginia and Maryland there were now an- nually exported about one hundred thousand hogsheads of tobacco (valued at eight pounds per hogshead) , and two hundred ships were commonly freight- ed with the tobacco produce of these two provinces. The annual gain de- rived by the parent state from this trade was about five hundred thousand pounds. The articles of iron and copper ore, beeswax, hemp, and raw silk were first exported from Virginia to England in 1730. A report on the state of Virginia, presented, in the reign of Queen Anne, to the Lords of Trade in England, contains the following statements. " On every river of this province, there are men, in number from ten to thirty, who by trade and industry have got very complete estates. These gentlemen take care to supply the poorer sort with goods and necessaries, and are sure to keep them always in their debt, and consequently dependent on them. Out of this number are chosen the council, assembly, justices, and other officers of government. The inhabitants consider that this province is of far greater advantage to her Majesty than all the rest of the provinces be- sides on the main land ; and therefore conclude that they ought to have greater privileges than the rest of her Majesty's subjects. The assembly think themselves entitled to all the rights and privileges of an English par- liament, and begin to search into the records of that honorable house for precedents to govern themselves by. The council imagine they stand al- most upon equal terms with the British House of Lords." These state- ments were probably deduced as much from jealous apprehension as from accurate observation. The revenue of the provincial government was pro- portioned to the state of trade ; a considerable part of it arising from a tax of two shillings a hogshead on exported tobacco. The quitrents, ac- 92 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APRIL cording to the calculation of Sir William Keith, yielded, at this time, three thousand five hundred pounds per annum. Complaints were frequently pre- ferred by the Virginians, of the tyrannical insolence with which they were treated by the commanders of English ships of war appointed to cruise off the coast for the protection of trade. But the grievance which they chiefly deplored, and by which discontent and impatience were kept perpetually alive, arose from the pressure of the Trade Laws, which were rendered doubly severe by the heavy duties with which the importation of tobacco into England was loaded. Though sentiments of attachment to the parent state were still cherished among the Virginians, — already, says their historian, had they begun generally to question her right to impose the commercial restrictions. Their jealousy of the power and policy of England appears from the uniform opposition of the Virginian assembly to the royal recom- mendations for the repair of forts, "which," says Burk, "had ever been objects of aversion to the people of this colony since the celebrated memo- rials of Nicholson."^ The population of New England had advanced as rapidly as that of Vir- ginia. Massachusetts, which in the close of the seventeenth century was estimated to contain somewhat more than seventy thousand persons, in the year 1731, contained one hundred and twenty thousand freemen, and two thousand six hundred negro slaves. The trade of this province was com- puted to employ six hundred ships and sloops, amounting to at least thirty- eight thousand tons, one half of which traded to Europe. About six thou- sand persons were employed in its fisheries. Connecticut appears, from numerous indications, to have attained a very improved and happy state ; but no account of its population at this epoch has been preserved. Rhode Island, which, at the close of the preceding century, contained about ten thousand inhabitants, in the year 1730 possessed a population of 17,935 persons, of whom 985 were Indians, and 1,648 negro slaves. The town of Newport, the metropolis of this province, contained a population of 4,640 persons, including Indians and negroes. The date of the introduction of printing into Rhode Island has not been recorded ; but the first publica- tion of a newspaper in this province occurred in the year 1732. Not- withstanding its thriving estate, at the present time, its history is involved in greater obscurity than that of any other of the British colonies. Whether from the influence of Bishop Berkeley's exertions, or from other causes, its aspect in an ecclesiastical view manifested soon after his visit a considerable improvement. In the year 1738, the town of Newport contained seven worshipping assemblies ; at Portsmouth, there was a large society of Qua- kers ; and twenty-five assemblages for Christian worship had arisen within the other eleven insular townships of this colony. In the nine town- ships on the main land there were eight Baptist and three Congregational churches. Of the population of New Hampshire, at the present period, there is no account. The militia of all the States of New England amounted ^ Oldmixon. Burk. Keith's History of Virginia. Anderson. Universal History. Wynne. Campbell. " The greatest of their discouragements is the high duty on their commodities, the custom being often ten times as much as the prime cost ; and if the tobacco happen to be of inferior quality, there is no abatement made on that account ; and no consideration for de- fective crops, losses, or accidents. When the goods come to market, after custom and the factor's bill for commission is paid, the net proceeds prove but little. The poor planter is forced to pay exorbitant interest or grant a mortgage to tne English merchant, who, having got the least hold of his estate, feeds him insensibly with money, till the whole follows at a mean rate" Oldmixon. APP II.] STATE OF NEW ENGLAND. 93 to "fifty thousand men.^ Iron was the only metallic ore which the colonists had undertaken to improve ; and there were now six furnaces for hollow ware, and nineteen forges, in New England. In the year 1730, fifty hun- dred-weight of hemp, produced in New England and Carolina, were export- ed to Britain.^ In the year 1712, certain adventurers in Connecticut con- ceived hopes of great enrichment from the discovery of two copper-mines, which were erroneously supposed to contain also some veins of more pre- cious metal. One of these mines, at Simsbury, was worked to a great extent, but with little benefit to the undertakers. The excavation pro- duced by their labors was afterwards ■ converted into a prison ; whereby (says Trumbull) it yielded more advantage to the province than by all the copper that had been extracted from it.'"* There commenced about this time a series of disputes that for several years interrupted the harmony that had long subsisted between Massachu- setts and New Hampshire. The arrangement, by which these provinces, though possessing separate assemblies, were subjected to the same governor, produced inconvenience to both. The inhabitants of Massachusetts com- plained of their occasional destitution of a chief magistrate, during the gov- ernor's visits to New Hampshire ; and the people of New Hampshire were perplexed by the disagreements between their governor and the deputy, who in his absence conducted the executive administration. One party, existing both in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, proposed to remedy this inconvenience by a union of the tw^o provinces ; but the great body of the people in New Hampshire were desirous of the opposite remedy, of a distinct executive government for themselves. They were sensible, how- ever, that as yet their country could hardly support the increased expense consequent upon such a change ; and to remove this obstacle, they endeav- oured to enlarge their resources by territorial claims, opposed to the pre- tensions of Massachusetts, which produced a great deal of litigation between the two provinces. The trade of New Hampshire, at this time, consisted chiefly in the exportation of lumber and fish to Spain, Portugal, and the Caribbee Islands. In winter, small vessels were despatched to the southern colonies with English and West India goods, and returned with cargoes of corn and pork. The manufacture of linen derived a considerable in- crease from the resort of Irish emigrants to New Hampshire. Though this province has always been considered a remarkably healthy region,"* it was about this time visited with a fatal epidemical malady, called the throat distemper, which afterwards recurred in the years 1754 and 1784, and on all these occasions was productive of great mortahty. The symp- toms w^ere a swelled throat, with white or ash-colored specks-, an efflores- cence on the skin, extreme debility of the w^hole frame, and a strong ten- dency to putridity. Its remote or predisposing cause, says the historian of New Hampshire, is one of those mysteries in nature which baffle hu- man inquiry.^ The invention of inoculation for the small-pox, which Lady Mary Wort- ley Montague first imported from Turkey into Great Britain, was introduced ' Anderson. Holmes. Warden. 2 Douglass. Anderson. Holmes. ^ Trumbull. * "A profusion of effluvia from the resinous trees imparts to the air a balsamic quality, which is extremely favorable to health ; and the numerous streams of limpid water, some of which fall with great rapidity from the mountains, produce currents of fresh air highly salubrious to those who reside on their banks." Belknap. ' Belknap. 94 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP. U. into New England in the year 1721. Cotton Mather, of Boston, whose literary and ministerial merit we have already had occasion to commemo- rate, having observed in the Philosophical Transactions of London an ac- count of this operation, and of its successful issue, communicated by a Turkish physician, and by the Venetian consul at Smyrna, recommended a trial of it to the physicians of Boston. The experiment was declined by them all, except Dr. Zabdiel Boyls^on, who adventured to begin with his own family, and afterwards continued the practice, notwithstanding the most violent opposition. Many pious people were struck with horror at the idea of an intentional communication of disease, which seemed an inversion of the purposes of medicine, and a wanton provocation of those sufferings which were ascribed to the unerring though mysterious exercise of divine wisdom and justice ; and they protested that Dr. Boylston ought to be made criminally responsible for the death of any of his infant patients, and that all persons of mature years, dying in consequence of voluntary submission to the operation, ought to be accounted suicides. The more moderate opponents of the practice condemned it as indicating a greater reliance on the arrangements of human prudence than on the all-wise provi- dence of God in the ordinary course of nature. The physicians of the province pubhshed a decree reprobating inoculation ; and Dr. Douglass, one of their number, a credulous and intemperate man, distinguished himself by the warmth of his opposition to the new practice.^ The people, in gen- eral, regarded the practice with abhorrence, and were incensed at the perti- nacity with w^hich its promoters continued to uphold it. Cotton Mather was reproached and vilified in newspapers and pamphlets ; and Boylston was insulted in the streets, and his dwelling and family threatened with destruc- tion. The house of representatives passed a bill for suppressing inocu- lation ; but the doubts of the council happily arrested the completion of this measure, till the public were undeceived, and the manifest advantage of inoculation obtained for it a general and undisputed prevalence.^ On the 29th of October, 1727, while the sky was clear and serene, and a deep stillness and tranquillity pervaded the air. New England was suddenly shaken by a tremendous earthquake, which overthrew a considerable number of buildings, and prostrated many persons to the ground. On the same day, the island of Martinico was threatened with entire destruction, from a similar convulsion of nature.^ New England still continued to be highly distinguished by the religious zeal of the great majority of its inhabitants ; and a zeal which was now en- ^ Douglass subsequently retracted his opinion ; and, in his Historical and Political Summary of the AmeHcan Settlements, invented the original resistance, that the practice of inoculation encountered at Boston, to the immoderate eagerness with which its promoters endeavoured to overleap, instead of undermining, the public prejudice. Among other literary champions of the erroneous sentiments entertained by Douglass and by the majority of the people, was Benjamin Franklin, then apprentice to a printer in Bos- ton. Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century. Some pious Quakers in America ap- f>ear to have denied, or at least strongly doubted, the legitimacy of the practice of inocu- ation. Journal of John Woolman. 2 Hutchinson. Inoculation encountered a much stronger and more protracted resistance in Great Britain, where, so late as the year 1768, two surgeons, having attempted to introduce the practice into the town of Peterborough, saw their houses destroyed by popular rage, and only by flight from the place saved their own lives. Annual Register for 1768. The practice was prohibited by the authority of government, both in France and Holland, in the year 1765. A Roman Catholic archbishop, in France, pronounced, ex cafAerfra, that the disease of Job was the fruit of inoculation performed on the patriarch's body by the devil. Eynard's Life of Tissot. * Universal History. Holmes. AFP. 11] STATE OF NEW ENGLAND. 9^5 tirely divested of its primitive bigotry and intolerance. All classes of the people had in this respect undergone a change. Some had become luke- warm and indifferent ; others had learned to temper zeal with charity and indulgence. In the commencement of this century, Connecticut was dis- turbed by an outbreak of folly and frenzy, from a sect of wild enthusiasts who termed themselves Rogerenes (from a madrnan named Rogers), or Singing Quakers. They professed much veneration for George Fox, but dissented from certain of his institutions, in admitting vocal music, and rec- ognizing the sacramental ordinances. They resembled some of the primi- tive Quakers or Ranters, in their predilection for disturbing public worship, and for walking naked ; and rivalled the primitive Baptists of Munster in the scandalous immoralities which they openly committed, and w^hich, at the same time, they associated with a profession of sinless purity and perfection. Their outrages were treated as offences rather against public order and decency than religion, and punished with a severity tempered by prudence and mercy. Happily, the frenzy proved but short-lived ; and so little had it tended to revive the ancient animosity against the Quakers in New England, that, during the government of Belcher, the assembly of Massachusetts passed a law for making satisfaction to the posterity of those Quakers who endured capital punishment in the years 1658 and 1659, The same assembly decreed a compensation to the descendants of the unfortu- nate victims of the prosecutions for witchcraft in the year 1693. The leg- islature of Connecticut, in 1729, passed an act for exempting Quakers and Baptists from ecclesiastical taxes ; and in 1731, a similar law was enacted by the assembly of Massachusetts. In the year 1718, the churches of Boston contributed four hundred and eighty-three pounds to the funds in aid of the Christian missions among the Indians. A proposition was broached, in 1725, to convoke a synod of the New England Congregational churches ; but it was abandoned, in consequence of a royal prohibition, issued in compliance with the sohcitations of the Episcopal clergy.^ Although a great deal of Puritanical strictness still pervaded the munici- pal policy of New England, and much Puritanical formality still lingered in the manners of a large proportion of its inhabitants, the social and domestic intercourse of the people appears to have been distinguished by cheerful- ness, refinement, and liberahty. x\n Enghsh gentleman, visiting Boston, says Oldmixon, might suppose, from the politeness of conversation, and the costliness and elegance of dress and furniture, that he was in the metropolis of England.^ Though Governor Burnet showed a dislike to Puritanic prac- tices, and excited a strong opposition to his administration, yet the w^orth of his character was universally acknowledged, and the graces of his con- versation generally admired. Belcher, his successor, who had a taste for pomp and show, set the example of an expensive style of living, by the splendor of the equipage which he maintained. The celebrated Charles Wesley, who paid a visit to Massachusetts in the year 1736, highly extolled ^Trumbull. Oldmixon. Hutchinson. Holmes. WiUiam Allen s Summary of the History y ^c, of the Society of Friends. 2 It is probable, I think, that the colonists were as refined, but, perhaps, less polished than the inhabitants of the parent state. Human nature and manners, receiving a polished ele- gance from habit, derive the higher grace of refinement from character and sentiment. A strong sense of religion, — a reverential remembrance of their fathers, — a constant and gen- erous struggle to preserve their national independence against the French, and their muni- cipal liberties against their own parent state, — were circumstances that tended to elevate and refine the sentiments, and proportionally to ennoble the manners, of the citizens of New England. 96 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP. H. the salubrity of its climate, and declared that he was even oppressed by the hospitality and civilities of the inhabitants. Yet, both Wesley and his illustrious brother at this time were members and ministers of the church of England. In a letter to one of his friends, Charles Wesley declared that he found "this New England more pleasant even than the Old," and could not help exclaiming, " O happy country ! " Tea began to be used in New England in the year 1721. Boston was long deprived of the benefit of a market for rural produce, in consequence of an obstinate prejudice of the country people, who, believing that they themselves must infallibly be losers by an arrangement which would supply the townsfolk with a great quantity of their wares at once, squandered a great deal of time in separate- ly and irregularly perambulating the town in quest of advantageous bargains and high prices.^ Hutchinson describes the inhabitants of New England as more con- cerned to procure the enjoyments of the table, than to exhibit richness or refinement of apparel ; willing rather to simplify their attire than to exten- uate their diet. The diiFerence, in this and in other respects, between them and the French colonists of Canada is thus described by a distin- guished French writer who travelled in America in the years 1720 and 1721. "Every body in New France," says Charlevoix,^ "endeavours to put as good a face as possible on poverty, and scarcely any one thinks of laying up wealth. They indulge in good cheer, provided they can also afford the expense of fine clothes ; if not, they retrench in the article of the table, for the sake of appearing well dressed. A gay and sprightly be- haviour, with great sweetness and politeness of manners, prevail universally among them ; and the slightest rusticity either of language or behaviour is utterly unknown, even in the remotest settlements. The case is very different with respect to our English neighbours ; and, judging of the two colonies from the way of fife, behaviour, and speech of the inhabitants, nobody would hesitate to say that ours were the most flourishing. In New England, and the other provinces of America, subject to the British empire, there prevails an opulence which they are utterly at a loss how to use ; while in New France there prevails a poverty disguised by an air of easy circumstances, which yet seems quite unstudied. The English planter amasses wealth, and never incurs superfluous expense ; the French inhab- itant enjoys what he has acquired, and often makes a parading pretension to much more than he really possesses. The Englishman labors for his posterity ; the Frenchman bequeaths to his offspring the same difficulties that attended his own outset, and leaves them to extricate themselves as they can. The Enghsh Americans are averse to war, because they have a great deal to lose ; and yet take no care to manage the Indians, because they consider that they stand in no need of them. The French youth, for opposite reasons, abominate the thoughts of peace, and contrive so to live with the natives, that they obtain their assistance in war and their friendship at all times. "^ These differences illustrate the distinctions of national character that have * Oldmixon. Hutchinson. Holmes. Whitehead's Life of the Wesleys. ^ The letters of Charlevoix contain much curious detail and sagacious remark, — especially with regard to the manners, habits, and pursuits of the Indians. He sometimes relates very incredible stories ; and too frequently commits offences against delicacy, and even de- cency, — the less pardonable, when it is recollected that he was a priest, and that his letters were addressed to a lady. ^ Charlevoix's Travels. See Note III., at the end of the volume APP. II.] COMPARISON OF NEW ENGLAND AND CANADA. 97 ever prevailed between France and England ; but they are also referable in a considerable degree to the different systems of colonial policy pursued by the two parent states. France planted the institution of titular nobility in her colonies ; and for the special benefit of Canada, Louis the Fourteenth, by an arret in the year 1685, permitted all noblemen and gentlemen settled in this province to exercise commerce without derogation from their social quality and privileges.^ This proved a most impolitic measure, except in so far as it contributed to produce or multiply an order of persons in the colony attached by the vanity of titular distinctions to the fountain of honor in the parent state. Many Englishmen of patrician birth, but slender es- tate, resorted to the British colonies, where, glad to be disencumbered of the trammels of rank, and wisely preferring plain but substantial comfort to meretricious airs of polished elegance, they associated with their unpre- tending fellow-colonists on a footing of equahty, and sought to regain distinction by useful industry, patient self-denial, and vigorous enterprise. With the French colonists, aristocratic pride and vanity predominated over mercantile character and habits ; and as, by the ancient usages of France, the title and privileges of nobility, instead of descending, as in England, to the eldest son alone, were equally shared by all the children of the family, Canada was soon peopled by a numerous race of colonists whose eagerness to gain wealth was mixed with and controlled by a strong desire to make immediate proof of their noble condition, by the costliness of their accom- modations, the polish of their manners, and the laborless liberty and self- indulgence of their lives. In the year 1721, there were ^ a greater num- ber of persons bearing titles of nobility in Canada than in all the other colonies of France throughout the world. A severer and doubtless a juster picture of the manners of the Canadian colonists, than the accomplished Jesuit, Charlevoix, dehneated, has been transmitted by the philosophic Raynal. According to this writer, the French colonists who lived in the country passed their winters in idleness, sitting by their firesides in grave and slothful contemplation of their own dignity ; while those who lived at Quebec or Montreal aped the gay dissi- pation of the nobility of the parent state. The men plumed themselves more on honor than honesty ; the women were coquettish, addicted to gallantry, and more gratified by attracting admiration than by either inspiring or experiencing the sentiment of love. Superficial attention and negligent exertion characterized both the agricultural and the commercial transac- tions of the Canadian colonists. Raynal ascribes their habits of indolence partly to the benumbing efl^ects of the excessive cold of the Canadian win- ter, and partly to the numerous festivals of the Catholic church ; and their especial aversion to the labors that would have been most conducive to their own private advantage he traces to the ambitious policy of the French court, which, with the view of excluding the English from the fur trade, erected no fewer than thirty-three forts, at great distances from each other, and, employing the Canadians in building and victualling these forts, diverted theni from the labors that ought preferably to have engaged their atten- tion.^ But the grand source of the evils peculiar to Canadian society was the^ institution, so pernicious to a young country, of an order of nobility, which inspired the Can adians with a contempt for rough labor and homely » Charlevoix. ~ 2 Charlevoix's Travels. ^ Raynal's Political and Philosophical History of the British Trade and Settlements. VOL. 11. 13 I 98 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP. II. virtue, and a taste for strutting pomp, empty show, and idle gayety. To gratify this taste, the profits, which the steady New Englanders devoted to the improvement of their property or the enlargement of their commerce, were squandered by the Canadians on the vanity of ornamental decoration ; and the poverty, which the English surmounted by patient and vigorous vir- tue, was concealed by the French under the gaudy trappings of a pernicious luxury. We may better conceive than commend that superior polish of manner which Charlevoix ascribes to the Canadians, and which appears to have coexisted with indolence, consequent poverty, vanity, arbitrary government, depravation of morals, and destitution of literature. At the period at which we have now arrived, printing was established in every one of the British colonies except North Carolina, and had existed for nearly a century in New England. Y.et in the older setdement of Canada there was no printing- press, even at the subsequent period of 1749. One, indeed, had been for- merly imported into the province ; but it did not afford its owner the means of subsistence. The French colonists, more ashamed of the reproach of poverty or intellectual inferiority than of destitution of liberty, asserted that the Canadian press was interdicted lest it should produce hbels against the government.^ Not the least remarkable circumstance in the position of New England, at this time, was the discussion carried on in Britain as to whether the colonists were or were not aiming at the establishment of national inde- pendence.^ Some of the members of the Board of Trade at London had long entertained this apprehension, and openly professed it ; and in one of the reports from this board to the British .cabinet, on the recent contro- versies between Massachusetts and the crown, after a forcible exposition of the strength and resources of this people, and their systematic and deter- mined-hostility to royal prerogative, it was affirmed that nothing but an im- mediate interposition of parliamentary power could arrest the manifest ten- dency tp independence, The colonists and their agents and partisans in England maintained, on the contrary, that these views and imputations were chimerical, and unfounded ; and, in support of their plea, they repeated the arguments adduced in Dummer's Defence of the J^ew England Char- ters^ and protested that no New England man ever mentioned Britain but under the affectionate denomination of home^ or our mother country.^ To provoke such discussions, to invite the Americans to canvass the advantages and probabilities of independence, was the height of absurdity and impolicy in the well-wishers to the ascendency of Britain over her colonies. Besides alarming some of the colonists with apprehensions of precautionary tyranny on the part of the parent state, it promoted more generally, and by di- recter suggestion among them, a cast of thought and temper entirely at va- riance with that principle of superstitious, prudential, or mechanical adherence to usage, and acquiescence in a seemingly permanent system, which is so congenial to the human mind, and so important an element in the force of established authority. ' Kalm's Travels. * " In the state of society which had taken place in America," says a sensible American writer, " the foundations of her freedom were laid long before the nations of Europe had any suspicion of what was taking place in the minds of men." Williams's History of Vermont. This is a frequent, but erroneous, assertion of American writers. The nations and especially the governments of Europe rather undervalued the strength and the determination than mistook the sentiments and inclinations of the Americans, ' Hutchinson. ATP. II.] STATE OF MARYLAND. 99 At the close of the preceding century, we have seen that Maryland possessed thirty thousand inhabitants. Of its gross population at the present period no report has been preserved ; but, from an accurate scrutiny in the year 1734, this province appears to have contained thirty-six thousand tax- able colonists, — a denomination including white men above sixteen years of age, and negroes, male and female, from sixteen to sixty. The state of society in Maryland is said to have borne a considerable resemblance to that in Virginia ; but less gayety of manners, and a less expensive style of living, prevailed in the younger than in the older province. A printing- press was established in Maryland in 1726 ; but it was three years later before Virginia obtained this advantage, though she possessed a college since the commencement of the present century. The immediate suc- cessors in office of Seymour, the last governor whom we have had occasion to notice, were Corbet and Hunt ; the latter of whom assumed the gov- ernment in 1714. Two years after, on the death of Charles, Lord Bal- timore, who had been deprived of his political functions on account of his adherence to the church of Rome, the title devolved to Charles, Lord Baltimore, member of parliament for the county of Surrey, who, being a Protestant, was reinstated in the full enjoyment of proprietary power. Ben- edict Leonard Calvert, a relative of the proprietary, was appointed some time after governor of the province, and was succeeded, in 1732, by Samuel Ogle. Lord Baltimore now made an effort to regain the Delaware territory, of which his ancestor had been divested when it was annexed to Pennsylvania ; but, faihng in his purpose, concluded an agreement, defining their respective territorial limits, with the heirs of William Penn. The agreement, however, was not carried into effect ; and renewed disputes be- tween these parties gave rise to a suit in chancery, which was terminated by a decree of Lord Hardwicke in 1750. Among other advantages which the people of Maryland derived from their uninterrupted peace and friend- ship with the Indians, they gained a cheap and important accession to their medical resources from the communication of the knowledge which the Indians had acquired of the medicinal properties of certain vegetable de- coctions. The salaries of public officers in this province were remarkably low. In the year 1732, the assembly declared tobacco a legal tender for payment of all debts, at a penny per pound, and Indian corn at twenty pence per bushel. Though the Catholics still continued to be the most numerous class in Maryland, the province now began to receive large ac- cessions of Presbyterian settlers. These were emigrants from the North of Ireland, the descendants of Scotchmen, who, removing first to Pennsylvania, purchased there and cleared uncultivated lands '; and then, selling their plan- tations to German emigrants, fixed their own final settlement in the frontier counties of Virginia and Maryland.^ Both of the provinces of Carolina had made considerable advances in population since the commencement of the century ; but we hear of no attempt to ascertain the number of inhabitants in the northern province at the present period ; nor is there any other known and notable circumstance of its condition that has not been already recorded in the preceding chapter. Its population, as we have already seen, amounted in the year 1710 to six thousand persons ; some increase had doubtless occurred since that time ; and a few years after the present epoch, a vigorous growth attested the im- ' Oldmixon. Douglass. Holmes. 100 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP. II. provement which the provincial institutions and the condition of the people had undergone. As yet, and for a considerable time after, they formed the most turbulent, irreligious, and illiterate community in North America. In the year 1700, the population of South Carolina is said to have amounted to no more than five thousand five hundred and six persons. In 1723, it amounted to thirty-two thousand, of whom eighteen thousand were negro slaves, and only fourteen thousand white persons in a state of freedom or of temporary servitude. Four hundred and thirty-nine slaves, together with goods and manufactures to the valu^ of about sixty thousand pounds ster- hng, were imported into this province in the year 1724; and in exchange for these commodities there were exported to England eighteen thousand bar- rels of rice, fifty-two thousand barrels of pitch, tar, and turpentine, together with a quantity of deer-skins, furs, and raw silk. In addition to this trade, which was carried on almost entirely in British ships, the province maintained an extensive commercial intercourse with the West Indies, New England, Pennsylvania, and New York ; to the latter of which it appears to have sent frequent cargoes of slaves. In 1730, it was ascertained that the exports of rice from South Carolina, during the ten preceding years, were 264,488 barrels, containing 44,081 tons. In this year, the negroes amounted in num- ber to twenty-eight thousand ; and, emboldened by their numerical superiori- ty, they laid a plot for a general massacre of the white people, which, however, was seasonably discovered and defeated. Undeterred by this intimation of danger, the colonists continued to re- ceive the copious supplies of additional negroes tendered to them by the slave-merchants of Britain, and demanded by the increasing cultivation of rice ; and in the year 1731, no fewer than fifteen hundred negroes were imported into South Carolina.^ In the same year, upwards of two hundred merchant-vessels sailed from Charleston ; and there were shipped from this port above forty thousand barrels of rice, besides deer-skins, furs, naval stores, and provisions. Happily for South Carolina, its population was not reinforced from without by negroes alone. We have remarked the arrival of a body of Swiss emigrants on its shores in 1733 ; and about four years after, vast multitudes of Irish husbandmen began to flock to it as a happy refuge from the oppressive exactions of landlords and bishops in their native land. Yet, from the year 1720 till the year 1765, the slaves in South Carolina continued greatly and increasingly to outnumber the white inhabitants. To the lamentable consequences of this state of society we have already had occasion to advert ; ^ and farther occasion will be supplied in the progress of Carohnian history. In the year 1734, the assembly of South CaroHna, in an address to the king on the state of the province, declared that they were " subject to many intestine dangers from the great number of negroes that are now among us." The continual suspicion and insecurity to which the colonists were exposed was strongly indicated by an ordinance of the legislature, commanding all the inhabitants to carry arms with them to their assemblies for divine worship. By another law, which was passed a few years afterwards, the importation of additional negroes into the province was taxed so heavily as to be virtually prohibited ; but this law was very soon abolished. In addition to the danger which they incurred from the ' In 1728, the British parliament instituted an inquiry into the state of the African trade, from which it appeared that in three years only the number of negroes imported into Barba- does, Jamaica, and Antigua amounted to forty-two thousand. Universal History. » Book IV., Chap. II., ante. 'APP. II.] STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA. * ]01 vindictive hatred of their slaves, the security of the inhabitants had long been menaced by the vicinity of the Spaniards ; and a new source of alarm was latterly created by the progressive advances of the French settlements in Louisiana, and the alhance which this people succeeded in forming with a considerable portion of the Indian tribe called the Creeks. Frugal habits prevailed generally among the planters of South Car- olina at this period, and doubtless contributed to the rapid advancement of the provincial prosperity. Luxury had not yet gained admission among them. Except rum, sugar, tea, and coffee, their diet was derived entirely from their own plantations. Printing was introduced into this province in the year 1730, and a newspaper estabhshed in 1734. A great majority of the inhabitants, including the posterity of the Dissenters, who repaired to the colony soon after its foundation, were now attached to the established Episcopal church. Presbyterianism, however, enjoyed a tolerated exist- ence, and was maintained by fresh emigrations from Ireland and Scotland.^ In the year 1724, a vehement eruption of immoral and impious frenzy oc- curred among some families of French refugees, who had emigrated to South Carolina in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantes ; and was supposed to have been occasioned by the ill-advised study of the writings of the German mystic, Jacob Behmen. The unhappy victims of this delusion professed to be guided in every action of their lives by the immediate and sensible impulse of the Spirit of God, and disregarded all the recorded precepts and doctrines of religion that withstood any im- agined suggestion derived from that peculiar source. They renounced social intercourse with all the rest of mankind, whom they believed to be devoted to a speedy and inevitable destruction ; and, in the commission of incest and adultery, plumed themselves on their faithful obedience to the inspira- tions of infallible wisdom. At first, they declared that the unlawfulness of carrying arms was plainly revealed to them ; but finding that the civil power was preparing to punish them for the scandalous immorality of their lives, they asserted that a posterior and counter revelation authorized them to defend their persons against the violence of persecutors, and their substance against the robberies of ungodly men. Armed with muskets, they fired upon a company of militia who were sent to apprehend them, and killed the captain, besides wounding several of the men ; but they were soon overpowered and brought to trial. Four of them were condemned to die for murder ; but still continued for a while to boast of their wick- edness as the perfection of piety and virtue. However, their frenzied vis- ions gradually faded away ; compunctious horror and remorse succeeded ; and at the place of execution they implored divine pardon of the mon- strous crimes and blasphemies into which lawless thought and spiritual pride had betrayed them. The delusion was not propagated any fartncsf. During the summer of 1728, the weather in South Carolina pioved un- commonly hot ; the surface of the earth was parched, the pools of water were dried up, and the beasts of the field reduced to the greatest distniS3. This affliction was followed in the autumn by a furious hurricane, which occa- sloned a great destr uction of property. In the same year, that dreadful ' John Wesley paid a visit to Charleston in the year 1737. "It being the time of their •n.iual visitation," he relates, " I had the pleasure of meeting vv^ith the clergy of South Car- olina ; among whom, in the afternoon, there was such a conversation for several hours, on Christ our Righteousness^ as I had not heard at any visitation in England, or hardiy on any Vther occasion." John Wesley's Journal. I* 102 ' HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP.H. pestilence, the yellow fever, broke forth to an extent and with a malignity that swept multitudes of the planters and their negroes to an untimely grave, ^ — the impartial refuge of the oppressed and their oppressors. Within a very few years after the present epoch, a great and sudden change was produced in the condition of South Carolina and the manners of its inhabitants by that influx of wealth which resulted from the fostering care of the parent state and the plantation of the neighbouring colony of Geor- gia. A general competition then arose among the Carolinian planters to en- large their estates ; many of them rapidly accumulated large fortunes, and a luxurious and expensive style of hving began to prevail in the province. The population of New York, which in the year 1701 amounted to thirty thousand persons, had advanced in the year 1732 to upwards of sixty thousand, of whom about seven thousand were slaves.^ The value of goods annually imported by this colony from Great Britain was computed to be not less than one hundred thousand pounds. In the year 1736, the custom-house books contained entries of two hundred and eleven vessels arriving with car- goes at the port of New York, and two hundred and twenty-two departing with cargoes from it. A large contraband trade was pursued with Holland and Hamburg, in spite of all the efforts of the British government to suppress it by the multiplication of custom-house officers. The inhabitants of late had generally contracted a taste for tea ; and it was found quite impractica- ble to enforce the exclusive right of the EngHsh East India Company to import this article, while the colonists could procure it at a price thirty per cent, lower from foreigners. A continual struggle was maintained between the provincial merchants and the British custom-house officers, who, un- able to check the really contraband trade, frequently arrested vessels plying between the port of New York and other places within the limits of the col- ony, under pretence that they were conducting or aiding foreign smuggling. An act of the provincial assembly, in 1724, imposed severe penalties on custom-house officers committing such molestation. The metropolis of this province had not increased in proportion to the general population, and seems to have contained little more than eight thousand inhabitants. New York is the first of the North American States in which we find Jews par- ticularized as a part of the population. Of the first resort of this widely wandering race to the New World no memorial has been preserved ; but before the middle of the present century, they had increased to a numerous and thriving society In this province, and possessed a synagogue in the town of New York.^ They enjoyed equal rights and privileges with the rest of ' He wit. Universal History. D wight's Travels. Description of South Carolina (1761). Drayton. Oldmixon gives the following table of the wages of labor about this period in Car- olina : — A tailor, . . 5s. Od. a day. A shoemaker, 2s. 6d. almost as cheap as in England. A smith, . . 7s. 6d. three times as dear as in England. A weaver, . Ss. Od. A bricklayer,. 65. Od. A cooper, . 4s. Od. * Holmes. ' The number of Jews in America excited some foolish alarm in England in the year 1735, when the parliament repealed a law which had been made not long before for naturalizing Jews, resident in Britain. Another act still subsisted, by which Jews resident for seven years in any of the American colonies were entitled to become naturalized subjects of Brit- ain ; and fears arose that England would be inundated with naturalized Jews from America. J Jut an attempt to procure the repeal of this last-mentioned statute proved ineffectual. Smollett. I do not recollect, in all my reading, a single notice or memorial of the preseu^e of ^vpsies in North AuiPrir.a APP. II.] STATE OF NEW YORK. |03 the free inhabitants ; and, among others, the privilege of holding negroes in a state of slavery. A statute of the New York assembly, passed in the year 1730, commences with the legislative axiom, that " slaves are the property of Christians or Jews." A tax was imposed on the importation of slaves ; of whom a considerable supply was annually derived from the province of South Carohna. Slaves, attempting to set fire to the dwellings of free men, were burned alive. In the year 1741, thirteen slaves were burned, eighteen were hanged, and many more transported from New Y ork to the West Indies for this offence. Numerous ordinances occur in the statute-book of New York, for preventing the desertion of slaves from Al- bany to the French settlements in Canada. An act of the New York assembly, in 1721, declared that the province was much infested by the resort of idle and necessitous persons, chiefly fu- gitive debtors and criminals, from the other British plantations ; and author- ized justices of the peace to require surety from all new settlers that they would not become chargeable to the community, and to banish all dissolute vagabonds, and all persons whom they might suspect of inability to sup- port themselves. All lotteries were prohibited by an act passed in the same year ; and which declared, with soHd wisdom, that it was of perni- cious consequence, that property, instead of being acquired by industry and exchanged by barter, should be distributed by chance. The inhabitants of the remote districts of the province were supplied with wares by hawk- ers and pedlers ; and from various legislative acts, it appears that a part of the public revenue was derived from duties on the licenses v;hich these itinerant chapmen were required to obtain from the government. In the year 1732, there was founded, by an act of the provincial legislature, a public school in the city of New York for teaching Latin, Greek, and math- ematics. A number of Quakers resorted to this province soon after its an- nexation to the British empire ; but it was not till the year 1734, that Quakers in New York were placed on the same footing with Quakers in England, by an act of assembly which recited and adopted all the statutes of the British parliament in favor of these sectaries. Among other reasons for this measure, the preamble of the act declares, " that it is most agree- able to his Majesty's royal intentions, that the legislature of this colony should, in all their laws and proceedings, conform themselves, as near as may be, to the constitutions of England ; and that, therefore, they cannot more effectually recommend themselves to his Majesty's grace and favor than by imitating the example of the parliament of Great Britain." While a strong tincture of Dutch manners continued to pervade all the various races of people of whom the population of this province was com- posed, and to be visible especially in the neatness and cleanliness of do- mestic accommodations, the prevalence of English tastes was attested by some of the pubhc amusements, and particularly by the practice of horse- racing, which became a frequent and favorite pastime in Long Island. The citizens of New York were distinguished by their sprightly tempers and sociable manpers. The men assembled in weekly evening clubs ; and during the winter, the united entertainment of both sexes was supplied by assemblies for dancing and concerts of music. The style of living was, however, less gay and expensive, and there was less inequality of fortune at New York than at Boston. Sobriety of deportment and a close atten tion to pecuniary gain prevailed almost universally. Many of the French 104 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP. II. Protestant emigrants to this province were persons of considerable attain- ments in literature. They enlivened the colonial society by the gayety of their manners, and improved it by the useful arts which they imported from their native land. They have been described as a remarkably frugal, cheerful, patient, and contented race of people. The colonists, in general, were healthy and robust, taller, but shorter-lived, than the inhabitants of Europe. They appear, says Smith, to arrive sooner than Europeans at maturity both of mind and body, and to incur in both these respects a pro- portionally earlier decay. The medical profession was totally unregulated, and open to every pretender ; the province abounded with empirical prac- titioners of physic ; and yet the assembly granted certain privileges to every person who thought fit to assume this profession, and, in particular, an exemption from the general liability to discharge the office of constable. A newspaper was first published at New York in the year 1725 ; and there was now one bookseller's shop in the city. The government of this province, observing the influence which the French exercised over the Indians by the instrumentality of the Jesuit missionaries, made some ineffectual attempts to procure a similar advan- tage from the ministry of Protestant preachers among the Six Nations. Governor Hunter, at a conference with the sachems of this confederacy, after presenting them with a quantity of clothes, informed them that the Brit- ish queen desired to clothe their souls as well as their bodies, and proposed for this purpose to send a number of Protestant missionaries into their ter- ritories. The Indians pohtely, but resolutely, dechned the proposition ; adding, that it would be a demonstration of greater kindness to send a few blacksmiths to reside among them, and that several of the ministers who had already come to them from New York had encouraged them in the evil practice of drinking brandy. Oldmixon, who relates this conference, and whose partialities are all opposed to the Puritans, observes, nevertheless, that the Indians were generally struck with the difference between mission- aries who were hired to visit them and the earnest and self-denying missionaries of New England. The Indians always inquired, with anxious desire and acute penetration, what it was that really prompted their teachers to address them ; i they were awed and affected by the demonstration of sincere and disinterested concern for their welfare ; and never failed to manifest contempt or indifference for ministers in whom they detected the motive of pecuniary gain, or concern for temporal advantage.^ Nothing could be more tranquil and prosperous than the condition which New Jersey had now for many years enjoyed. But if we would ascertain the fruits and particulars of this silent prosperity, we must look forward to the year 1738. At the close of the preceding century. New Jersey possessed about 15,000 inhabitants ; in the year 1738, it con- tained 47,367, of whom 3,981 were slaves. The manufactures established in the province remained nearly stationary ; but its trade had considerably increased. With the view of still farther improving their social condition, as well as from a sense of their increasing political importance, the people were generally desirous of an alteration of the practice according to which the administration of their executive government was included in the com- ' " I love to feel where words come from," said an Indian to Woolman, the Quaker. 2 Oldmixon. Ka\ms Travels. W.Smith. Laws of JVew York from 1691 to 1751. Grant's Memoirs of an Jlmerican Lady. Holmes. APP. II.] STATE OF NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, AND DELAWARE. J 05 mission of the governor of New York, and, in the year 1728, the assembly petitioned the king that a separate governor might be appointed for New Jersey. They complained of the hardship of being obliged to contribute a salary to a governor who spent it in New York ; and undertook to make a liberal provision for any governor whom his Majesty would appoint exclusively for themselves. Their petition met with little attention till the year 1736, when the Lords of Trade presented a report in its favor to the privy council ; and two years after, Lewis Morris, who had been for- merly chief justice of New York, an eccentric, but able and active man, extremely disputatious, yet honorable and upright, was appointed the first royal governor who presided in New Jersey separately from New York. The governor's salary, which had been hitherto six hundred pounds, was now raised to Sne thousand pounds per annum, besides perquisites and oc- casional presents to defray extraordinary expenses. In the same year, a college was founded at Princeton, and named Nassau Hall. Among other funds by which the expense of this scholastic establishment was defrayed, a liberal contribution for the purpose was made by the general assembly of the church of Scotland. The mild treatment of slaves in this province, which we have already had occasion to notice, ^ may perhaps be inferred from a circumstance which occurred about this time, when the slaves, forming nearly a tenth part of the inhabitants, constituted a larger propor- tion of the total population of the province than at any other period of its history. It was then that there occurred the only instance, recorded in the annals of New Jersey, of a conspiracy (real or supposed) of the enslaved negroes against the white freemen. Notwithstanding the rage and fear which such an emergency is apt to provoke, only one of the supposed con- spirators was hanged, — " probably," says Oldmixon, " because they could not well spare any more." It is happy for slaves, when their masters feel themselves unable to spare them even to the cravings of fear and vengeance.^ The inhabitants of New Jersey were occasionally more alarmed than injured by slight shocks of earthquake, of which instances have been recorded in the years 1726, 1732, and 1737. Like their neighbours in Pennsylvania, and the people of Connecticut, they prudently restrained their paper cur- rency within safe and narrow limits. They long continued a quiet, virtu- ous, and happy people.^ Pennsylvania and Delaware had, beyond doubt, increased more rapidly since the commencement of the century than any of the other colonies ; but of their actual population at this period no credible account has been transmitted. While one author,"* with manifest inaccuracy, reports the number of inhabitants in 1732 to have been thirty thousand, — that is, about five thousand fewer than in the year 1708 ; another, the Quaker his- torian. Proud, has, with blind exultation, adopted from an anonymous pamphlet, pubhshed at London in 1731, an exaggerated statement, wiuch, without particularizing the number of the people, represents it as greatly exceeding the population of Virginia, Maryland, and both the Carolinas.^ ' Book VI., ante. ' Nearly coincident with the New Jersey negro plot was a conspiracy of the negro slaves of the British colony of Antigua, which was punished with a barbarity more characteristic of slave-owners. Three of the ringleaders were hroken on the wheel ; seventy-nine were burned alive ; and nine were suspended in chains and starved to death. Universal History. ' S. Smith. Oldmixon. Gillies' Life of MLaurin. Warden. Holmes. * Holmes. ' Proud is not ashamed to support the statement which he has adopted, by copying its au- VOL. II. 14 106 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP. II. Both reports are equally unworthy of credit. It was not till some years after the present period, that the population of Pennsylvania attained the utmost vigor of its principle of increase ; and probably, as yet, it was in- ferior to the population of Virginia. The colonists of Pennsylvania and Delaware, at this period, built annually about two thousand tons of shipping for sale, besides the vessels employed in their own trade, which were reckoned at six thousand tons. They traded with England, Portugal, and Spain ; with the Canaries, Madeira, and the Azores ; with the West India Islands ; with New England, Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina. In 1731, Philadelphia is said to have contained two thousand four hundred houses, and twelve thousand souls, — a computation probably somewhat below the truth. In 1736, the custom-house books contained entries of two hundred and eleven vessels arriving with cargoes at the port of Philadel- phia, and of two hundred and fifteen departing with cargoes from it, — a share of commerce rather smaller than New York possessed in the same year. Yet the commerce of Pennsylvania seems to have been productive of more benefit than that of New York to the manufacturers of Britain, from which the Pennsylvanians are said to have imported goods to the annual value of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Similar to the observa- tion of Smith respecting New York is the remark of Proud with regard to Pennsylvania, — that " the lives of both animals and vegetables, as they mostly arrive sooner at maturity, are generally of shorter duration, than in some of the more northern or temperate climates." He adds, that " strangers who remove hither from colder or more northern latitudes are observed generally to bear the vicissitudes of the Pennsylvanian climate better, at first, than the natives of the country, or such as have lived long in it."i Pennsylvania, if not the only province in w^hich religious toleration prevailed, was at least the one in which the prevalence of this principle was attested by the greatest variety of religious sects and sentiments. In the year 1724, there was founded by some German emigrants in this prov- ince the sect which has been described by different writers under the dif- ferently sounding names of Tunkers^ Dunkers, Tumblers, and Dumplers. The votaries of this persuasion adopted the dress of the monks and nuns of the Roman Catholic order of White Friars, and a system of doctrine derived partly from the Anabaptists and partly from the Quakers. In imitation of the Jews, they solemnized the sixth day of the week as a Sabbath, and commonly, but not universally, refrained from shaving their beards. They established within their sectarian society a community of goods, and a strict separation of the sexes ; allowing, nevertheless, the lawfulness of marriage, but inflicting a friendly exile from the bosom of the society as the conditional consequence of it. They carried the doctrine of non-resistance, professed by the Quakers and some other sectaries, to the farthest practical extremity ; utterly forbearing htigation, enduring in- sult and injury without resentment or complaint, and realizing the visions of the Stoics on the principles of Christianity. Their church government was administered by deacons and deaconesses, and in their religious as- semblies the members of either sex were expected and permitted freely to thor's erroneous exposition of the reasons of it, — namely, that Pennsylvania was the only colony where religious toleration was enjoyed, and where the Indians were not treated with injustice and inhumanity ! ' Proud Anderson. Holmes. APP. U.] GENERAL STATE OF THE COLONIES. 1Q7 exercise and display their spiritual gifts. With purposed or accidental imitation of the policy of Lycurgus regarding the laws of Sparta, they com- mitted none of their peculiar dogmas or precepts to writing, from the appre- hension of exposing themselves either to the danger of professing tenets after they might cease to beheve them, or to the shame of abandoning what they or their fathers had publicly sanctioned and embraced. They speedily made numerous converts among the other German emigrants, and estab- lished their principal settlement at a place which they named Ephrata, — whence various derivative communities were afterwards extended to other parts of Pennsylvania. At first, they practised numerous austerities, which were relaxed in process of time ; but they were always distinguished by a diligent and yet unselfish industry, and a gentleness and simplicity of de- portment, which gained for them in Pennsylvania the title of the harmless Tunkers.^ In every one of the North American provinces, at this period, there were exhibited, on a larger or smaller scale, the grand and pleasing features of national happiness, hberty, piety, and virtue. But Pennsylvania, Con- necticut, and New Jersey were distinguished above all the rest by the scenes of tranquillity and contentment they presented. Virginia and Mary- land had, indeed, enjoyed a long exemption from foreign war and the ac- tual infliction of domestic tyranny ; but in both of these States a theoret- ical intolerance and consequent insecurity prevailed. In Virginia, a numer- ous body of Protestant Dissenters were nominally exposed to the penalties of an intolerant ecclesiastical constitution ; and in Maryland, the great majority of the people enjoyed their estates and franchises only by a con- nivance which restrained the practical execution of the existing laws against the professors of the Catholic faith. In Virginia and Maryland, too, negro slavery prevailed far more extensively and was productive of much greater evils than in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, or N^w Jersey. It was noted from an early period, as a peculiarity in the manners of the North American colonists, that their funerals were conducted with a degree of pomp and expense unknown to the contemporary practice of Europe. The costliness of funerals in New England, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, in particular, has been remarked by various writers. The legislature of Massachusetts, in the year 1724, enacted a law for restraining this vain and unseasonable prodigality ; and especially prohibiting, under a penalty of twenty pounds, the common practice of presenting a scarf to every guest who attended a funeral. Philosophic men, in others of the provinces, labored with more zeal than success to recommend a similar reformation to their fellow-citizens.^ In none of the colonies was greater ^ Rajnal. Winterbotham. Holmes. "When we were first drawn together as a society," said Michael WefFare, one of the founders of the sect of Tunkers, to Dr. Franklin, "it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far as to see that some doctrines which were esteemed truths were errors, and that others which we had esteemed errors were real truths. From time to time, he has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving and our errors diminishing : now we are not sure that we have arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge ; and we fear, that, if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive farther improvement ; and our successors still more so, as conceiving what their elders and founders had done to be something sacred and never to be departed from." Franklin's Memoirs. ' Raynal. Haviksley's Memoirs of President Edwards. Holmes. " It is a general observa- tion," says Raynal, "that plain and virtuous nations, even savage and poor ones, are remark- ably attached to the care of their burials. The Pennsylvanians, who are the greatest enemies to parade during their lives, seem to forget this character of modesty at their deaths. They IQS HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [APP. H. expense incurred or magnificence displayed at funerals than in South Carolina, where the interment of the dead was generally combined with a sumptuous banquet and a profusion of good cheer for the living. ^ British oppression and intolerance, which had founded most of the North American colonies, still continued to augment the numbers and influence the sentiments of their inhabitants. During the eighteenth century, the emigration from Ireland, where the bulk of the people were exposed to great injustice and contumely, was much more copious than from any other part of the British empire. The contest that prevailed between the Whigs and Tories in the parent state extended its influence beyond the Atlantic Ocean. A periodical work, pubHshed about this time in England, under the title of The Independent Whig^ contained abundance of satire against the High Church, or Tory party, and the ministers of the established ec- clesiastical constitution of England. It was widely circulated in America, and contributed not a little to promote a spirit of independence and republi- canism among the colonists.^ all are desirous that the poor remains of their short lives should be attended with a funeral pomp suited to their rank and fortune. Every family who hears of the death sends at least one person to attend the funeral ; all that come are treated with punch and cake ; and there is generally a train of four or five hundred persons on horseback, who follow the body to the grave in profound silence." Like the American colonists, the ancient grandees of Scot- land were so much infected with the rage for funeral ceremonial, that a sumptuary law was passed by the Scottish parliament for the purpose of restraining it. ^ " In short, the Scripture observation. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, is unintelligible and wholly inapplicable in South Carolina, as it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other." Winterbotnam. * Lambert's Travels in Canada and the United States. BOOK IX. GEORGIA. Unpeopled and defenceless State of the southern Frontier of Carolina. — Situation of impris- oned Debtors in England — Colonization of Georgia suggested for their Relief — by Ogle- thorpe. — The Moravian Brethren — agree to send a Detachment of their Society to Geor- gia. — Royal Charter of Georgia. — First Resort of Emigrants to the Province. — Oglethorpe's Treaty with the Indians. — Legislative Constitutions enacted by the Trustees of Georgia. — Negro Slavery prohibited. — John and Charles Wesley — accompanjr Moravian Emigrants to the Province. — Emigration of Scotch Highlanders. — Discontents in the Colony. — The Scotch Colonists remonstrate against Negro Slavery. — Negro Insurrection in South Caro- lina. — Spanish War. — The Moravians forsake Georgia. — Oglethorpe's Invasion of Flori- da. — The Spaniards invade Georgia — and are foiled by Oglethorpe — w^ho returns to Eng- land. — Change in the civil and political Constitution of Georgia. — Flourishing State of South Carolina. — Surrender of the Charter of Georgia to the Crown — and Introduction of Negro Slavery. — Condition of Georgia — Trade, Manners, &c. Georgia owed its colonization partly to national rivalship and ambition, and partly to individual patriotism and philanthropy. The province of South Carolina, since the year 1719, when it revolted from the proprietary gov- ernment to the crown, engrossed in a peculiar degree the care and attention of the parent state. We have remarked the legislative indulgence by which its sphere of commerce was extended ; the royal bounty by which its inhab- itants were furnished with military stores, and gratified by the remission of arrears of quitrents ; and the liberal rewards by which foreigners were en- couraged to recruit its population. But a great part of the chartered domains of the province still remained unoccupied ; and, in particular, the extensive region lying between the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah, forming the south- ern frontier, adjacent to Florida, and which had been the scene of so many Indian wars, was entirely vacant of white inhabitants. In one quarter of it, called Yamacraw, there dwelt a small tribe of Indians who were transported thither by Governor Moore in the year 1703,^ and were regarded as own- ers of the soil, though they acknowledged a precarious dependence on the English provincial government. It was manifestly requisite, both for the interest of Great Britain and the security of Carolina, that a plantation should be established in this territory, before the Spaniards, in the indulgence of their boundless pretensions, should attempt a practical annexation of it to Florida, or the French should include it in the progressive occupations by which they were advancing the settlements they had formed on the Missis- sippi. There was the more reason to apprehend such an enterprise from the French, because they possessed no settlement on the eastern shores of North America, from which they might communicate with their sugar islands more conveniently than from the Mississippi plantations ; in consequence of which, those islands were still obhged to depend for supplies of food and other provisions on the British continental colonies. But it was easier for British politicians to conceive than to execute the project of colonizing the country between the Alatamaha and the Savannah. There were other un- occupied parts of Carolina, which emigrants naturally accounted more eligi- ble resorts than this dan gerous frontier, surrounded by Indian tribes, and » Book IV., Chap. II., ante. IIQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. exposed to the brunt of Spanish and French hostility ; and little likelihood appeared of seasonably planting a stable population within its limits, except by some extraordinary effort, and the operation of motives as powerful and elevated as those by which the most distinguished of the social establish- ments already existing in North America had been engendered. At this critical period, a number of Enghshmen, some prompted by patriotism, some by Christian zeal, and some by warm benevolence and philanthropy, projected the formation of a new and distinct colonial community in the vacant region. The various purposes by which their combined exertions were centred in this measure were, to secure the British dominion over a large and important territory ; to strengthen the province of Carolina ; to rescue a numerous class of persons in Great Britain and Ireland from the misery of hopeless indigence ; to open an asylum for Protestants oppressed or persecuted in any part of Europe ; and to attempt the conversion and civ- ilization of the Indians. These were noble views, and worthy to be the sources of an American commonwealth. No modern nation has ever inflicted or sanctioned greater legal severities upon insolvent debtors than England. That jealous regard for liberty and national honor, and that generous and extended concern for the rights of human nature, which the English have always claimed as distinguishing fea- tures of their character, proved unable to withstand the most sordid and inhuman suggestions of commercial ambition. For the enlargement of their commerce, they permitted the atrocities of the slave-trade ; and for the en- couragement of that ready credit by which commercial enterprise is promot- ed, they armed the creditors of insolvent debtors with vindictive powers, by the exercise of which freeborn Enghshmen, unconvicted of crime, were frequently subjected, in the metropohs of Britain, to a thraldom as vile and afflicting as the bondage of negro slaves in the West Indies. So long w^as it before English sense and humanity were fully awakened to the guilt and mischief of this barbarous legal system, and its still more barbarous admin- istration, that, till a late period of the eighteenth century, misfortunes in trade exposed an Englishman to a punishment more dreadful than the pubhc feeling of England in the nineteenth century would suffer to be inflicted on the most odious and atrocious criminal. The writings of the illustrious How- ard, in describing the interior economy of the old prisons of England, — and the English state trials, in recording the prosecutions of some London jailers for enormous excesses of cruelty to their prisoners, — have preserved pic- tures ^ of squalid horror and ignominious wretchedness, of which we may indulge the hope that the originals will never again reappear in a civilized or Christian community. A dissolute abandonment of manners, no less than a merciless rigor of bondage, prevailed in the English prisons, which are said to have accumulated within their walls every loathsome and horrid disease, and every shameless and profligate enormity, that misery and vice could generate between them. This dreadful engine of oppression exercised a malignant reaction on the society by which its employment was authorized ; and debtors, emancipated by mercy or good fortune, too often diffused the contagion of their jail-bred vices and maladies,^ and became the burden and ^ An actual pictorial representation of the torture which inhuman jailers sometimes inflict- ed on their prisoners in London has been preserved by the pencil of Hogarth. ^ A malignant and contagious malady, called the jail fever, used to make frightful havoc among the imprisoned debtors and felons in England. In the year 1750, it raged with extreme virulence in tine prison of Newgate in London ; and was communicated in a remarkable man- BOOK IX.] COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA PROJECTED. m reproach of their country. The reverses of fortune consequent on the mer- cantile gambling which prevailed in England in the year 1720 crowded the jails of this kingdom with prisoners, to many of whom the bitterness of their actual condition was aggravated by a dire, abrupt, and affecting vicissitude, — by blighted hope, ruined pride, and a total ignorance and incapacity of the expedients by which persons more familiar with indigence contrive to alleviate its severity. The multiplication of prisoners necessarily produced an increase of the horrors of imprisonment, which at last succeeded in awakening a sentiment of indignant compassion in the pubHc mind. A rich and humane citizen of London having bequeathed his fortune to the government, for the purpose of liberating insolvent debtors from prison, some members of parliament undertook to visit the jails of London, in order to ascertain and select the properest objects of the testator's bounty. In the course of their inquiries, they detected numerous abuses of prison discipline ; but what struck them most forcibly was the corrupting influence of imprisonment on its wretched victims, and the perplexing difficulty of altering the evil bias which prison habits had impressed on these miserable men. The notion was conceived, that an object so desirable might be accomplished by some great change of scene, — by transporting these persons to North America for the purpose of founding a new colony in that region.^ This proposition, which savors more of eager benevolence than of solid wisdom, is generally supposed to have originated with the most distinguished of the individuals by whom the survey of the metropolitan prisons was performed. James Edward Oglethorpe, son of Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, was born at London, and completed his education at the University of Oxford. He served with distinction under Prince Eugene in Germany, and at an early age was advanced to the rank of colonel in the British army. Gaining a seat in parliament, he distinguish- ed himself by an ardent patriotism, an expansive benevolence, and a thirst for the glory of conducting or promoting great and generous designs. In the year 1728, he engaged the House of Commons to appoint a committee of inquiry into the state of the jails of Great Britain ; and, as chairman of this committee, he presented, in the following year, a report, which induced the House to attempt the redress of some of the most flagrant of the existing abuses. He easily prevailed with the associates of his labors to embrace the project of transporting to America the unfortunate objects of their be- nevolence ; and proposing to the government to found a new colony in the frontier territory intervening between Carolina and Florida, obtained a ready patronage of this design from the British monarch and his ministers. It was resolved that the territory selected for colonial occupation should be created a separate province, and receive the denomination of Georgia, in honor of the king. Oglethorpe's interest, thus powerfully reinforced, procured from the House ner by the victims to the dispensers of legal severity. At an Old Bailey session in that year, some of the prisoners who were tried being affected with the distemper, two of the judges, together with the lord mayor, one of the aldermen of London, several lawyers, and many of the jurymen and spectators, were smitten with the contagion, and lost their lives. Smollett. A similar disaster occurred during the same century at an assize at Oxford. ^ "And here can I forget the generous band, Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched Into the horrors of the gloomy jail ? " — Thomson. The poet, after a lively picture of the misery which had been brought to light, seems to a.lude to the scheme of expatriation in this warning line : — " O great design ! if executed well,'' 112 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. of Commons a grant of ten thousand pounds, to be added to the private estate that was bequeathed for the hberation of debtors ; and from the min- isterial cabinet a pledge (of more than dubious honesty) to appropriate to the use of the new colony the funds that had been devoted to the college projected by Bishop Berkeley. ^ This injustice was palliated and disguised by the purpose of uniting with the colonial project the pursuit of Berkeley's pious views for the conversion of the Indians, — a purpose which Oglethorpe willingly embraced,^ and which was forcibly recommended by the obvious expediency of leavening, by a copious infusion of religious zeal and virtuous example, a society to be composed of persons liberated from prison, and of uniting as far as possible, by community of sentiment, the European settlers and the aboriginal inhabitants of the region. It was publicly announced that the right of citizenship in the new province, together with the benefit of all the patronage and assistance by which the first efforts of the colonists were to be aided, would be extended to all Protestant emigrants from any nation of Europe, desirous of a refuge from persecution, or willing to undertake the religious instruction of the Indians. The invitation thus presented not only multiplied the friends of the colonial project in England, but occasioned an overture to its patrons from the most remarkable Christian society that has arisen on the continent of Europe since the era of the Protestant Ref- ormation.^ This society, which has since extended its branches to so many nations, and suppHed at once the most industrious citizens to civihzed communities, and the most diligent and successful missionaries to heathen and savage hordes, has been described by different writers under the various denomina- tions of Moravians, from the district of Moravia, in Germany, which they once .inhabited, — o( Herrnhutters, from Herrnhuth, in Saxony, where, in 1722, they found a refuge from persecution within the domains of the cele- brated Count Zinzendorf, who became their bishop, — and of The United Brethren of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which is the title recognized by themselves. They adhered to the Augsburg confession of faith, com- posed by the German Reformers in the year 1530, and they professed a strictly literal obedience to the primitive ordinances of Christianity. Find- ing no warrant in Scripture for the common practice of transferring to the first day of the week the Sabbatical honors divinely appropriated to the sev- enth, they dedicated Saturday to contemplative quiet, and entire cessation from bodily labor ; and yet assembled on Sunday to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ. Like the Quakers, they renounced all war and violence ; like the Tunkers, they estabhshed a community of goods ; they taught industry as a branch of religion, — regarding its offices and its fruits, ahke, as occasions or instruments of fulfilling the will of God ; and they re- tained the primitive practices of washing feet, saluting with the kiss of holy love, and solving doubts by appeal to Heaven through the intervention of lots. 1 ^nte, Book VllL, Chap. II., ad~f^. ~ ^ Bishop Wilson, in the Preface to his Essay towards an Instruction for the Indians, which was first printed in 1740, states that Oglethorpe's solicitations had induced him to compose it. Oglethorpe's ardent mind prompted some literary effusions from his own pen, with respect to his colonial project. He was the author of a most ingenious and interesting, though some- what fancifully colored, .Account of South Carolina and Georgia, published at London in 1733, and reprinted in the Collections of the Georgia Historical Society. A little poem which he wrote, on the same subject, is alluded to in the unpublished journal of Charles Wesley. ^ This society appears to be derived, by authentic deduction, from the primitive apostolic church, through successive generations of men who never acknowledged the supremacy nor partook the corruptions of the church of Rome. Bost's History of the Moravian Church. BOOK IX.] ROYAL CHARTER OF GEORGIA. 1|3 This last practice was employed, in particular, as a test of the propriety of contracting intended marriages. The men and women, before marriage, lived separately from each other, in assemblies where the most perfect equal- ity prevailed ; and in each of the&e assemblies, one of the members, in rotation, was appointed to pass the night in watching and prayer. Silent assiduity in business, gentleness of manner, plainness of apparel, and the ut- most personal and domestic neatness were universally cultivated by the mem- bers of this society. It was a fundamental principle of their faith, that the true dignity and highest worth of a human being consist, not in requiring and receiving service from his fellows, but in rendering it to them. The Moravians have been termed the monks of Protestantism ; ^ for, though they rejected vows, their society was entirely ecclesiastical, every thing being accomplished by religious influence, and all afiairs subjected to the superin- tendence and direction of the elders of the church. In the year 1727, this society proclaimed the purpose of undertaking missionary labor on a very extensive scale ; and in the year in which the charter of Georgia was granted [1732], Count Zinzendorf, having opened a correspondence with Oglethorpe and his associates, announced the intention of a party of the Mo- ravian brethren to unite themselves with the other colonists of this American territory. Animated by benevolent hope and general approbation, the promoters of the colonial project had now so far matured their design, that they appHed for a royal charter, which was straightway granted to them by King George the Second. By this charter the territory between the Alatamaha and the Savannah Rivers was erected into a separate and independent province, under the name of Georgia, and vested in twenty-one noblemen and gentle- men, of whom the most distinguished were Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury (the author of The Characteristics) , John, Lord Percival, John, Lord Tyr- connel, James, Lord Limerick, George, Lord Carpenter, James Edward Oglethorpe, and Stephen Hales, an English clergyman, and one of the most eminent naturalists of the age. A corporation, consisting of the twenty-one persons named in the charter, was constituted, by the title of Trustees for settling and establishing the Colony of Georgia, and vested with the pow- ers of legislation for twenty-one years ; at the expiration of which time, a permanent form of government, corresponding with British law and usage, was to be established by the king or his successors. The trustees, being empowered to collect benefactions for defraying the expense of providing suitable equipment to the colonists, and maintaining them till their houses should be built and their lands cleared, themselves set an example to the public liberality by the most generous contributions, and by a gratuitous dedication of their labor and time to the discharge of the important trust which they had sohcited. Oglethorpe, moreover, undertook to accompany the emigrants,^ to assist in forming and rearing the settlement, and gratui- tously to execute the functions of provincial governor. TJais example of public spirit and philanthropy was propagated throughout the whole king- ' This title, which was bestowed on the Moravians by Madame de Staei, might have been applied more justly to the Tunkers ; and still more so to those later sectaries of German origin (the followers of Rapp), who founded the settlement of Harmony, in America, — and, pro- hibiting both individual property and marriage, endeavoured to abolish at once inequality of condition and the continuance of human nature. ' " Or, urged by strong benevolence of soul, Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole." — Pope. VOL. II. 15 J * .. 114 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. dpm, and elicited numerous donations from all ranks and classes of people. The directors ' of the Bank of England volunteered a liberal contribution ; and the House of Commons successively voted sums of money, which, in the course of two years, amounted to thirty-six thousand pounds. At the first general meeting of the trustees [July, 1732], Lord Percival was chosen president of the corporation, and a common seal for the authentication of its acts was appointed. The device of this corporate seal was, on one side, two figures resting upon urns, representing the rivers Alatamaha and Savannah, the boundaries of the province ; between them, the genius of the colony seated, with a cap of liberty on his head, a spear in one hand, and a horn of plenty in the other, with the inscription, Colonia Georgia Aug. : on the other side was a representation of silkworms, some beginning and others completing their labors, which were characterized by the motto, JVon sibi, sed aliis. If this latter emblem were intended to proclaim the disin- terested benevolence of the trustees, it contained also an allusion to the cultivation of silk, to which they had destined the territory, and from which the people of England were encouraged to form a strong expectation of national advantage, by the assurances of Sir Gilbert Heathcote and other commercial politicians, who hesitated not to predict that the large sum of five hundred thousand pounds, which was annually remitted from England to Piedmont for the purchase of the raw silk of Italy, would speedily be made to flow into the bosom of a society composed of British subjects, who would encourage the manufactures of Britain by accepting them as an equivalent for the silk produce of Georgia. ^ A few Piedmontese silk-workers, who brought wath them a quantity of silkworms' eggs hatched in Italy, were engaged, by the liberal offers of the trustees, to accompany the first detach- ment of emigrants, w^hich, consisting of one hundred and sixteen persons, under the command of Colonel Oglethorpe [Nov. 6, 1732], sailed from Gravesend to found the last colony which England was to acquire, save by the sword, in North America. Unfortunately for this infant settlement, the Moravian emigrants who had proposed to unite themselves to it were not ready to embark at the time, when the trustees, unwilling to defer the public hope, or prolong the idle stay of their colonists in England, judged it neces- sary that a commencement of the enterprise should be made. On their ar- rival, some time after, in Holland, whither they repaired for the purpose of transporting themselves to America, the congregation of Moravians that was designed for Georgia altered their purpose, and directed their course to Pennsylvania.^ Oglethorpe, and the first crew of emigrants to Georgia, having arrived in safety at the metropolis of South Carolina, were received by the municipal oflicers of this province, and the inhabitants of Charleston, with extraordi- nary marks of kindness and satisfaction. [January 15, 1733.] The as- sembly of South Carolina, sensible of the advantage of the projected settle- ment, readily complied wiih the recommendation of Governor Johnson, in voting that a large supply of cattle and other provisions should be furnished, at the public expense, to Oglethorpe and his followers ; who, resuming their expedition, and attended by rangers and scout-boats, suppHed by the Caro- ' "The government also had in view to raise wine, oil, and silk ; and to turn the indus- try of these new colonists from the timber and provision trade, which the other colonies had gone into too largely, to channels more advantageous for the public." Wynne. ' Oldmixon. Loskiel's History of the Missions of the United Brethren in Korth America. Anderson. Universal History. Wynne. Ilcwit. Raynal. Winterbotham. Watkins's Hw- torical Dictionary. BOOK IX.] TREATY WITH THE CREEKS. ] ^g linians, proceeded to occupy a convenient station in the neighbourhood of Yamacravv [February 1, 1733], on which, from the name of the adjacent river, they bestowed the appellation of Savannah. Here a fort was erect- ed, and a few guns mounted on it, for the defence of the infant colony. The people were set to work in felling trees and building huts, and were encouraged in their labors by the animating example of Oglethorpe, who cheerfully incurred a share of every hardship. Previous to their departure from England, the colonists had received some mihtary training from the sergeants of the guards in London. They were now formed into a com- pany of militia, which Oglethorpe exercised with a frequency calculated to cherish habits of subordination among them, to preserve their martial acquirements, and to make a politic demonstration of military capacity to the Indians, The Carolinians continued to aid the progress of the colony, by sending frequent supplies of provisions for the support of the settlers, and a number of skilful workmen to direct and partake their labors. Having thus completed the first necessary arrangements for the safety of his people, the next object of Oglethorpe's attention was to establish a friendly relation with the Indians, and to gain their sanction and favor to the colonial establishment. The territory in which he and his people were planted was chiefly claimed and partly occupied by the tribes of the Upper and Lower Creeks, whose formidable power, no less than their distinct pre- tensions, rendered it desirable that the projected treaty should include them, as well as the comparatively feeble tribe that was settled at Yamacraw. By the assistance of an Indian woman married to a Carolinian trader, and who could speak both the English and the Creek languages, Oglethorpe invited all the chiefs of the Creeks to hold a conference with him at Savannah, where he designed to solicit their consent to the establishment of his colony. His invitation was accepted, and the conference that ensued was attended by fifty Indian chiefs or kings. To this assembly of the savage aristocracy of America Oglethorpe represented the great power, wisdom, and wealth of the English nation, and the many advantages that the Indians might expect to derive from a connection of friendship with that people ; and he expressed his hope, that, as the Indians had a plentiful superfluity of land, they would freely resign a share of it to his followers, who had come to settle among them for their benefit and instruction. He concluded his address by distributing presents among his auditors ; a ceremonial not only accordant with the re- quest he had made, but indispensably requisite to the formality of an Indian treaty. Then Tomochichi, the aged chief of the tribe that dwelt at Yama- craw, replied in the name of all the Creek warriors to the speech of Og- lethorpe, whose request was granted with unanimous approbation. " Here is a httle present," said the Indian ; and therewith he presented to Ogle- thorpe a buftalo's skin, on the inside of which were dehneated the head and feathers of an eagle ; remarking that the eagle signified speed, and the buffa- lo strength. " The English," he continued, " are as swift as the bird, and as strong as the beast ; since, like the first, they fly from the uttermost parts of the earth, over the vast seas ; and, like the second, they are so strong that nothing can withstand them." He said, the feathers of the eagle were soft, and figured love ; the buffalo's skin was warm, and denoted protection ; and the English, he hoped, would exemplify those attributes, in loving and protecting the families of the Indians. He acknowledged that the Great Power which dwelt in heaven and all around had endowed the IIQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. English with wisdom and riches, insomuch that they wanted nothing ; while the same Power had lavished great territories on the Indians, who yet were in want of every thing : and he declared that the Creeks were willing freely to resign to the English the lands that were useless to themselves, and to permit the English to settle among them, to the end that they might be instructed in useful knowledge, and supplied with improved accommoda- tions of life. A friendly treaty was contracted between the two races of people ; rules of mutual commerce, and for the adjustment of mutual dis- putes in conformity with the laws of England, were established ; all lands unoccupied by the Indians were assigned to the English, under the con- dition that the Indian chiefs should be previously apprized of the intended formation of every new township ; and the Indians promised, with straight hearts and love to their English brethren, that they would permit no other race of white men to settle in the country. Oglethorpe, having concluded this treaty, resumed his active superintendence of the labors and progress of the colonists, who were soon after joined by two successive reinforcements of emigrants, of whom the greater number were equipped and despatched by the trustees, though upwards of a hundred defrayed the expenses of their own transportation. He made repeated journeys to Charleston in quest of assistance and advice ; and resolving, for the ad- vantage of his people, to undertake a voyage to England, he put the col- ony in the best posture of defence that its circumstances admitted, and in- trusted the administration of its government during his absence to two indi- viduals named Scott and St. Julian. i Oglethorpe was accompanied to England by Tomochichi and his queen, and several other Indians of distinction, who were entertained in London with magnificent hospitality, loaded with presents and attentions from all classes of people, and introduced to the royal court, which was then held at Kensington. Tomochichi, on this occasion, presenting several eagle's feathers, addressed the British monarch in the following speech: — " This day I see the majesty of your face, and the greatness of your house, and the number of your people. I am come over in my old days for the good of the whole nation called the Creeks, to renew the peace they made long ago with the English. Though I cannot live to see any advantage to my- self, I am come for the good of the children of all the nations of the Upper and Lower Creeks, that they may be instructed in the knowledge of the English. These are the feathers of the eagle, which is the swiftest of birds, and flieth all round our nations. These feathers are a sign of peace in our land, and have been carried from town to town there. We have brought them over, to leave them with you, O great King, as a token of everlasting peace. O great King, whatever words you shall say unto me, I will faith- fully tell them to all the kings of the Creek nations." To this address the king returned a gracious answer, assuring the Creeks of his regard and protection. After a stay of four months, a vessel being ready to sail with an additional crew of emigrants for Georgia, the Indians also embarked in it, declaring themselves highly gratified with the generosity of the Brit- ish nation, and promising eternal fidelity to its interest.^ A treaty of * Oldrnixon. Hewit. * Tomocliichi pondered attentively and made pertinent remarks on all he saw and heard in England. He displayed much good sense and sagacity in his intercourse with the Geor- gian trustees, especially in suggesting precautionary regulations for preventing the commercial inWircourse between the colonists and the Indians from producing quarrels. Wynne. He BOOK IX.] FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF GEORGIA. ]17 peace and commerce was contracted, meanwhile, by the Georgian colo- nists with another Indian tribe called the Choctaws, to whom Oglethorpe, before his departure, had commissioned one Jones to repair for this purpose. ^ The incorporated trustees, having thus established a colony in Georgia, now proceeded to exercise their legislatorial powers by enacting a code of fundamental laws and constitutions for the infant society. By this code it was provided that each tract of land granted by the trustees should be accepted as a military fief, for which the possessor was bound to appear in arms and take the field, when summoned for the public defence ; that, to prevent accumulation of property, which was deemed inconsistent with a mihtary spirit, the tract of land assigned to each planter should not ex- ceed twenty-five acres, and no one should be suffered to possess more than five hundred acres ; that, to hinder a plurality of allotments from falling in process of time into the possession of any single individual, the lands should be granted in tail male, instead of tail general, — that is, that women should be rendered incapable of succeeding to landed property ; that, in default of heirs male to any proprietor, his estate was to revert as a lapsed fief to the trustees, in order to be again granted to another colonist on the same terms as before, — some compensation, however, being recommended in that case to the daughters (especially if not provided for by marriage) of such de- ceased proprietors as should have improved their lands ; that widows should be entitled, during their hves, to the mansion-house and one half of the land improved by their husbands ; and that, if any portion of land granted should not be cleared, fenced, and cultivated within eighteen years from the date of the relative grant, such portion was to relapse, as a forfeiture, to the trustees. No inhabitant was to be permitted to depart from the province without a license ; which was declared requisite also to legitimate trade with the Indians. The importation of rum was disallowed ; trade with the West Indies was declared unlawful ; and negro slavery was absolutely prohibited. Except in the last article, and the purposed regulation of In- dian trade, this code exhibits hardly a trace either of common sense, or of that liberality which the trustees had already so signally displayed. The imagination of man could scarcely have framed a system of rules worse adapted to the circumstances of the colonists, more pernicious to the prosperity of an infant province, or more hostile to that contentment which the trustees desired to produce, and that harvest of lasting praise and honor which they might have reaped, if their wisdom had been proportioned to their benevolence. They seem to have consulted rather the defence of Carolina than the interest of Georgia, in granting their lands as military fiefs in tail male ; — a provision calculated to limit the power of parents to pro- vide for their oflispring, and to afflict and discourage every planter who might chance to have only female children ; and which, in effect, induced numerous valuable colonists to depart from Georgia to other provinces, where they knew that they could obtain abundance of land in less stinted allotments and upon more eligible terms. By disallowing trade with the West Indies, they deprived the colonists of an ample and convenient market for the lumber of which their lands afforded a plentiful supply. The object of this restraint seems to have been to add efficacy to the pro- hibition of the importation of rum, which was itself a vain mandate, espe- was struck with the solidity of the English houses, and expressed surprise that short-lived men should build such long-lived habitations. John Wesley s JourncU. ' Oldmixon. Wynne. Hewit. .. - 113 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. Cially while the colonists were exposed to severe toil in a foggy and sultry- climate, and was unlikely to produce any other results than smuggling and discontent. But the trustees were greatly, and it must be allowed not un- reasonably, apprehensive both of the additional depravation of manners which many of their colonists might incur, and of the fatal quarrels that might arise with the Indians from the introduction of ardent spirits into the set- tlement. The Carolinians were struck with disgust and astonishment, when they heard of these impolitic and oppressive restrictions ; and plainly per- ceiving that the enforcement of them would oppose an insurmountable barrier to the progress of the new colony, began to invite the Georgian settlers to cross the Savannah River, and take refuge within the confines of Carolina. None of the regulations of the code excited greater discon- tent among the Georgian colonists than the wise and humane prohibition of negro slavery, — a regulation which was probably suggested by Ogle- thorpe's acquaintance with the state of society in South Carolina, and of which the professed object w^as to prevent a frontier province, intended to serve as a barrier or rampart to the other southern colonies, from being weakened by the introduction into its bosom of a race of domestic enemies. ^ The colonists, envying the privilege enjoyed by their neighbours in Car- olina, of delegating rough toil to slaves, complained that the strength of European constitutions, unaided by negro labor, could make no im- pression on the vast and stubborn forests by which they were surrounded. Europeans had now become so habituated to regard negroes as slaves, and to despise them as a servile and degraded race, that it never occur- red, either to the trustees or the colonists, that, by an equitable intercourse and association between white men and negroes, the advantage of negro labor might be obtained, without the concomitant injustice of negro slavery. The trustees likewise acted with great inconsistency in the policy which they blended with their humane prohibition of slavery. While they alleged, in vindication of this prohibition, that the cultivation of silk, to which the province was specially destined, was more suitable to Europeans than to negroes, they held forth to the colonists encouragements to a culture that presented the strongest temptations to the employment of negro labor. We have already noticed ^ the act of parliament that was passed a few years before this period for encouraging the trade of Carolina by permitting the merchants and planters of this province to export rice directly to any part of Europe southward of Cape Finisterre. This statute (which might rea- sonably be supposed to have been suggested by the British merchants en- gaged in the slave-trade) occasioned a great additional importation of negroes into South Carolina ; and yet the trustees of Georgia prevailed with the British government to obtain from the parliament an extension to the new province of the statutory privilege which produced that effect.^ [1735.] But the efficacy of the design for preventing the introduction of negro slavery, and indeed of every design that required patient and vigorous virtue ^ It is remarkable that the two worst political constitutions enacted by the founders of North merican States — the code composed by Locke, and the code composed by the Georgian trustees — diiFered from all the rest in expressly adverting to negro slavery, and so far diifered from each other, that, while the one solemnly sanctioned, the other as solemnly disallowed, this injustice. In addition to the reasons assigned in the text for the prohibition of negro slavery in Georgia, Judge Law suggests, that, " because a large portion of the settlers were poor and unable to procure slaves, it was thought that the influence of the example of slavery would be unfavorable upon the industry of that portion of the whites who were thus con- gtrained to personal labor." CnUections of the Ge.orsia Historical Society. « Book VIII., Chap. II., ante. ^ Wynne. Hewit. Stat. 8 George II., Cap. 19. BOOK IX.] JOHN WESLEY. Ug from the inhabitants of Georgia, was more seriously obstructed by the character and habits of the persons of whom the first emigrations to this province chiefly consisted. The trustees, as we have seen, had not been neghgent of eftbrts to counteract the evil qualities which these men naturally derived from their pecuhar misfortunes, by the infusion of better character and example among them. Disappointed in their first hope of an emi- gration of Moravian brethren, they renewed their correspondence with Count Zinzendorf, and strongly pressed him to accept of a large tract of land in Georgia, to be cultivated by a Moravian society. A party of the count's associates readily complied with his recommendation that they should em- brace this offer, and received from him a valedictory charge, which enjoined them to submit themselves, in every variety of situation, to the all-wise di- rection and ever ready guidance of God ; to cherish and preserve liberty of conscience ; to avoid religious disputes ; to keep continually in view the divine command to preach the gospel to the heathen ; and to endeavour, as far as possible, to earn their own subsistence. A few of them embarked with other emigrants in the vessel which reconveyed Tomochichi and his Indian companions to Georgia ; ^ and a larger number had since arrived in England, and were prepared to accompany the next embarkation, with which Oglethorpe also was to return to the province. They all intimated to the trustees their determination not to engage in war, and consented to embark on the faith of a positive promise of being exempted from military service. Nor were these the only persons distinguished for Christian sentiment and practice, by whose accompaniment the next projected voyage from England to Georgia was to be signahzed. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had now commenced in England that long and memorable career which has contributed so notably to the revival and diflusion of piety and virtue throughout Protestant Christendom, and has gained him a name as lasting as the reign of religion and civility in the world. This remarkable person was distinguished in an eminent degree by the strength of his understanding, the ardor of his devotion, the warmth of his benevolence, the cheerful se- renity of his manners, and the nicely exact and yet perfectly unaffected sanctity of his fife. Education had enriched him with a large variety of knowledge and accomplishments, and aided taste and nature in developing in him an eloquence at once graceful, perspicuous, impressive, and inter- esting. To the most earnest and indefatigable zeal, as a minister of the gospel and champion of his own ecclesiastical opinions, he united a dis- position singularly charitable, tender, and forgiving ; and with a wonderful clearness and subtlety of apprehension, he possessed the most stainless sin- cerity, an admirable candor, and a quaint yet genuine simplicity. The de- fects of his character were, in youth, a zeal, generously benevolent, in- deed, but unguarded and unforbearing, and throughout life a strong credulity in behalf of professed piety and avouched miraculous occurrences ; — the one, a natural consequence of youthful ardor, — the other, an enthusiastic effusion of that charity which in him never failed, but to the last kept more than even pace with the enlarging horizon of his knowledge. It was a re- mark of that great British statesman. Lord Chatham, that the ritual of the church of England is Catholic, its articles of faith Calvinistic, and its min- isters in general Arminian. Even those who may dispute the accuracy of ' Oldmixon. " Loskiel. Wynne. 120 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. the statesman's observation will hardly refuse to acknowledge the disagree- ments between original theory and existing practice, which the history of this church has occasionally presented, in common with every long-estab- lished human institution. The perception of such discrepancies between the theory and the practi- cal state of their own church has repeatedly prompted devout Catholics to found those strict religious orders, which, dissenting from the practice, ' but retaining the general doctrine, of the church of Rome, are acknowledged as kindred branches of its ecclesiastical establishment. But the church of England is a total stranger to this policy ; and at no period ^ have its rulers ever been willing to permit those ministers to remain within its pale, who, thoroughly and cordially acquiescing in its canons of doctrine, hav>e innovated or dissented from any part of its existing ritual system. Hence it was that the exertions by which John Wesley originally purposed to ren- ovate the strength and authority of the church of England, by reviving among a class of its votaries the strictness of its primitive ordinances, and the profession of doctrines contained in its canons, but unacceptable to the generality of its ministers, eventually led to the sectarian establishment of Methodism, — the most extensive and important schism that occurred in England since the expulsion of the Puritans from the national church. Un- like the prior schism, however, the progress of Methodism proved eventu- ally beneficial to the established church, and inspired in its ministers a great increase of zeal and dihgence by the influence of example, the spirit of ri- valry, and the interest of self-preservation.^ But at the present period, Wesley was known to the world only as a young clergyman of the church of England, distinguished by the purity of his life and the ardor of his zeal ; willing, and even desirous, to endure hardship for the promotion of re- ligion ; and who had formed at Oxford a society of young men who em^ braced his views, adopted his orderly habits and rigid temperance, visited the prisons along with him, and were derisively styled by the wits and mock- ers of the University, the Godly Cluh^ or Methodists. Next to John Wes- ley, the most remarkable members of this small society were his brother Charles, a man of fine talents, an elegant scholar and poet, pious, friendly, kind, liberal, and unassuming ; and George Whitefield, a man of devout and enthusiastic spirit, and one of the greatest orators, or (according to the judgment of David Hume) by far the greatest, that the world has ever pro- duced. The trustees of Georgia, acquainted with the reputation of this society, conceived the hope of inducing some of its members to join their Ameri- can colony. By the intervention of Dr. Burton, a learned and pious di- vine, who warmly supported the colonial project, Oglethorpe was introduced to the two Wesleys, and so much charmed with their characters and man- ners, that he joined with Burton in using the most pressing instances to in- cline them to comply with the wishes of the trustees and accept ecclesiastical appointments in Georgia. The Wesleys consented, — chiefly induced by the hope of evangelizing the Indians, — and prevailed with a few of their associates of lesser note to accompany them in their emigration. Burton ^ Except, perhaps, in the commencement of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when the English bishops were prevented by this princess from carrying into effect the compromise they had arranged with the Puritan clergy. See Book II , Chap. I., ante. * It has been the fashion in England to represent tne Dissenters as greatly indebted to the learning and labors of the clergy of the established church. Every impartial student of ec- clesiastical history must be aware that the very reverse of this representation is the truth. BOOK IX.] EMIGRATION OF SCOTCH HIGHLANDERS. 121 was a sagacious and experienced man ; and while he gently, but earnestly, recommended to John Wesley the virtue of Christian prudence, the wisdom and duty of accommodating himself as far as possible to all men, of forbear- ing to press upon a society chiefly composed of ignorant and dissolute per- sons any observance repugnant to their tastes and habits, and not in itself a vital and essential part of the system of Christianity, — he disclosed his ac- quaintance with the only defective trait in the character of his young and illustrious friend, and endeavoured to communicate to him that moderation of mind, that practical discrimination and sense of moral perspective, w^hich, as he himself had derived it from experience, so experience alone, without miraculous inspiration, can convey to any individual. Some new process . of educating the human mind must be discovered, before experience, or any of the virtues which are more peculiarly its progeny, can be effectually imparted in early hfe. The ardor and confidence, the prompt, open thought and purpose, characteristic of young persons, may be taught to give place to mean suspicion, or premature timidity ; but the matured wisdom of a pure and enlightened mind is the fruit of extended personal observation, — the result and test of well-spent time. All things having been prepared for the appointed emigration, Oglethorpe again embarked for Georgia, with a great quantity of military stores, and three hundred passengers [October, 1735] j among whom were the Wesleys, three or four of their associates, and a hundred and seventy Germans of the Society of Moravian Brethren. After a long and stormy voyage, which was distinguished by exercises of piety 1 that remind us of the primitive expeditions of the Puritans to New England, these emigrants reached the colony of Georgia [February, 1736], a few days after the arrival of another vessel which had been despatched with a crew of settlers from Scotland. The trustees had learned that the majority of the unfortunate persons, of whom the first embarkations consisted, were likely to prove useless and even burdensome members of society ; and though they were willing to make an attempt to improve the character and habits of these men, they perceived the necessity of confiding, in the mean time, the defence of the colony, and« the performance of the rude toils which were yet necessary to lay the foun- dations of its prosperity, to settlers of a different description. Sensible that a bold and hardy race of men, inured to rural labor and to coarse and sim- ple habits of living, would be best adapted to the immediate exigencies of cultivation and defence, they turned their eyes to the Highlands of Scot- knd, and resolved to send a number of Scottish laborers to their infant prov- ince. When their propositions were published at Inverness, a hundred and fifty Highlanders immediately closed with them, and were now transported to Georgia. A district on the river Alatamaha, which was considered the boundary between the British and Spanish territories, was forthwith allotted to these emigrants ; and settling in this dangerous situation, they built a town which received the name of New Inverness, and a fort, which, in allusion to the long-remembered disappointment of Scotland, they denominated Da- rien. Here they preserved the Highland garb,^ cherished their national manners, and lived m a state of laborious, but contented freedom and inde- pendence. They were soon after joined by accessions of adventurers from tlieir native country, who added farther strength and security to the prov- * See Note IV., at the end of the volume. ' When Oglethorpe visited them at Darien, he courteously appeared before them in the Highland garb, — a compliment with which they were highly pleased. Oldmixon. VOL. II. 16 K ;|g2 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX ince. In compliance with a request from the trustees, a minister named M'Leod was despatched to Georgia by a society estabhshed in Scotland for the propagation of the gospel, who preached to his expatriated countrymen in Gaelic, instructed their children in English, and made some attempts to communicate knowledge and religion to the Indians. John and Charles Wesley, meanwhile, were stationed, as ministers, the one at Savannah, and the other at a new plantation called Frederica, on an island nigh the mouth of the river Alatamaha ; and the Germans, who had been their fellow-voya- gers, uniting themselves with their brethren who .preceded them (and joined soon after by a band of pious exiles from Salzburg, in Bavaria) , built a town on Savannah River, to which they gave the name of Ebenezer. Be- sides his ministerial labor among the colonists, John Wesley made various attempts to instruct the Indians ; but was soon obliged to suspend the pur- suit of this, his main and favorite object, by their refusal to listen to him, till the conclusion of the wars in which they were engaged.^ It was now that Oglethorpe began to experience the most arduous trials and troubles incident to his situation, and to find that in his preconception they had not been fully weighed. It has been deemed by some philosophers a wise principle of colonial policy to stock an infant settlement with the greatest possible variety of races and ranks of men, and, after observing at- tentively their relative thrift, to seek new recruits chiefly in those races and ranks which have attained the most thriving estate. But to whatever extent the soundness of this very questionable maxim may be admitted, it can never sanction or excuse the hopeless adventure and egregious temerity of laying the foundations of a new commonwealth with spirit-broken, jail-tainted bank- rupts, — a race, that, next to felons, forms at once the worst and the most expensive raw material of colonization. Many of the original colonists prov- ed dissolute, idle, and mutinous ; some of the magistrates whom Oglethorpe appointed administered the laws with immoderate rigor against other persons, that they might engross to themselves a monopoly of the profits arising from their violation ; and rumors were circulated of hostilities from the Spaniards. Oglethorpe, though well fitted by the ardor and generosity of his disposi- tion to commence and impel the progress of a great undertaking, was less qualified to exert the wisdom, prudence, and address requisite to conduct it to a happy consummation. His judgment was perhaps somewhat vitiated by an unrestrained indulgence of sanguine and romantic speculation, as his natural impetuosity was certainly inflamed by the possession of supreme and arbitrary power. In the internal government of the colony, he displayed more spirit and zeal for the general happiness and welfare, than temper and constancy in pursuing a consistent line of policy. He seems to have fluc- tuated between a lingering indulgence for the original objects of his benevo- lent concern, and a conscientious desire to improve their manners by a dis- cipline which they were averse to undergo ; and between an honest disappro- bation of the misconduct of the magistrates, and a politic fear to discredit authority and increase dissatisfaction by publicly exposing and punishing their malversations. His open and unguarded temper caused him frequently to create the irritation he apprehended, by expressing purposes of severity which he had not sufiicient firmness to pursue. John Wesley and his asso- ciates labored diligently to elevate the views and correct the evil habits of the people among whom they ministered ; and their characters and exer- ^ Journal of John Wesley. Whitehead's Life of the Wesleyt. Loskiel. Oldmixon. Hewit. Holmes. BOOK IX.] INTRIGUES AGAINST THE WESLEYS. 123 tions were at first the objects of universal admiration. Some improvements in outward conduct were introduced, and some permanent advantage com- municated to a few of the settlers. But the majority of the people and especially the wealthier colonists, soon began to express disgust at Wesley's rigidity, and jealously to interpret his sermons into satires upon particular in- dividuals. While the Wesleys and their associates seemed to enjoy the favor and countenance of the governor, some foolish and worthless persons hastily or hypocritically professed to embrace their doctrines ; and employing this pro- fession as a cloak for intrigue, spleen, and slander, discredited the ministry of which such evil qualities appeared to be the fruits. Uninformed of all the causes of the opposition that began to manifest itself, the Wesleys, and especially John, continued zealously to preach the doctrines most offensive to the pride of corrupt nature, and to insist on an observance of ecclesias- tical ordinances with a strictness, which, however agreeable to the theoretical constitutions of the church of England, had long obtained from ministerial practice and popular acquiescence a considerable relaxation. Oglethorpe, already harassed by the other troubles which beset his difficult position, was perplexed and provoked by the general complaints urged against men whom he expected to find his most useful auxiliaries in promoting contentment and subordination ; and while he publicly affected to support the Wesleys, he privately entreated them to moderate the expression of their zeal, to forbear from pressing instruction on persons averse to receive it, or weighty doctrine on those to whom the most diluted truth was unpalatable ; and above all to beware of the discredit they sustained, and the evil offices they might incur, from hypocritical pretenders to religious impression. The expediency of this last counsel his own conduct soon after demonstrated in a remarka- ble manner. While the Wesleys were preparing to leave England, two women, whom vicious love had deprived of reputation, solicited their interest to be admitted among the emigrants, and engaged it by their profession of penitence and resumed virtue. Oglethorpe distrusted this profession ; and after vainly endeavouring to persuade the Wesleys to regard it as hollow and insincere, he yielded to their charitable urgency, with the prophetic as- surance that they w^ould have cause to repent it. Doubtless neither he nor they anticipated the manner in which this prediction was to be fulfilled. One of those women now obtained an ascendant, short-lived indeed, but unlimited, over the mind of Oglethorpe,^ whom she completely estranged from the Wesleys, and induced to regard them as libellous censors of his character, conspirators against his power, fomenters of mutiny and rebellion among the colonists, and even treacherous agents of the Spaniards. It is difficult to suppose that Oglethorpe, though he affected to believe all these charges, really credited more than the first of them, which, in truth, though utterly destitute of foundation, owed its credit with him as much to the secret s urmises of his own conscience as to the arts and blandishments Cooke and Moore, in their interesting Memoirs of John Wesley^ have adopted a story, — sanctioned (as far as I am able to discover) rather by strong probabilities than satisfactory proof, — that Oglethorpe, on yielding to the seductive advances of this woman, employed her companion to attempt to gain a similar triumph over John Wesley ; accounting that a person- al experience of infirmity would render him a softer censor of the frailties of others. The menacing hint communicated one day by Oglethorpe, that he could find plenty of individuals in the colony, who for a bottle of rum would take Wesley's life, has been ascribed to his rage and alarm on finding that his unsuccessful confederate had been prompted by remorse to be- tray him. The evidence would be complete, if more reliance could be placed on the confes- sion of a profligate woman. 124 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. of his unprincipled paramour. While his delusion lasted, he treated the two brothers, who continued warmly attached to him, with the most tyran- nical insolence and injustice, and encouraged his people to reject their coun- sels with scorn, and deny them even the ordinary offices of humanity and good neighbourhood. A severe illness, however, which endangered his hfe, opened his eyes to his folly and showed him who were truly his friends j and from this moment his regard and esteem for the Wesleys continued to sub- sist and increase through a long succession of years, till the arrival of the period decreed to all earthly friendships and connections. But the regret which he felt for his injurious conduct to them was insufficient to counteract its pernicious consequences, and the Wesleys were soon made sensible that in Georgia their authority was broken and their hopes of usefulness com- pletely blasted. Charles Wesley quitted the province this year, shordy be- fore Oglethorpe himself returned to England ; and in the follow^ing year [1737],^ during Oglethorpe's absence, John Wesley — finding that the peo- ple were determined to resist his purpose of baptizing healthy infants only by immersion, that the grand jury had presented as a public nuisance his re- duction of the EnghshHturgy into three services, and that he was threatened with both civil and criminal process for refusing to administer the sacrament to a notorious adulteress — followed the example of his brother, and bade adieu to America, with the hope, which was never reahzed, of visiting it again. ^ But his influence in America, though suspended by his departure, did not expire with it. He returned to England, to found a sect, of which the ramifications have extended to every one of the North American prov- inces. When we consider, that, if Wesley had succeeded in maintaining his position in Georgia, he would probably have ended his life as a missionary among the Indians, we must regard his failure as a happy circumstance in his lot, and a providential interposition for the advantage both of Britain and of America. Oglethorpe, meanwhile, with the artillery which he had brought from. England, began to fortify Georgia, by erecting strongholds upon its frontiers. At one place, which he named Augusta, a fort was constructed on the banks of Savannah River, in a situation well calculated to protect the Indian trade, and to facilitate conferences for cementing friendship or en- larging commerce with various Indian tribes. At Frederica, another fort, with four regular bastions, was erected ; and several pieces of cannon were planted upon it. Ten miles nearer the sea, a battery was raised for the de- fence of the entrance into the sound, through which alone ships of force could penetrate to Frederica. To defray the expense of these operations, * The first part of John Wesley's published Journa/ contains a succinct, and perspicuous sketch of the state of the British plantations in Georgia at this period, and of the condition and character of the neighbouring tribes of Indians. ^ Wynne. Aikin's Annual Review^ Vol. I. JohnWeslej's Journal. MS. Journal of Charles Wesley. This curious and interesting document, which its author was deterred from publish- ing by unwillingness to hurt the feelings of Oglethorpe, was submitted to my perusal by his daughter, my venerable and accomplished friend, the late Sarah Wesley. The published Journal of John Wesley is silent with regard to the most remarkable cause of the dispute with Oglethorpe. An aged friend of mine informed me that he was in a company in London, where John Wesley, for the first time after his return from America, met with General Oglethorpe, who, on entering the room, advanced up to Wesley, and, on bended knee, kissed his hand. The children of Charles Weslev repeatedly assured me that both their father and uncle re- tained the kindest feelings towardis Oglethorpe ; that they rather lamented than condemned his conduct to them in Georgia, ascribed it to an unhappy delusion, and were averse to speak About it. I have alluded to it the more particularly on account of the ignorant blame heaped on the Wesleys in relation to this matter by some modern writers. BOOK IX] HOSTILE PREPARATIONS OF THE FRENCH. ]25 and maintain garrisons in the forts, an additional sum of ten thousand pounds was granted by the British parliament. While Oglethorpe was thus employ- ed, he received intelligence of a considerable reinforcement of the Spanish garrison at Augustine ; and shortly after, a message from the governor of this settlement acquainted him that a Spanish commissioner had arrived from Havana, charged with a communication which he desired an early op- portunity of personally delivering to the British commander. At a confer- ence which ensued, the commissioner peremptorily required that Oglethorpe and his people should instantly evacuate all the territories lying southward of St. Helena Sound, which he declared to be the undoubted property of the king of Spain, who was determined speedily and effectually to vindicate his rights. He refused to listen to any argument in support of the English claims, and departed with a repetition of his demands and menaces. Ogle- thorpe, now perceiving that the most vigorous measures, and a stronger defensive force than the province could supply, would be necessary to repel or overawe the hostile purposes disclosed by Spain, resolved to represent the state of affairs to the British ministers, and, straightway embarking, set sail for England. [November 23, 1736.] His apprehensions of danger to the colony were increased by demon- strations of hostihty from another quarter. A war had recently broken forth in Europe between the king of France and the emperor of Ger- many, which, it was believed, would inevitably spread to every European state ; and as Britain was expected to espouse the quarrel of Germany, the court of France despatched orders to the governors of Quebec and New Orleans to prepare, in that event, to invade the least defensible frontiers of the British settlements in America. For this purpose, an army was as- sembled in New France, and preparations were made for uniting the force of Canada and Louisiana to attack Carolina and Georgia. But before the hostile design was carried into execution, advice was received that the flames of war had been quenched in Europe, and a general peace restored by the mediation of Britain and Holland. The French governors, however, determined to strike a blow, with the troops they had assembled, against the enemies of France and the allies of England. A detachment of French and Indians accordingly proceeded from Canada down the Mississippi to attack the tribe of Chickasaws, one of the least numerous, but bravest, of the Indian nations, and firmly attached to the English ; while another party of French advanced from Louisiana to revenge a quarrel of their country- men with the Creeks. Both these detachments were repulsed and defeated with considerable slaughter by the Chickasaws and Creeks. The colo- nists of Carolina and Georgia rejoiced not a little at this result, and began now more diligently than ever to court the friendship and interest of those Indian tribes who had shown themselves so capable of interposing an ef- fectual barrier against the power of France. During Oglethorpe's absence [1737], the regulations of the trustees re- specting the rum trade nearly created a rupture between the provincial governments of Georgia and Carolina. The fortification at Augusta induced some traders of Carolina to establish stores at that place, which was con- veniently situated for commerce with the Indian nations. For this purpose, and to avoid the expense of land carriage, they freighted boats with their goods, to ascend the Savannah River to Augusta. But, as the boats were attempting to pass the town of Savannah, they were stopped by the magis- ]26 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. Irates of this place, who ordered the packages to be opened, the casks of rum, of which they partly consisted, to be staved, and the crews of the boats to be put in prison. The Carolinians, incensed at this outrage, promptly deputed two members of their council and assembly to demand of the Georgians by what authority they presumed to seize and confiscate the effects of Carolinian traders, or to compel them to submit to the Georgian laws. These deputies were received with respect and civility by the magistrates of Savannah, who had become sensible of their error, and, acknowledging it, gave the amplest redress and satisfaction to the in- jured traders. Strict orders were communicated to the agents of Georgia among the Indians not to molest the traders from Carolina, but to render them all friendly assistance and protection. The Carolinians, on the other hand, engaged not to smuggle any strong liquors among the settlers of Georgia ; and the navigation of the river Savannah was declared open alike to the inhabitants of both provinces. Some of the Georgian planters now began to make considerable advances in clearing and cultivating their lands. The Moravian emigrants, in particular, set a rare example of dili- gence and virtue. Their plantation was already a model of neatness, com- fort, and successful husbandry.^ They had assisted their poorer and less industrious neighbours, and established a school and mission among the Creek Indians, with the most promising appearance of success. With indefatigable industry and charity they combined the most rigid sense of justice ; and before another year elapsed, repaid to the Georgian trustees the money that had been advanced in London to enable them to emigrate to Ameri- ca. Their numbers were now enlarged by an additional emigration of their countrymen and fellow-sectaries, who imitated and extended the same ad- mirable and happy example.^ But this example was insufficient to reconcile the majority of the Geor- gian colonists to their situation, or to counteract the discontent with which the regulations promulgated by the trustees were regarded, especially by those settlers who had first resorted to the province. In the adjacent territory of Carolina they found that they could obtain land on a tenure more liberal than was prescribed by the Georgian constitutions, and enjoy the privilege of purchasing negroes to assist in clearing and cultivating it ; and, in contempt of the ordinance against quitting the province without a license, such numbers now began to retire to Carolina that apprehensions were entertained of the total desertion of Georgia. The freeholders of Savannah and its neighbourhood assembled together, and prepared a remon- strance, which they transmitted to the trustees, and in which they protested that the Successful cultivation of Georgia was impossible, unless its inhab- itants were indulged with the same privileges that were enjoyed by their neighbours in Carolina. In two points, especially, they implored rehef from their rulers ; they desired a fee-simple or free title of absolute prop- erty to their lands, and permission to import negroes under certain Hmi- tations ; without which, they affirmed, they had neither encouragement to la- ' "One would scarcely think it possible," said John Wesley, himself distinguished for his economy and diligent improvement of time, " for a handful of men to have done all this in one year." 2 Count Zinzendorf paid a visit to England this year, and proposed to the Georgian trustees that a uniop should take place betvv^een the Moravian church and the church of England in Georgia, and that Great Britain should acknowledge the united body as one church. The proposition was submitted to some of the English bishops, who expressed less disinclination than inability to comply with it. MS. Journal of Charles Wesley. BOOK IX.] . DIFFICULTIES WITH SPAIN. 127 l^or, nor means of providing for their posterity. While the Moravians, who never interfered with political affairs, silently demonstrated by their successful industry that the introduction of negro slaves into the province was quite unsupported even by the tyrannical plea of necessity, the colony of Scotch Highlanders loudly and unanimously protested against it as a monstrous outrage upon human nature. They declared that the institution of slavery would be the most formidable grievance that could befall Georgia ; that, intermingling a race of barbarous and desperate servants with the provincial families, and rendering one class of the inhabitants always ready to aid the hostihties of the Spaniards against the others, it might at some future day prove a dreadful scourge, and cause the people of Savan- nah themselves to feel the smart of that oppression which they so earnestly desired to introduce and exercise. The just, as well as the unjust, com- plaints of the Georgians were equally disregarded by the trustees.^ Arriving in England [1738], Oglethorpe found the nation more disposed than the ministers to second his wish for the effectual vindication of the rights of Britain against the pretensions of Spain. For several years, the cabinets of London and Madrid had been involved in a series of disputes arising out of their respective commercial interests and territorial claims in America. The colonies of England, and especially Jamaica, had long carried on a contraband trade with the American settlements of the Span- iards ; for the prevention of which, the court of Spain issued orders to its naval commanders to board and search every Enghsh vessel navigating the Mexican seas ; and, in the execution of this mandate, the Spanish ships of war detained and confiscated so many vessels whose cargoes and desti- nation were perfectly legitimate, that English commerce in that quarter of the world was almost entirely suspended. The merchants of Britain warmly complained of these outrages ; and the nation, fired with resent- ment, cried aloud for vengeance and war. But, amidst the general ardor and indignation. Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister, appeared unmoved and inactive. Afraid of endangering his power by the increased taxation which a war would require, and unwiUing to divert to the equipment of military armaments the existing revenues, which he expended in maintaining, by an amazing extent of bribery, an odious and unpopular administration, he industriously labored to avoid a rupture with Spain, and defended the violat- ed rights and honor of his country only by languid negotiations and fruitless remonstrances. The outrages of which the English merchants complained were so fla- granfand undeniable, that the court of Spain, unable to withstand their claims of compensation, agreed to recognize them ; but deferred the liquidation of the debt, and absolutely refused to abandon the pretension to board and search the vessels of England. Nay, the slender concession which it was impossible to withhold was clogged with the condition, that Britain should abandon her occupation of Georgia and of a considerable part of Carolina ; and so unreservedly did Walpolb postpone regard for consistent policy and national honor and interest to the preservation of the forms of peace, that he hearkened even to these insolent and injurious demands, and, by a con- vention concluded in the commencement of the present year, pactioned with the court of Spain to refer all disputes between the two kingdoms to plenipotentiaries mutuall y appointed, and engaged, in the mean while, to ' John Wesley's Journal. Loskiel. Hewit. Anderson. 128 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. arrest the progress of all fortifications in Carolina and Georgia. In return, the court of Spain undertook to advance immediately a sum of money for satisfying a part of the claims of those English merchants who had been pil- laged of their property by the Spanish cruisers. The merchants of Eng- land and the people in general were roused to the highest pitch of indigna- tion by the tidings of this ignominious convention.^ It was in vain that the minister and his adherents opposed to the public spirit the timorous plea, that England had no continental allies to aid her in a war which would infallibly promote the views of a Popish pretender to the crown. The Georgian trustees united with the merchants of London, Liverpool, and Bristol, in complaining to the House of Commons, which had pledged the national faith for the support and protection of the new province ; and their application was seasonably enforced by the infatuated insolence with which the court of Spain, relying on the tameness of Walpole, withheld even the small pecunia- ry restitution which he had so dearly bought from it. A war with this impe- rious people was thus rendered inevitable ; and though Walpole still contin- ued to fill up the measure of his unpopularity by laboring to elude or post- pone that extremity, he found it impossible to withstand the general desire that Georgia should be protected from the grasp of Spain. The national feeling on this point was partaken by the king, to whom the Georgian trus- tees presented an earnest petition for assistance, and who signified his com- mands that prompt and effectual measures should be adopted for the security of the province.^ Oglethorpe was now promoted to the rank of major-general ; and with a regiment of six hundred men, and the appointment of commander-in-chief of all the forces in South Carolina and Georgia, once more set sail from England, to undertake the defence of the southern frontiers of the British do- minions in America. The parliament, at the same time, aided the new col- ony with an additional grant of twenty thousand pounds ; and for the encour- agement of the soldiers, the trustees assured to each of them twenty-five acres of land as the premium of seven years' service in Georgia. The arrival of this force excited the liveliest hope and joy in the two provinces for whose benefit it was more peculiarly destined. The general, establishing his head- quarters at Frederica, hastened to erect forts on the islands of Jekyl and Cumberland, situated nearer to the Spanish territories. But the object which he felt it most pressingly requisite to secure was the friendship of the Creek ^ In Dr. Johnson's London^ which was published this year, the national feeling is expressed in these lines : — " In pleasing dreams, the happy age renew, And call Britannia's glories back to view ; " ^ Behold her cross triumphant on the main, The guard of commerce and the dread of Spaiv ; Ere masquerades debauched, excise oppressed. Or British honor grew a standing jest. The attempt of the Spaniards to dispossess destitute men of the refuge they had found in Georgia seems to be alluded to in the following lines of the same poem : " Has Heaven reserved, in pity to the poor. No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore. No secret island in the boundless main, — JVo peaceful desert yet unclaimed by Spain ? Quick let us rise, tne happy seats explore. And bear oppression's insolence no more." Oglethorpe was in London when this poem was published ; and, though not till a later pe- riod of his life personally acquainted with Johnson, he exerted much diligeuce to introduce »t to the notice of the public. Boswell's Life of Johnson. « Smollett. Hewit. BOOK IX.] INTRIGUES OF THE SPANIARDS. ]29 Indians, who had conceived a warm regard for him, and whom the Span- iards during his absence had industriously courted and studied to estrange from their adherence to the Enghsh. The Spanish governor had succeeded in enticing some of their chiefs to Augustine, by the pretence that they would meet their friend Oglethorpe there ; but the efficacy of his offers and caresses was defeated by the anger and suspicion that the savages con- ceived, on detecting the deceit. Oglethorpe, • returning seasonably at this juncture, invited them to meet him at Frederica, where he acknowledged and extolled their fidelity, distributed many valuable presents among them, and united with them in a solemn renewal of their former treaty of friendship and alliance. But the intrigues of the Spaniards were neither checked by this disappointment, nor restricted to the Indians. Learning that murmurs had arisen among the soldiers of the regiment which Oglethorpe brought from England, on account of the hardships of a situation foreign to their previous habits, and that two companies of this regiment had served at Gibraltar and gained there some acquaintance with the Spanish language, the gov- ernor of Augustine found means to corrupt one of these men, and by his agency to excite a conspiracy in Oglethorpe's camp. A daring attempt was made to assassinate the general ; but his courage and resolution happily ex- tricated -him from the danger; and the mutineers being suppressed, their ringleaders were shot by the sentence of a court-martial. Another and more successful effort of Spanish pohcy was directed to the seduction of the negro slaves in South Carolina, who now amounted to the number of forty thousand. Liberty and protection were tendered to all fugitive negroes from the English by the governor of Florida, and emissa- ries were despatched to Carolina to acquaint the slaves with the offer and invite them to embrace it. This invitation, sufficiently tempting to men in a state of bondage, however mitigated, was promoted by the cruelty with which despotic power and selfish fear induced many of the planters of Carolina to treat their negroes, and which the provincial laws practically sanctioned by affixing the trifling penalty of seven pounds of the depreciated money of Carolina to the murder of a slave, and remitting half of the penalty to any murderer who should think it expedient to inform against himself.^ To negroes deserting from CaroHna the Spaniards allotted lands near Au- gustine, where already five hundred fugitives had arrived. Of these negro refugees the governor of Florida composed a regiment ; appointing officers from among themselves, allowing them the same pay and clothing them in the same uniform with the regular troops of Spain. But in the present year, the severity of the Carolinians and the intrigues of the Spaniards pro- duced the formidable mischief of an insurrection of the negroes in South Carolina. A number of these unfortunate persons, having assembled at Stono, first surprised and killed the European proprietors of a large ware- house or magazine, and then plundered it of guns and ammunition. Thjus provided with arms, they elected one of their own number to be their cap- tain, and marched under his direction towards the southwest, with colors flying, drums beating, and all the array of an army of^hostile invaders. With Httle violence, they compelled the negroes on the plantations which they approached to join them ; and vented their revengeful rage on the free colonists, of whom, nevertheless, only twenty perished by negro hands. The utmost terror and consternation was excited through the whole of South ^ See Note V., at the end of the volume. VOL. II. 17 igO HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. Carolina. But Bull, the governor, hastily assembling a force against the insurgents, took advantage of the intoxication from which the negroes could not refrain, and attacking them suddenly, while they were celebrating their fancied triumph with orgies which disabled them from obtaining it, easily routed and dispersed their forces. Many of the fugitives hastened back to the plantations they had quitted, hoping to resume their toils without de- tection ; but the greater number were taken and brought to judicial reck- oning. All who had been or seemed to have been compelled to join the other insurgents, contrary to their owri inclination, were pardoned ; but a vast number, including the first promoters and chosen leaders of the rebel- lion, suffered the severest infliction of human power and vengeance.^ The following year [1739] was signalized by the extremity which Sir Robert Walpole had so long resisted ; and with the unanimous voice of the nation, war was declared by England against Spain. An act of parliament was passed at the same time for naturalizing all foreign Protestants settled in any of the British colonies in America.^ If this act was meant to gratify or retain the Moravian settlers in Georgia, its efficacy was completely de- feated by the contemporary proceedings of the English inhabitants of this province. About a year before, when a provincial force was hastily as- sembled to encounter an apprehended invasion of the Spaniards, the Mora- vians were summoned to join their fellow-colonists in defending their adopted country. This summons they mildly, but firmly, refused to obey ; declaring that no human power or motive could induce them to take the sword, and appealing to the pledge they had received from the trustees of exemption from mihtary service. The magistrates w^ere constrained to admit the force of the appeal ; but so much jealousy and displeasure were expressed on this account by the bulk of the planters against the Moravians, that several of these sectaries, unwilling to remain among a people in whom their presence excited unfriendly sentiments, abandoned the province and retired to the peaceful domain of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, where already a numer- ous society of the Moravian brotherhood was collected. The rest, under the direction of an excellent pastor, named Peter Boehler, continued to re- side in Georgia ; some desirous of discharging the pecuniary debt which they had contracted to the trustees, and all unwilling to forsake their mis- sionary labors among the neighbouring Indians, which began to be attended with happy results. But in the present year, they again received a sum- mons to join the provincial militia ; and, declining to resume the former con- troversy, they bade farewell to Georgia, surrendered their flourishing plan- tations without a murmur, and reunited themselves to their brethren who were established in Pennsylvania. One of their number returned shortly after to Georgia, at the request of George Whitefield, with the hope both of assisting that extraordinary man to execute the benevolent project he had undertaken in this province, and of prosecuting the missionary work which had been commenced among the Creeks. [1740.] Whitefield, undeterred by the disappointment that the Wesleys sustained in Georgia, tendered his services in the province to the trustees ; and having obtained a tract of ^ MS. Journal oi'C. Wesley. Whitehead's Life of the Wesleys. Wynne. Hewit. Holmes. ^ Twelve years after, a bill was brought into parliament for naturalizing all foreign Protes- tants settled in Great Britain. It was supported by Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, and opposed by Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, and by the principal mercantile corporations of England and the bulk of the people. The Prince of Wales, son of George the Second, was its strenuous patron ; and his death was the main cause of its failure. Smollett. BOOK IX.] OGLETHORPE'S INVASION OF FLORIDA. J^Jl land from them, he laid the foundation of an orphan-house, a few miles from Savannah, and afterwards completed it at a great expense. It was designed to be an asylum for destitute children, of whom great numbers were left dependent on public compassion by the premature deaths of many of the first imported colonists, and who were to be clothed and fed by charitable contributions, and educated in the knowledge and practice of Christianity. 1 The advantages which Whitefield expected to deduce from this humane and laudable institution were never realized ; but his labors and travels, to which it first gave rise, in various parts of America, were subsequently productive of important results. One of his earliest publica- tions was a letter he addressed about this time to the planters of Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas, on the cruelties inflicted on their negro slaves, which is said to have produced a considerable amelioration in the treat- ment of these victims of oppression. During his long and frequent visits to America, he continued steadily to advocate the interests of the negroes, and so successfully as to persuade a number of the planters to emancipate their ;5laves.^ The British government seemed now resolved to atone for the timid policy that retarded the declaration of war, by the extent of its hostilities upon the Spanish dominions. An application was made to Virginia and North Carolina for a levy of troops to reinforce the English armament des- patched against Carthagena under Admiral Vernon, a man whose personal bravery had gained him credit for the possession of qualities much more essential to a commander ; and as Colonel Spottiswoode received a com- mission to raise and command the provincial auxiliaries, the colonists both of Virginia and North Carolina eagerly obeyed the summons to enrol themselves under the banners of a leader so highly respected and beloved. A considerable force (to which North Carolina contributed four hundred men) was accordingly embodied, and, on the death of Spottiswoode, pro- ceeded, under the command of Gooch, the governor of Virginia, to embark in Vernon's squadron, and shared in the disastrous enterprise against Car- thagena, which was defeated by the dissensions between the English com- manders, and cost the lives of twenty thousand British subjects, of whom by far the greater number were the victims of a pestilential distemper.^ Oglethorpe, partaking the general ardor of his countrymen to punish the insolence of Spain, determined not to confine the operation of the force with which he was intrusted to defensive warfare. Having concerted a plan for the invasion of Florida, he solicited the assistance of Virginia and Carolina to its execution. The assembly of South Carolina granted one hundred and twenty thousand pounds of Carolinian currency for the pur- pose ; and a regiment was raised, partly in Virginia and partly in North and * Loskiel. Holmes. Franklin's Memoirs. ' Clarkaon's History of the Abolition of the Slave-trade. Southey's Life of Wesley. ^ " Such as of late at Carthagena quenched The British fire. You, gallant Vernon ! saw The miserable scene ; you heard the groans Of agonizing ships from shore to shore , Heard nightly plunged amid the sullen waves The frequent corse." — Thomson. Vernon had supported warlike counsels in the House of Commons with an ardor that was highly agreeable to the nation, and proportionally unacceptable to the minister, who, on find- ing war inevitable, seized the opportunity of pleasing the people and ridding himself of a troublesome censor by promoting Vernoii to the command of the expedition against the SpoAidh colonics. #;, 132 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XX. South Carolina, to cooperate with the forces of Oglethorpe. The com- mander of the Enghsh ships of war on this station agreed to aid the enter- prise with a naval armament, consisting of four ships of twenty guns each, and two sloops ; and the Indian allies of the English declared themselves ready, at a moment's warning, to send a powerful auxihary force to accom- pany the expedition. Oglethorpe, learning that the Spanish garrison at Augustine were straitened for provisions, urged the speedy advance of the colonial militia and the ships of war ; and, hastening to enter Florida with four hundred chosen men of his own regiment, and a considerable body of Indians, invested Diego, a small fort, about twenty-five miles from Au- gustine, which, after a short resistance, surrendered by capitulation. Leav- ing a garrison of sixty men there, he proceeded to the place of general rendezvous, where he was joined by Colonel Vanderdussen with the Caro- linian and Virginian regiment, and a company of Highlanders, under Captain M'Intosh. A few days after, he marched with his whole force, consisting of above two thousand men, regulars, provincials, and Indians, to Fort Moosa, within two miles of Augustine, which was evacuated by its garrison on his approach. The Spaniards had exerted themselves to strengthen the fortifications of the town and castle of Augustine ; and Oglethorpe, soon perceiving that an attempt to take the place by storm would be an act of presumptuous rashness, changed his plan of operation, and resolved, with the assistance of the EngHsh ships, which were now lying at anchor off Au- gustine bar, to turn the siege into a blockade. For this purpose, he left Colonel Palmer, with ninety-five Highlanders and forty-two Indians, at Fort Moosa, with orders to scour the woods round the town, and intercept all supplies of provisions which it might derive from the country ; and sent Colonel Vanderdussen with the Carolina regiment to occupy and erect a battery on Point Quarrel, a neck of land about a mile distant from the cas- tle ; while he himself, with his own regiment and the main body of the In- dians, embarked in boats, and landed on the island of Anastatia, fronting the castle, whence he resolved to attempt the bombardment of the town. When his batteries were erected, and the ships of war so stationed as to block up the mouth of the harbour and exclude the garrison from supplies by sea, he summoned the governor of the place to surrender ; but, secure in his stronghold, the Spaniard rephed that he would be glad to shake hands with him in the fortress. Oglethorpe, whose disposition was fiery and irascible, expressed much inappropriate anger at this reply, and straight- way proceeded to open his batteries upon the castle, and to throw shells into the town. The cannonade was briskly returned by the enemy ; but the distance was so great, that, although it was continued for several days, very little execution was done on either side. A series of disasters and calamities now befell the besieging army. The Spanish governor, remarking the smallness of the force stationed at Fort Moosa under Colonel Palmer, secretly detached three hundred of his troops, by whom Palmer was attacked by surprise, and his party of gallant Highlanders almost entirely cut to pieces. Some of the Chickasaw Indians, having caught a straggling Spaniard, cut off his head, and presented the gory trophy to Oglethorpe in his tent. The general was struck with dis- gust and horror at this savage style of warfare, and hastily exclaiming that they were barbarous dogs^ commanded them to quit his presence. Stung by this disdainful behaviour, the Chickasaw warriors angrily observed, that, BOOK IX.] UNHAPPY RESULTS OF THE INVASION. |33 if they had carried the head of an Englishman to the French, they would have experienced a very different reception ; and having communicated the insult they had sustained to their companions, the whole detachment from the Chickasaw tribe immediately abandoned the camp and returned home. While the besieging forces were thus diminished, the Spanish gar- rison received a reinforcement of seven hundred men and a copious sup- ply of provisions in some small ships from Havana, which contrived to elude the vigilance of the British vessels and to enter the harbour undis- covered. All prospect of starving the enemy into a surrender consequently ceased, and the besiegers began to despair of a successful issue to their undertaking. The Carohna troops, enfeebled by the heat of the climate, and dispirited by sickness and fruitless fatigue, marched away in large bodies. The naval commander represented, that, from the deficiency of his provis- ions and the near approach of the usual season of hurricanes, he judged it imprudent to retain the fleet longer on this coast. The general himself was attacked by a fever, and his regiment was worn out with fatigue and crippled by sickness. This combination of adverse circumstances rendered it necessary to abandon the enterprise ; and Oglethorpe, overwhelmed with chagrin, raised the siege and returned to Frederica. [July 10, 1740.] The Carolinians were filled with anger and disappointment at this catastrophe, and openly imputed it to want of courage and skill in the general ; while he increased their irritation by retorting their injustice, and declaring that he had now no confidence in their militia, who had refused obedience to his orders, and mutinously or pusillanimously deserted his camp. Oglethorpe, indeed, did not deserve the imputations that were thrown on his military skill, and much less on his courage, of which the strain was rather heroic than temperate ; but he showed a want both of reflective prudence and mod- eration^ in stigmatizing with abrupt and vehement censure the mode of warfare practised by a faithful though savage ally, and in expecting from a troop of brave but undisciplined militia the same mechanical obedience that he was accustomed to exact from regular soldiers. The Carolinians had not ceased to deplore their misfortune, when [November, 1740] they sus- tained a heavy aggravation of it from a desolating fire which broke forth in Charleston, laid in ashes three hundred of the principal houses in the town, and occasioned damage that was estimated at two hundred thousand pounds. The assembly appHed for relief to the British parliament, which granted twenty thousand pounds to be distributed among the sufferers.^ Nothing could be more unfortunate than the conduct of Great Britain in this war. [1741.] Admiral Vernon, hoping to retrieve his miscarriage at Carthagena by a more successful enterprise against another of the colo- nial settlements of Spain, obtained, in consequence of a requisition from the British government to the North American provinces, a reinforcement of three thousand six hundred men, chiefly supplied by the States of New England. Thus recruited, he made a descent upon Cuba, where, without * The conduct of Oglethorpe, at this period, seems to have resembled his conversation in later years, v^rhich, though admired for its generous fire and vivacity, was reproached as desultory and immethodical. " Oglethorpe," said Dr. Johnson, " never co?n;;Ze/c5 what he has to say." Boswell's Life of Johnson. Horace Walpole says that Oglethorpe " was always a bully." Letters to Sir Horace Mann, October, 1746. But Horace Walpole was no very competent judge of the character of a hero. He has termed Washington " an excellent fan- faron ! " lb. October, 1754 ; and done his utmost to depreciate the genius of Sir Philip Sidney. 2 Smollett. Hewit. Burk. Williamson. Holmes.--. ~r . 134 HISTORY or NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. venturing to attempt any operation of the slightest importance, he hngered, with the inactivity of a weak and bewildered mind, till, by the recurrence of pestilential maladies, the fleet was miserably dispeopled, and the army ingloriously melted away. Of the New England auxiharies, scarcely one man in fifty survived the expedition. This calamity overspread America with mourning, and excited a mixture of grief and indignation in England, where the people began to perceive that Vernon's capacity had been strange- ly overrated. The legislative policy of Britain, in relation to the war, ex- hibited the same blundering indiscretion and futility that characterized her executive operations. Although hostilities had not yet been formally pro- claimed between Britain and France, the design of France to support the quarrel of Spain was become increasingly manifest ; and it was equally evi- dent that England would be soon involved in the continental disputes of her sovereign, as Elector of Hanover, with France and her German allies. A bill was now introduced into the British parhament, for distressing the French and Spaniards, by prohibiting the exportation of all provisions, of whatsoever description, and particularly of rice, from any part of the British dominions. With great difficulty, the parliament was prevailed on to except rice from the operation of this act, by a representation from South Carolina, which clearly demonstrated that the restriction of the existing commerce of that article would prove highly detrimental to Britain, and perfectly harm- less to her enemies. In this representation it was asserted, that, " if any stop be put to the exportation of rice from South Carolina to Europe, it will not only render the planters there incapable of paying their debts, but also reduce the government of this province to such difficulties for want of money, as at this present precarious time may render the whole colony an easy prey to their neighbours, the Indians and Spaniards, and also to those yet more dangerous enemies^ their own negroes^ who are ready to revolt on the first opportunity^ and are eight times as many in number as there are white men able to bear arms ; and the danger in this respect is greater since the unhappy expedition to Augustine." ^ Admiral Vernon having now quitted the American seas, the Spaniards, delivered from the fear of the English fleet and exulting in its disasters, de- termined to improve their good fortune by a vigorous effi^rt for the conquest of Georgia and South Carolina. An armament was accordingly prepared at Havana, whence two thousand troops, commanded by Don Antonio de Rodondo, embarked, under the convoy of a powerful squadron, for Augus- tine. [May, 1742.] Before they reached this place, they were descried by the captain of an English cruiser, who conveyed the tidings of danger to Oglethorpe, by whom a messenger was despatched to Glen, the governor of South Carohna, beseeching instant aid, and desiring that a sloop should be despatched to the West Indies, in order that Vernon, if he was still there, might be acquainted with the intended invasion. But the Carolinians now regarded Oglethorpe with strong dislike, and entertained a mean opinion of his ability ; and no sooner was the alarming intelhgence which he communi- cated made generally known, than the planters of the southern frontier of the province, accounting the conquest of Georgia inevitable, deserted their own habitations, and flocked to Charleston with their families and effects. The mhabitants of Charleston warmly declared against sending any assistance to Oglethorpe, and determined rather to fortify their city and collect the whole ' Douglass. Smollett. He wit. Gordon. Trumbull. POOK IX ] SPANISH INVASION OF GEORGIA. |35 Strength of the province for its defence. This purpose was equally ungen- erous and imprudent. In such an emergency, good policy required that the united force of both colonies should be exerted to prevent the Spaniards from penetrating through the thickets of Georgia, and reaching the opener country and negro population of South Carolina. Divided by erroneous pol- icy, the force of the two provinces was plainly insufficient to the public defence ; and, by abandoning the Georgians to their fate, the Carolinians pro- voked their own ruin. Nevertheless, they conveyed tidings of the danger of Georgia to Virginia, where a wiser and more liberal policy prevailed, and an instant and unanimous resolution was embraced by the assembly to detach a naval force to the aid of Oglethorpe. But the contest was decided before the Virginian succour arrived. In the mean time, Oglethorpe was making the most active preparation at Frederica for the reception of the enemy. The Creeks and Cherokees, who were warmly attached to him, readily obeyed his summons, and crowd- ed to his camp. A company of Highlanders joined him on the first notice, and expressed a stern and earnest satisfaction at the prospect of revenging the fate of their friends who were slaughtered two years before by the Spaniards at Fort Moosa. With his own regiment, and a few provincial rangers, Highlanders, and Indians, the general fixed his head-quarters at Frederica, confidently expecting a reinforcement from Carolina, and daily looking for its arrival ; but withal determined, in case he should be attacked unaided, to sell his life as dearly as possible in defence of the province. In the latter end of June, the Spanish fleet, consisting of thirty-two vessels, and carrying upwards of three thousand men, of whom Don Manuel de Mon- teano, the governor of Augustine, was commander-in-chief, arrived in the mouth of the river Alatamaha ; and having received and returned the fire of Fort Simon, where Oglethorpe was stationed, sailed up the river beyond the reach of his guns. The invaders disembarked on the island in which Fred- erica is situated, and erected a battery mounted by twenty pieces of cannon. Among their land forces they had a fine company of artillery, commanded by Rodondo, and a regiment of negroes. The negro officers were clothed in lace, enjoyed the same rank with the Spanish officers, and with equal free- dom accosted and conversed with the commander-in-chief. Such an exam- ple might justly have inspired terror and alarm in Carolina ; for it needed little sagacity to perceive, that, if the invaders should penetrate into that prov- ince, and exhibit the spectacle of their negro regiment to the swarms of dis- contented slaves with which it abounded, they would infallibly obtain the accession of such a force as would render all opposition fruitless and des- perate. Oglethorpe, finding that he could not withstand the progress of the enemy up the river, and judging his situation at Fort Simon insecure, spiked its guns, and retreated to Frederica. With a force amounting to little more than seven hundred men, exclusive of Indians, he could not hope to act but on the defensive, until the arrival of the lingering aid of Carohna. On all sides he detached scouting parties of Highlanders and Indians to watch the motions, harass the outposts, and obstruct the advances of the enemy, while the main body of his troops were employed in strengthening the fortifications of Frederica. The provisions of his garrison were scanty and of indifferent quality ; and as the Spaniards possessed the command of the river, all pros- pects of a farther supply were cut off. Yet hoping for relief from Carolba, 136 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. . [BOOK IX. Oglethorpe studied to prolong the defence, by concealing every discourag- ing circumstance from his little army ; and in order to animate their perse- verance, he cheerfully exposed himself to the same privations and fatigues which the common soldiers endured. This generous policy was attended with its usual success, and sustained the patience of the troops under labors , and hardships, which were divested of the appearance of constraint by the ) voluntary participation of the commander. The Spanish troops now made J several attempts to pierce through the woods in order to besiege Ogle- Ithorpe's head-quarters, but encountered such stubborn resistance from deep 'morasses, and dark and tangled thickets, lined with fierce Indians and active Highlanders, that some of them protested impatiently that the devil himself could not make his way to Frederica. In two skirmishes, a Spanish captain and two lieutenants were killed, and a hundred of their men taken prisoners. Encouraged by this ray of success, and learning from an English prisoner who escaped from the Spanish camp, that a disagreement had arisen between the forces from Havana and those from Augustine, which occasioned a separation of their encampments, Oglethorpe resolved to attempt the daring measure of sallying from his stronghold and attacking the enemy while thus divided. Availing himself of his acquaintance with the woods, he marched in the night, with three hundred of his regular soldiers, the Highland com- pany, and a troop of provincial rangers, in the hope of surprising one of the Spanish camps. Having arrived within two miles of it, he halted his troops, and advanced himself, with a small corps, to reconnoitre the enemy's position ; but while he was cautiously manoeuvring to conceal his approaches, one of his attendants, a Frenchman, who had harboured the intention of deserting, seized this opportunity of carrying it into effect ; and, discharging his musket to alarm the Spaniards, ran off and gained the shelter of their lines. ' This act of treachery defeated the hopes of the assailants, and compelled a hasty retreat to Frederica, where Oglethorpe now endeavoured to accom- pHsh by stratagem what he had failed to achieve by surprise. Apprehensive that his weakness would be discovered to the enemy by the deserter, he wrote a letter to this man, in which he addressed him as a spy in his em- ploy, and instructed him to assure the Spaniards that Frederica was in a defenceless state, and that its garrison might be easily cut to pieces. He pressed him to bring forward the Spaniards to an attack, and, if he could not prevail thus far, to use all his art and influence to detain them at least three days more in their present situation ; for within that time, according to advices which had just arrived from Carolina, the Georgian troops would be reinforced by two thousand auxiliaries, accompanied by six British ships of war. The letter concluded with a caution to the deserter against suffer- ing the intelligence of Admiral Vernon's approaching attack upon Augustine to transpire, and with assurance of the amplest recompense that the British iking could bestow on him, if he succeeded in preventing the escape of the Spaniards from Georgia. This ingenious production was committed to a Spanish prisoner, who, for a small reward, together with his liberty, un- dertook to convey it privately to the deserter ; but, on rejoining his coun- trymen, delivered it, as Oglethorpe expected, to the commander-in-chief, who instantly put the deserter in irons. The Spanish officers were not a little perplexed and confounded by the contents of the letter ; some shrewd- ly suspecting it to be a stratagem to prevent an attack on Frederica ; and BOOK IX.] TRIUMPH OF OGLETHORPE. 137 Others duped by its literal import, and believing it to convey sincere instruc- tions to direct the conduct of a spy. While they were deliberating on these opposite probabilities, and hesitating what measures to pursue, their counsels were suddenly decided by an incident beyond the calculation of human in- genuity. Three ships, which the governor of South Carolina had at length despatched to Oglethorpe's aid, appeared at this critical juncture off the coast ; and an effect, more than proportioned to the power or numbers of this reinforcement, was produced by its opportune arrival. All doubts of the purpose of Oglethorpe's letter were terminated by so palpable a con- firmation of its contents. A universal panic was spread through the Spanish army, and nothing was heeded but instant departure. Setting fire to the fort they had built, and leaving behind them a great quantity of artillery, provisions, and military stores, they precipitately embarked in their vessels, and returned to Augustine and Havana. [July, 1742.] The triumph of Oglethorpe was complete, in this happy dehverance of Georgia from the brink of destruction. Monteano did not escape the cen- sure of mihtary critics, who remarked that he passed fifteen days on the small island that contained Frederica, without being able to reach this fort, and lost some of his bravest troops, without gaining the smallest advantage over the inconsiderable force that was opposed to him. Rodondo, on his arrival at Havana, was thrown into prison for his share in the ignominious result ; and a resumption of the invasion of Georgia was openly announced by the Spaniards, but never actually undertaken. The inhabitants of South Carolina incurred deep and general blame for their conduct, which was re- sented by Oglethorpe and the Georgians with the liveliest indignation. Some of the Carolinian planters condemned the selfish and splenetic policy of their countrymen, and united with the inhabitants of the other provinces in celebrating the bravery of the Georgians, and hailing Oglethorpe as the hero and deliverer of British America. Others censured every part of his conduct, depreciated his valor and skill, and ascribed the safety of Georgia to the favor of Divine Providence, or the blindness of chance. Ogle- thorpe's Inerit had been illustrated too conspicuously to suffer him to pay any regard to these mean effusions of pique and envy ; but his honor was more sensibly touched by charges of fraud and embezzlement, which origi- nated with certain profligate settlers in Georgia, and were industriously dis- seminated in England by Colonel Cook, one of his own officers, who re- paired thither for the purpose. Learning that these statements had made an impression on some of the Georgian trustees, and provoked much discus- sion among military men in England, Oglethorpe judged it due to his char- acter to return thither without delay. [1743.] Soon after his arrival, a court- martial of general officers was assembled to investigate the charges preferred against him, which, after a patient inquiry, they adjudged to be utterly false and malicious. Cook was in consequence dismissed from the British army, and declared incapable of ever again serving the king. Oglethorpe's charac- ter was thus effectually cleared ; and it was universally acknowledged, that to his generosity, valor, and ability Carolina owed her safety and repose, and Georgia her existence and preservation. He never afterwards returned to Georgia ; but in England continued to render services to the people of this province, and to display an unwearied zeal for their happiness and im- provement.^ Oglethorpe made as great efforts and sacrifices for Georgia, as ^ Smollett. Hewit. Marshall's Life of Washington. Burk. Oglethorpe was employed in VOL. II. 18 L* 138 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. William Penn had done for Pennsylvania ; and without creating a private estate to himself, or seeking any personal emolument from his labors. But he was not, like Penn, at the head of a religious society, which, iden- tifying its honor with his, would have magnified and perpetuated the glory of his achievements with all the ardor of sectarian partiality. The provincial government to which Georgia had been hitherto subjected was of a military character, and administered by Oglethorpe and a class of subordinate functionaries appointed by him. But now the trustees judged it expedient to estabhsh a system of civil jurisdiction, of which the admin- istration was intrusted to a president and four assistants, who were to act in conformity with the instructions of the trustees, and to be responsible to them for their pubHc conduct. William Stephens was appointed president, and Thomas Jones, Henry Parker, John Fallowfield, and Henry Mercer, assistants. They were instructed to hold, every year, four general courts, at Savannah, for regulating public affairs and adjusting disputes relative to private property. No public money could be disposed of, but by a warrant from the president and a majority of the assistants in council assembled, who were enjoined to transmit monthly accounts of their expenditure to England. All officers of mihtia previously appointed were continued in their functions, and required to hold musters for the purpose of training the colonists to military service ; and Oglethorpe's regiment was left in the province for its additional security. An important alteration took place at the same time in the regulations formerly enacted with respect to the tenure of lands in Geor- gia. The trustees had already transported upwards of fifteen hundred per- sons to the province (exclusive of the emigrants who repaired thither at their own cost) ; but not a half of this number now remained in it ; and as it was justly believed that the desertion of the settlers was partly occasioned by the feudal restrictions originally imposed on the tenure of land, this sys- tem was now abolished, and the right of absolute property in land, on con- dition of a small quitrent, substitutionally introduced. This innovation, which prevented the province from being entirely deserted, was more con- ducive to the advantage of the colonists than to the mitigation of their dis- content. Many useful and industrious settlers had already withdrawn the benefit of their exertions and example from Georgia ; and the bulk of its population was composed of indigent and dissolute persons, who had little acquaintance with husbandry and less inclination to labor, who preferred complaint and dependence to active efforts for the amelioration of their own predicament, and who continued incessantly to clamor for the introduction of negro slaves. The colonial establishment was kept alive by the industry of the Scottish Highlanders, and of certain German laborers who had latter- ly resorted to it. Though some excellent silk had been already produced in Georgia, yet the quantity was very inconsiderable ; the colonists discov- Scotland, in the year 1745, against the rebels ; and died in the year 1785, after beholding the Erovince he had founded severed from the British empire, and converted into one of the mem- ers of a republican confederacy. " This, it has been justly observed, is the first example in modern times of the founder of a colony who has lived to see that colony recognized by the world as a sovereign independent state. The late President Adams saw General Oglethorpe in 1785, a short lime before his decease. Within a day or two after his arrival in London as am- bassador from the United States, the general visited him, and was very polite and complimenta- ry. He had come, he said, to pay his respects to the first American ambassador and his family, whom he was very glad to see in England ; he expressed a great esteem and regard for Amer- ica, much regret at the misunderstanding between the two countries, and lively satisfaction at having lived to see the termination of it. About a month after, the newspapers announced < Jg'ethorpe's death, at the uncommon age of one hundred and four years." Holmes. BOOK IX.] PROSPERITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA. |g9 ered no inclination to augment it ; and the hopes of England in this respect were disappointed. Shortly after the departure of Oglethorpe, the colony was exposed to great peril from the ambition and intrigues of one Bosom worth, who came to Georgia as chaplain of Oglethorpe's regiment, and, having married an In- dian woman, persuaded the Creeks to acknowledge her as their queen. He contrived to estrange this people from the provincial government, and, march- ing against Savannah at the head of a numerous Indian host, supported a pretended claim of his wife to a considerable portion of the provincial terri- tory, and summoned the colonists to surrender it on pain of extermination. By the prudence and firmness of President Stephens and his council, and the daring valor of Jones, the captain of a very scanty troop of militia, the Indians were deprived of their leaders and with difficulty constrained to a reluctant submission.^ It was chiefly in its effects on the province of South Carolina that the establishment of Georgia at first seemed to fulfil the expectations of its founders. Delivered from the fear of the Spaniards by the intervention of this new settlement, which effectually covered their most vulnerable frontier, the Carolinians increased their plantations, undisturbed by any other alarm than what was suggested by the concomitant increase in the numbers of their negro slaves. Soon after the departure of Oglethorpe, they petitioned the king to order three independent companies of soldiers to be raised in the various colonies, at the expense of Great Britain, for the defence of Carolina against its own negro population. The only reason that wa§ urged in support of the petition, that the colony was overstocked with negroes, appeared unsatisfactory to the British privy council, to which the petition was remitted ; and the application, though finally complied with, proved in the first instance unsuccessful. Great numbers of emigrants continued meanwhile to repair to South Carolina, both from Germany and Holland ; and in the year 1744, two hundred and thirty vessels were loaded at the port of Charleston alone, — an indication of the increased national value of the province, in respect not only of the quantity of British goods which it consumed, but of the general naval strength of the empire, which it pro- moted. At least fifteen hundred seamen were then employed in the trade of South Carolina. Among the later emigrants to this province were a great many artisans and manufacturers ; but in spite of the profits that these settlers derived from the exercise of the crafts they had learned in Europe, they were all very soon induced to become planters, by the dignity attached to the possession of landed property, and the ease and pleasure of rural life and occupation. The rebellion, which, in the following year [1745], origi- nated in Scotland, proved, in its termination, highly beneficial to the popula- tion of the North American provinces, and strongly promotive, at the same time, of jealous and vindictive sentiments towards Britain. Parhamentary statutes, gleaning the refuse of the sword and the gibbet, doomed many of the unhappy men, who had followed their chieftains in assertion of the claims of the Pretender, to be transported to the American plantations ; and ' Collections of the, Georgia Historical Society. An earlier and far more profound and inter- esting scheme for the destruction of the colony has been ascribed to one Preber, a German Jesuit, whose intrigues among the Creeks and Cherokees were happily detected and defeated by Oglethorpe. Of this Preber, who seems in genius and accomplishments to have equalled, if not surpassed, his brother Jesuit, Sebastian Rasles, of New England {ante. Book VIII. , Chap. II.), a curious, though not very well authenticated, account is preserved in the Annual Register for 1760. 140 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK IX. Carolina and Georgia, among other States, derived from this source a large augmentation of the numbers of their inhabitants, and a notable immixture of political sentiment and opinion. As if to facilitate the subsistence and enrichment of its increasing population, the important discovery of the growth of indigo in South Carolina occurred about the same time. This valuable plant was observed to grow spontaneously almost everywhere in the wild glades of the forest ; and as an immense profit attended the first at- tempt to introduce it into commerce, a great number of planters directed their attention to the culture of indigo and the art of extracting its dye. So rapidly did the newly ascertained supply of this article increase, that, in the year 1747 at least three hundred thousand pounds of indigo had been ship- ped from Carolina to England ; and in the following year the British parha- ment passed an act ^ for allowing a bounty of sixpence per pound on all indigo raised in the American colonies and exported directly to Britain. After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the chief attention of the British government was directed to the colonization of Acadia, or Nova Scotia [1749] ; but the interests of Carolina and Georgia were not neglected ; and from time to time various small sums were granted to the Georgian trus- tees, to aid them in the plantation of the province committed to their care. In the year 1750, South Carolina had made such advances, that its popu- lation amounted to sixty-four thousand persons. In the same year, eight vessels only departed from Georgia ; and the exports with which they were loaded amounted to little more than two thousand pounds. To encourage the growth and culture of silk in Carolina and Georgia, an act of parlia- ment was now passed, exempting from custom-house duties all silk manufac- tured in any of the British colonies in America, and imported from thence into the mother country. A similar exemption was extended soon after [1751] to pot and pearl ashes, of which large quantities had been imported from foreign nations for the use of the British soap manufacture.^ That an increase occurred about this time in the Georgian trade we may infer from the complaints of those writers who have lamentingly stated, that, in the year 1752, the whole annual exports from Georgia did not exceed in value ten thousand pounds. Yet this province had not increased in proportion to the public expectation ; and its inhabitants, in general, were affected with in- curable discontent. Disgusted with this result, and wearied with the com- plaints of their people, the trustees of Georgia now willingly surrendered their expiring charter to the crown from which it was derived. A provincial constitution, precisely similar to that of Carolina, was thereupon established in Georgia [June 20, 1751] ; John Reynolds, a naval officer, was appointed the first "governor ; and negro slavery was forthwith introduced. Three years afterwards, a court of justice, modelled in conformity with the courts of law in the parent state, was established by letters patent from the crown. Some time had still to elapse, before the value of the soil of Georgia was generally known, and that spirit of industry broke forth in the province, by which the extent of its resources was practically ascertained. It was in Carolina that the first effects of every measure of the parent state for the ben- efit of Georgia long continued to be visible. In the year 1752, upwards of * Stat. 21 George II., Cap. 30. In the parliamentary investigation which preceded this act, it was ascertained that indigo was one oi the most beneficial articles of French commerce ; and that Great Britain aU)ne consumed annually six hundred thousand pounds' weight of French indigo, which, at five shillings a pound, cost the nation one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. Anderson. Drayton. « Stat. 24 George II., Cap. 51. BOOK IX.] CONDITION OF GEORGIA. 141 fifteen hundred foreign Protestants arrived in South Carolina; and the annual commerce of this province was found to employ three hundred British ships. ^ Georgia was the only one of the North American provinces of which the ' formation was promoted by pecuniary aid supplied by the British govern- ment. None of the other colonies in their infancy excited so much expec- tation of national advantage in England, and none created greater disap- pointment, or evinced a more languid increase.^ In addition to the other causes that have been already particularized, it is probable that the parlia- mentary grants by which the settlers were aided contributed in some measure to this untoward issue, by encouraging them to rely on extraneous assist- ance, in contending with the difficulties of their situation. Rice, tobacco, cotton, and indigo became the principal objects of culture to the colonists ; and the restriction imposed on trade to the West Indies having been re- moved, considerable quantities of lumber were exported thither. The value of the exports of Georgia in 1755 was £ 15,744 sterling. In the following year, the exports consisted of 2,997 barrels of rice, 9,395 pounds of indigo, and 268 pounds of raw silk, which, together with skins, furs, lumber, and provisions, amounted in value to £ 16,776. It was not till some time after, that the colonists were apprized of the superior excellence of the Georgian tobacco, and of the peculiar adaptation of their territory to this produce. The first issue of bills of credit or paper money, to the amount of about eight thousand pounds, received the sanction of the Georgian legislature in the year 1760.^ For the convenience of the increasing cultivation of rice and tobacco, large importations of negroes were made from time to time ; but many years elapsed before any accurate census either of the white or negro population of this province was taken. In none of the North American provinces did slavery prevail more extensively, or were slaves treated with greater rigor, than in this, where alone of all the provinces the existence of slavery had been prohibited by its fundamental constitutions. So vain are the enactments of legislators, without the auxiliary support of moral senti- ments and general opinion. If the temptations to employ slave labor, in the infancy of a colonial settlement, overpowered even the boasted virtue of Quakers in the milder climate of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, it was vain to expect more self-denial from the idle and dissolute persons who were first transported to the torrid region of Georgia. Among other innovations on the policy of the trustees, introduced by the royal government, the original restriction on the importation of rum was removed, and vast quantities of this and other spirituous liquors were consumed by the colonists, who justi- fied their intemperance by the plea, well or ill founded, that the universal brackishness of the water of Georgia was beneficially corrected by an infu- sion of ardent spirits.'* Collected from various parts of the world, the inhabitants of Georgia were distinguished by a great diversity of character and manners. The original emigrants from Scotland have been described as a remarkably Oldmixon. Wynne. Hewit. Drayton. Stokes's British Colonies. Holmes. Smollett. ' In Burke's celebrated speech in the House of Commons on economical reform, in 1780, there occurs the following passage : — " Georgia, till lately, has made a very slow progress ; and never did make any progress at all, until it had wholly got rid of all the regulations which the Board of Trade, had moulded into its original constitution. That colony has cost the nation very great sums of money ; whereas the colonies which have had the fortune of not being godfathered by the Board of Trade never cost the nation a shilling, except what has been so profusely spent in losing them. But the colony of Georgia, weak as it was, carried ^ with it to the last hour, and carries even in its present dead, pallid visage, the perfect resem- blance of its parents." 3 Morse's American Gazetteer. Hewit. Stokes. • Winterbotham. 142 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. ' [BOOK IX. moral, religious, industrious, and happy race. William Bartram, the phi- losophic traveller who visited Georgia in 1773, found several of these families living in the full enjoyment of rural ease and plenty, and in the prac- tice of every kind and Christian virtue.^ But the qualities by which the Georgians have been most generally characterized are, an indolent aversion to labor, — imported with the earliest class of planters, and promoted by the heat of the chmate,^ — the employment of negro slaves, and the copious use of spirituous liquors ; an open and friendly hospitality, and an eager addiction to hunting, horse-racing, cock-fighting, pugilistic exercises, and gambling. The introduction of Methodism into America, a few years after the present period, by the exertions of Whitefield and other associates of John Wesley, exercised a salutary influence on the character of a consid- erable portion of this people. A great variety of religious sects or associ- ations arose in the province prior to the American Revolution, but the majority of the inhabitants were Methodists or Presbyterians. Except Whitefield's Orphan-house, which was unfortunately destroyed by fire after large sums of money had been expended on its erection, no seminary of ed- ucation arose in Georgia till after its separation from the parent state. The seat of government of the province, which was first established at Savan- nah, was afterwards transferred to Augusta, then to Louisville, and subse- quently to Milledgeville.^ Surrounded by powerful Indian tribes, and sensible of the advantage of friendly relations with them, the Georgians demeaned themselves with scru- pulous equity and courtesy in their transactions and intercourse with these savage neighbours. The same wise and humane policy was now pursued by the government of South Carolina, which, in the year 1752, interposed its good offices to prevent a war which was on the point of breaking out between the Creeks and the Cherokees."* Among other involuntary laborers, Georgia, in common with the rest of the British colonies, received considerable importations of convicted felons from England. From the state of society in the colony, this commixture of free colonists and convicts appears to have proved remarkably injurious to both. " Georgia," says an American statistical writer, " was at one time the principal retreat of a race of men called Crackers, who were chiefly descended from convicts, and led a wild and vagrant life, like the Indians, with no other effects than a rifle and a blanket, and subsisting upon the deer, turkeys, and other game which the woods furnish. These migra- tory bands disappear, as the country is settled."^ • He celebrates their hospitality with the grateful praise which this virtue always obtains from travellers: — "The venerable gray-headed Caledonian smilingly accosted me coming up to his house, ' Welcome, stranger, come in and rest ; the air is now sultry,' " «fcc. " Friend Bartram," said another of these settlers of Caledonian extraction to the traveller, " come un- der my roof, and I desire you to make my house your home, as long as convenient to yourself; remember that from this moment you are a part of my family." Among these people, the traveller adds, " I found sincerity in union with all the virtues under the influence of re- ligion." Bartram's Travels in Carolina^ Georgia, &c. ' ^ Henry Ellis, F. R. S., and governor of Georgia, in a letter written in July, 1758, from the seat of his government to a friend in England, declares that " one cannot sit down to any thing that requires much application, but with extreme reluctance ; for such is the debilitating quality of our violent heats in this season, that inexpressible languor enervates every faculty, and renders even the thought of exercising them painful." Annual, Register for 1760. 3 Morse. Winterbotham. See Note VI., at the end of the volume. . * Hewit. * Warden. Wordsworth has given a fine, but, in every sense of the word, a poetical, de- scription of the character and pursuits of this class of the Georgian people, in his beautiful poem. Ruth. BOOK X. PROGRESS OF THE STATES OF NORTH AMERICA, TILL THE PEACE OF PARIS, IN 1763. CHAPTER I. AfFairs of New York. — Zenger's Trial. — Prosperous State of New England. — Controversy between Massachusetts and New Hampshire. — Intrigues for the Removal of Governor Belcher. — New England Missions. — Jonathan Edwards. — David Brainerd. — Aftairs of Pennsylvania — Benjamin Franklin — George Whitefield. — Disputes respecting a military Establishment. — Discontent of the Indians. — War with France. — Louisburg — the Inva- sion of it projected by New England — and undertaken — Siege — and Surrender of Louis- burg. — Jealousy of Britain. — Effects of the Enterprise in America. — Rebellion in Behalf of the Pretender in Britain. — Armament despatched from France against the British Colo- nies — discomfited. Since the departure of Burnet from New York, the government of this province had been conducted in a manner injurious to the colonists and discreditable to the parent state. The feeble and negligent sway of Mont- gomery was terminated by his death, in I73I. Yet no improvement of pub- lic policy was perceptible during the succeeding year, when the government was exercised by the senior member of the council, Rip Van Dam, a sub- stantial burgher of New York, and a well-meaning, but sluggish and heavy- minded man. In the close of the year 1732, there arrived from England, as the successor of Montgomery, Colonel William Cosby, an officer of some talent and activity, but, unfortunately, more remarkable for arbitrary princi- ples, a haughty and imperious demeanour, a violent temper, and sordid dis- position. Having borrowed a large sum of money from the counsellor, Van Dam, he endeavoured to evade repayment by instituting an unjust and absurd suit against him for recovery of all the official fees and perquisites he had received during his temporary administration of the government. [1734.] Cosby insisted that the judges of the common law tribunal of New York should determine this process, without the intervention of a jury ; and when Lewis Morris, the chief justice, declared that this was not within the competence of the court, he displaced him from his office, and bestowed it on James De Lancey, who professed more subservience to the governor's will. This appointment was made by the mere authority of Cosby, without the consent of the council, which, by the provincial con- stitutions, was requisite to the validity of judicial commissions. In his in- tercourse with the assembly, Cosby conducted himself with the most lofty and offensive arrogance, and soon kindled an active spirit of jealousy and opposition among all classes of people in the province, except his own immediate dependents. To the discontents thus occasioned by domestic provocation were added a strong apprehension of external hostility, from the increasing influence of the French over the Indians. In the course of the present year, some precautions, suggested by this danger, were adopted by the New York assembly. Upwards of eleven thousand pounds was ap- propriated for strengthening the fortifications of New York and Albany, and purchasing presents for the Six Nations. But more wisdom, vigor, and 144 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. public spirit, than directed the provincial councils, were wanting to pro- vide measures adequate to counteract the encroaching policy pursued by the French. Governor Cosby continuing to supply additional cause of complaint by the insolence of his manners and the iniquity of his policy, the instrumental- ity of the press was employed by his opponents to inflame and propagate the resentment and jealousy which his conduct was fitted to inspire. Lewis Morris and Rip Van Dam having severally published appeals to their coun- trymen against his treatment of them, the success of this proceeding in animating the public indignation suggested to Zenger, a printer, the estab- lishment of a newspaper, which he entitled The J^ew York Weekly Journal^ and which attracted universal attention by the boldness and freedom of its strictures on the conduct of pubhc affairs. Cosby, provoked by an article in this journal, which contained a severe philippic on his administration, and openly declared that public hberty was endangered by his arbitrary principles and deportment, prevailed with a majority of the council to request the concurrence of the assembly in a mandate that the offensive publication should be burned in the market-place by the hands of the city hangman. The assembly having refused to comply with this request, the governor and council of themselves issued a mandate for burning the paper, which they required the executioner to perform, and the mayor and aldermen of New York personally to superintend. These magistrates declined to take part in the absurd pageant devised for the gratification of tyrannical spleen ; and as even the executioner refused his presence or aid at the ceremony, it was performed by a negro slave of the sheriff amidst universal contempt and derision. Incensed, rather than instructed, by this demonstration of public feeling, Cosby and his council, assembling on the following Sunday, issued a warrant for the apprehension and imprisonment of Zenger. This proceeding was resented alike by the friends of liberty and religion, as at once an arbitrary stretch of power, and a wanton violation of the sanctity of the day. Finding it impossible either to subdue Zenger's spirit or to detain him in perpetual captivity, the governor determined to bring him to trial on a charge of libel ; and the grand jury refusing to give their sanc- tion to this charge, he directed Bradley, the attorney-general, to exhibit it in the shape of an ex officio information. Chambers and Smith, two lawyers of New York, who were retained by Zenger, had the courage to dispute the validity of the commissions of the judges, De Lancey and Philipse, which were granted by the governor without the approbation of the council. The judges overruled this plea ; and, resenting it as a contempt of their dignity, punished its authors by a sentence which excluded them from farther exercise of their professional functions. In this extremity, Zenger besought the aid of the most distinguished lawyer in America, Andrew Hamilton, of Philadelphia, who was for many years speaker of the assembly of Pennsylvania, and both at the bar and in the senate gained a high renown for sound learning, eloquence, integrity, and pubhc spirit. Though now bending under the weight of years and infirmities, Hamilton cheerfully obeyed the summons to make a last exertion of his talents in behalf of American liberty ; and, repairing to New York, undertook gratuitously the defence of Zenger, who, after an imprisonment of eight months, was at length brought to trial before the judges, I)e Lancey and Philipse, and a jury, which, in spite of the governor's artifices, was ?e- CHAP. I.] ZENGER'S TRIAL. 145 lected with tolerable impartiality. The court and all its avenues were thronged with spectators, who, with generous interest and anxious expecta- tion, awaited the issue of this notable struggle between their arbitrary ruler and their persecuted fellow-citizen. The attorney-general was pre- pjiring to adduce witnesses to show that Zenger was the publisher of the paper for which he was called in question, when Hamilton at once admitted this fact on the part of his client, and challenged the prosecutor to substan- tiate his charge of libel by proving the falsehood of the statements to which this epithet was applied. This the attorney-general having declined to do, Hamilton proposed to call witnesses to prove that the statements and strict- ures published by Zenger were true and well founded. But the court refused to entertain any such inquiry ; pronouncing, in conformity with the maxims of many Enghsh judges, that, in cases of libel, it was perfectly immaterial whether the offensive publication contained truth or falsehood, and that truth was a libel when it tended to the discredit of the members or institutions of government. This doctrine was disputed by Hamilton, who observed that the attorney-general had stated in his information that Zenger was the author of '' a certain /a/se, malicious, seditious, and scandalous libel " ; and requested of him that he would either explain the meaning of the word false, or admit that it had been erroneously introduced into the information, and suffer the record to be altered so far as to express that Zenger was the au- thor of "a certain true, malicious, and seditious libel." He cited an English case in which Chief- Justice Holt required a person accused of libel to prove the truth of his statements, if he could. But the attorney-general supported his arguments by precedents of a different complexion, derived from the practice of the famous Star-chamber tribunal ; and the court reiter- ated the maxim, that the truth of a libel could never be pleaded as a defence for the publication of it. Hamilton then addressed the jury in a speech at once elegant, forcible, and ingenious ; and, with a boldness and freedom of' appeal to the principles of universal sense and reason, unparalleled till many years after in the forensic eloquence of England, contended for the invio- lable right of freemen to publish to their fellow-citizens every truth that concerned the general weal, and every grievance by which their common birthright of liberty was impaired or invaded. It was doubtless true, he remarked, that the American governors were liable to be sued in the king's courts at Westminster in England for any wrongs that they might commit in the colonies ; but the expense of the remedy rendered it generally, if not universally, inapplicable ; and the public security against the designs of an evil governor was best promoted by the vigilance awakened by an open promulgation of the particular instances of his conduct from which such designs might be fairly inferred. It was im- possible, he protested, that a jury of free and honest men would, by a ver- dict of guilty, affirm that charge of falsehood which was recorded in the in- formation, but which the prosecutor would neither undertake to prove nor suffer the accused to disprove. In the hope of defeating the force of this argument, the chief justice recommended to the jury that they should return a special verdict, which would exonerate them from a disagreeable respon- sibility, and leave the question of libel to the court, to whom, he assured them, it properly belonged ; yet, withal, he declared that the publication, as tending to beget an ill opinion of the governmenjf', was undoubtedly a li- bel. But Hamilton had cautioned the jury not to compromise their duty VOL. II. 19 M 448 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. hy giving a special verdict ; and, after a very brief deliberation, they re- turned a general verdict of not guilty, which was instantly affirmed and re- warded by the approving and triumphant acclamations of their fellow-citizens. -Hamilton's speech on this occasion was published and circulated through till the American provinces ; and the corporation of New York expressed their esteem for his character and the grateful sense they entertained of his services, by presenting him with the freedom of the city in a gold box on which the most flattering inscriptions were engraven. The issue of Zenger's trial was very disagreeable to the partisans of royal prerogative in England and America, and was regarded by them as a dan- gerous triumph of popular reason and will over the authority of judicial can- ons and forensic pedantry.^ Cosby 's insolence sustained no abatement from ihis defeat; fcut his administration was abruptly terminated by his death in the following y€ar. [1736.] The government of the province was now con- fided to George Clarke, whose character was little, if at all, more respecta- ■Mg than ^that of ibi^ ^edecessor,^ and whose administration was chiefly signal- tized hy <& scheme of which the projection would have entitled him to con- ^derabie praise, if its miscarriage had not reflected disgrace on his good faith and integrity. Seaisible of the error which had been committed by the provincial goverimiejit, in suffering the French to build a fort at Crown Point, he dedue«,d a project for repairing this negligence from the recent example of the trustees of Georgia, and conceived the hope of engaging a body of Scottish ^Highlanders to emigrate to the province and establish a -settlement in the frontier territory adjacent to Lake George. A proclama- tion, eontainisig the most liberal and inviting offers to Highlanders willing to undertake the occupation and culture of this district, was accordingly pub- lished at New York, and transmitted to Scotland. This overture attracted ithe attention of Captain Lachlan Campbell, a Scottish gentleman, brave, bonorable, enterprising, and possessed of a considerable estate in the island of Isla ; who forthwith repaired to New York, and inspected the territory which was tendered to emigrants from his native country. [1737.] His journey proved no less satisfactory to himself than to the neighbouring In- dians, who were greatly captivated by his Highland garb, and earnestly en- treated him to transplant his tribe to their vicinity. Governor Clarke gave him assurance of a grant of thirty thousand acres of land free from all charges except the expense of survey and the king's quitrent. Confiding in this assurance, Campbell returned to Scotland, sold his paternal estate, and shortly after transported, at his own expense, to New York, eighty-three Highland families, consisting of four hundred and twenty-three adults and a great num^r of children. But his hopes were miserably disappointed. The contract on which he thus staked his fortune, and which the public faith was pledged to fulfil, w^as violated with the most scandalous disregard of honor, justice, and good policy. When he applied for the stipulated grant * Some remarks on Zenger's trial were published by a learned Tory lawyer in America, who pronounced Hamilton's speech a piece of legal quackery, and the Star-chamber tribunal one of the most useful and beneficial institutions that ever existed in England. This produc- tion is reprinted in Howell's Slate Trials. * *' It unfortunately happened for our Ameucan provinces, at the time we now treat of, that a government in any of our colonies in those parts was scarcely looked upon in any other light than that of a hospital where the favorites of the ministry might lie till they had recovered their broken fortunes; and oftentimes they served as asylums from their creditors." Wyone. Pope sarcastically remarks the policy in conformity with wliich a courtier, *'• Who, having lost his credit, pawned his rent, . Ib therefore nt to hure a. government.*' . ti. , dtj. , CHAP. I] PROSPERITY OF CONNECTICUT, ETC. -^^ of land, he was required to admit certain friends or dependents of the governor to share in the profits which he might derive from it ; and indig- nantly spurning this rapacious and dishonorable condition, he found all his efforts to procure the completion of the grant ineffectual. Neither from the provincial assembly, nor from the English Board of Trade, was he able to obtain redress ; and, after a tedious solicitation, he found it necessary, for the sake of preserving to his family a remnant of his shattered fortune, ta abandon the care of his followers, and cultivate a small farm which he pur- chased in the province. Clarke was permitted to retain the government of' Nevv York till the year 1741, when he was succeeded by George Clinton, uncle to the Earl of Lincoln.^ None of the colonies had of late years enjoyed more contentment, re- pose, and prosperity, than Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, — whose history, exhibiting nothing nrwre prominent than the progress of industry and population, presents a picture neither varnished by glory nor^ sullied by misery or crime. [1738.] No palaees arose there to illustrate the fine conceptions of architectural taste and genius, or to proclaim the depression of the great mass of society in subservience to the exaltation of a small portion or class of its members ; no wars afforded scope for the exercise of heroic valor, or sanctioned the indulgence of hatred and fe- rocity ; and no political dissensions invited the display of public spirit, or generated party rage and factious intrigue. But if these scenes are barren of events that agitate the passions, and disclose no partial accumulations of grandeur that strike the senses, they are yet adorned with . features that gratify the survey of every mind seasoned with humanity and benevolence. There was a general diffusion of those circumstances which are most favor- able to the worth and welfare of the bulk of mankind. Instead of that entertaining, though fallacious, chase of pleasure, so eagerly pursued in so- cieties where leisure and affluence abound, and of which the most notable success is to enable human beings to pass their lives in idleness without wearying, — there was a composed possession of substantial felicity derived from the liberal reward of moderate labor, and the grateful vicissitude of useful action and well earned rest. The land was generally distributed among a great number of proprietors, in portions of such extent and value as afforded a mediocrity of condition fitted to produce strong bodies and sound minds. If few persons had leisure or opportunity to attain scientific or literary distinction, and kw lasting monuments of genius arose, — there was a general prevalence of that degree of knowledge which is sufficient to expand and elevate thought, to invigorate the understanding, to enlarge hap- piness, and fortify virtue. The earth was subdued and replenished with a hardy and happy race of men, securely and thankfully reaping the bounty of Providence in the fruits of honest industry, animated by recollections of their national and natural origin, and accustomed by their popular insti- tutions to deliberate on public affairs, to connect social prosperity with freedom, and to accomplish their purposes by the instrumentality of those political organs by which alone the collective strength of a numerous people can be effectu ally combined or safely and steadily exerted. The facility of • Oldmixon. W. Smith. S. Smith. HoweU's Stale Trials. Proud. Wynne. The histor- ical narrative of W. Smith stops at the commencement of Cosby 's administration. A con tinuation, which he is supposed to have written, has never yet appeared. He declares that no prudent annalist of his own times can suffer such a composition ta be made public till after his death. Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, and other great writerft, thought otherwise. 148 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. attaining a plentiful estate, and the general simplicity of manners and equality of condition, excluded selfish rivalship and envy ; and, rendering celibacy rare, and marriage universally and remarkably prolific, operated with strong tendency to promote the worth of character and the felicity of life. Senti- ments of patriotism and independence were ardently cherished and widely diffused in a country where every man had a stake in the soil and the polit- ical institutions which united his proudest remembrance with his fondest hopes, ^ which represented his own or his parents' fortitude and success in surmounting difficulty, planting liberty, and subduing the earth, and assured a comfortable livelihood and honorable condition to his posterity. Every citizen was interested in the defence of a particular part of his country, and of a part which possessed the highest and noblest value in his estimation ; and every one possessing himself a share of political right and power was interested, by regard to the security of his own portion, in resisting all invasion of the shares of his fellow-citizens. If the condition of these prov- inces offered httle scope for romantic, fancy or antiquarian retrospect,* it presented to the mind a more generous gratification in the prospect of a wide and enlarging expanse of human happiness, liberty, and virtue.^ Some ecclesiastical controversies arose during this period in Connecticut ; but they were conducted without rancor, and their most ftotable effect was to stimulate religious inquiry, and to multiply settlements and townships by dividing congregations which had been previously united. The war which broke out between Great Britain and Spain in 1739 ex- tended to the American possessions of these nations. But it was in the southern British colonies that its chief influence was exerted ; and in tracing the early history of Georgia, we have already remarked the share of loss and suffering that the operations of this war entailed upon the other prov- inces. The prosperity enjoyed by New England was not confined to the States of Connecticut and Rhode Island. But in Massachusetts much embarrass- ment and injustice was occasioned by the excess and the depreciation of its paper currency ; and between this province and New Hampshire there had prevailed for several years a territorial dispute, to the origin of which we have already alluded, and which in its progress excited much bitter and * " The sympathy existing among fellow-citizens, from the habit of living for each other and by each other, — of connecting every thing with the good of all, — produced in republics vir- tues which despotic states cannot even imagine." Sismondi's History of the Italian Republics. * " A succession of New England villages, composed of neat nouses, surrounding neat school-houses and churches, adorned with gardens, meadows, and orchards, and exhibiting the universally easy circumstances of the inhabitants, is, in my opinion, one of the most delightful prospects which this world can afford. A forest changed, within a short period,' into fruitful fields, covered with houses, schools, and churches, and filled with inhabitants, possessing not only the necessaries and comforts, but also the conveniences of life, and devoted to the wor- ship of Jehovah, when seen only in prophetic vision, enraptured even the mind of Isaiah ; and, when realized, can hardly fail to delight that of a spectator. At least, it may compen- sate the want of ancient castles, ruined abbeys, and fine pictures." Dwight's Travels. " There is something to me in the sight of this independence, and the enjoyments by which it is accompanied, more interesting, more congenial to the relish of nature, than in all the melan- choly grandeur of the decayed castles and mouldering abbeys with which some parts of Eu- rope are so plentifully stocked." Idem. Godwin, in his Essay on Sepulchres., maintains that America, destitute of ancient monu- ments of art, must be a very uninteresting country. An opposite impression has prevailed with another great modern genius ; and the sentiment of Dwight, who never beheld Europe, is thus reechoed by a writer who never beheld America : — "I feel that in America I should love modern cities and modern institutions. Nature and liberty there so fully engage the soul, that no need is felt of distant recollections. But in the old world we desiderate mon- wments of the past." Madame de Stael, De V AUevnagne. CHAP. I.] BOUNDARY QUESTIONS IN MASSACHUSETTS. J 49 passionate feeling, and induced a wide departure from equity and moderation on both sides. The details of this controversy, now no longer interesting, have been preserved by the historians, Hutchinson and Belknap ; and it is remarkable that each of these writers, respectively, bestows the severest blame on the province of which he is the historian. Massachusetts pre- tended right to a larger extent of territory than her charter strictly warranted, or at least there was room for a reasonable doubt that part of the territory embraced by her actual jurisdiction was more properly included in the original titles of New Hampshire ; but her pretensions were sanctioned by an order of King Charles the Second and his privy council, in the year 1677, which for more than fifty years obtained undisputed acquiescence, and in conformity with which many tow^nships and settlements were estab- lished by the people of Massachusetts in the particular district which New Hampshire now endeavoured to reclaim. Confident in the justice of her cause, and resenting the claim of New Hampshire as the ungrateful and presumptuous aggression of a feeble neigh- bour whom she had repeatedly befriended, Massachusetts adhered pertina- ciously to the farthest extent of her pretensions, and rejected all compromise with a haughtiness which the issue of the controversy gave her cause to re- pent ; while New Hampshire, irritated by what she deemed the contume- lious treatment of her powerful neighbour, and intoxicated with the hope of augmenting her resources and enabling herself to support a separate execu- tive government, pursued her claims with an eagerness in which honor and integrity were sacrificed to success. After various discussions in Eng- land and surveys in America, the controversy was at length matured for the decision of the British privy council. To this tribunal the agent for New Hampshire presented a memorial, in which he not only fortified the plea of his constituents by the most ingenious fiction and the most enter- prising hypothesis, but aided it more effectually by allying the cause of New Hampshire with the jealousy and prejudice which the British court was known to entertain against Massachusetts. The basest aspersions were thrown on the ambitious and disloyal designs of ^Hhe vast^ opulent j over- grown province of Massachusetts'^'' \ while it was represented that " f/ie poor^ little^ loyal, distressed province of J^ew Hampshire,'^'' together with the -king's own property and possessions, was ready to be swallowed up by the boundless rapacity of a people whose insolence was nourished by the posses- sion of a charter. [1740.] This pleading, reinforced by private solicitation and intrigue, proved successful, even beyond the hopes of the people of New Hampshire, who gained, from the adjudication of the privy council, not only all the territory that they had ever ventured to claim, but an addi- tional tract of country of about fourteen miles in breadth and upwards of fifty in length. Great was the rage and mortification of the people of Massachu- setts, when they were apprized of this decision ; but alf their efiT)rts to ob- tain a modification of it proved unavailing. They sustained a similar dis- appointment shortly after, from the issue of a territorial controversy with Rhode Island, which a compromise, inefl^ectually recommended by all the wise and moderate politicians of Massachusetts, might have happily pre- vented. The claim of Rhode Island to an insignificant territory, to which the legal pretensions of both States were equally plausible, being obstinate- ly resisted by a majority of the Massachusetts assembly, the adjustment of . the respective boundaries was referred to the British government, whose 150 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. sentence again divested Massachusetts of a much larger extent of territory than what gave rise to the dispute or was claimed by the other competitor. In the controversy between Massachusetts and New Hampshire Governor Belcher had a difficult part to sustain. He was governor of both provinces ; and endeavouring to act with the impartiality which he professed, he exposed himself to the suspicion and hostility of the more violent partisans of either cause. In Massachusetts the number of his enemies was increased by his steady resistance to the various projects which were suggested from time to time for a fallacious mitigation of the inconvenience occasioned by the state of the currency. If not his own virtue, at least the profligacy of his op- ponents, may be inferred from the infamous means which were employed to subvert his authority. In the year 1738, an attempt was made to accom- plish this purpose by reviving the calumnious charge which Dunbar once preferred against him, of having encouraged the rioters who obstructed the execution of the acts of parliament for preservation of pine-trees. A letter, professing to be written by five of the principal rioters, and avowing that their lawless proceedings had been secretly instigated by Belcher, was ad- dressed to Sir Charles Wager, who commanded an Enghsh fleet stationed in the American seas, in the hope that he would privately convey this important information to the English ministry. But Wager, too honorable to abet a clandestine accusation, sent a copy of the letter to Belcher, who found no difficulty in proving that it was a forgery. Yet the detection of this villany was insufficient to deter his enemies from a repetition of it, or to prevent him from falling a victim to their insidious slander and intrigue within two years after. Anonymous letters were despatched from Massa- chusetts and New Hampshire to the leading Dissenters in Britain, profess- ing to be the compositions of ministers of the Independent and Presbyterian churches in America, who were deterred from signing their names by appre- hensions of Belcher's vengeance, and accusing him of conspiring, with the Episcopal clergy, the subversion of the Dissenting interest in New England. Belcher had received a strict command from the king to disallow the farther issue of provincial bills of credit for a term beyond the currency of those which had already been put in circulation, of which none extended beyond the year 1741. As this period approached, a project was devised by a party of the money- jobbers and speculators in Massachusetts for evading the royal injunction, and maintaining a supply of paper money, by the establishment of a private land bank on a very extensive scale ; and in spite of the remonstrances of Belcher, which were seconded by all the wiser and more respectable por- tion of the community, this pernicious device was carried into effect in the year 1739. The country was presently deluged with the notes of this bank, for the circulation of which the most skilful and adventurous expedients of commercial artifice were adopted ; and so much mischief seemed likely to ensue, that the interposition of the British government was urgently sohcited by some persons of consideration in Massachusetts, and an act of parlia- ment was passed in the present year for suppressing the bank and prevent- ing the formation of similar establishments. [1740.] Some of the partisans of the bank, who had incurred the displeasure of Belcher by their sup- port of it, now joined the ranks and aided the intrigues of his enemies, and, with unexampled audacity of baseness and falsehood, accused him to the British government of having privately encouraged the banking schemes. CHAP. I] INTRIGUES AGAINST BELCHER. |5| The diligence of their machinations was quickened by the near approach of the period when all the current provincial bills of credit were to be with- drawn from circulation, — a measure which was regarded with general alarm, and which it was well known that Belcher was prepared to conduct with the most uncompromising strictness. While the charges by which he was traduced were supported even by per- jury, their efficacy was farther aided in some degree by his own rash reliance on the justice and discernment of the British court. Resting in the con- sciousness of his integrity, he was not sufficiently careful to approve his integrity to the judgment of those on whom his fortune depended. His conduct in office, ever since the discussion with regard to a fixed salary, was upright and disinterested in the highest degree. To his official duties he sacrificed a lucrative participation in commerce ; he studied to promote the general interests of the British empire in America ; and in New Eng- land he zealously labored to reconcile a faithful service to the crown with an earnest and liberal regard to the freedom, happiness, and real advantage of the people. Confiding in his merit, he despised the mafice of his ene- mies, and was wont to say, '■' I know, that, while such men beset the court, I can expect no favor ; but if the devil were there, I should expect justice under the British constitution, corroborated by the Hanover succession.'' The British ministers and the leading Dissenters in England were divided in opinion ; some lending credit to the charges against Belcher, and others supporting him with unshaken confidence and approbation. At length in- trigue prevailed ; and Belcher was sacrificed, as Spottiswoode had previ- ously been in Virginia, and Burnet at New York. It happened that Lord Euston, son of the Duke of Grafton, was a candidate for the honor of rep- resenting the city of Coventry in parliament. A rival candidate seeming likely to prevail, Maltby, a zealous Dissenter, who possessed great influ- ence with the electors of Coventry, and rashly credited the assertion of Belcher's enemies, that he was conspiring to introduce a legal establishment of Episcopacy into New England, offered to the Duke of Grafton to secure Lord Euston's election, on condition that Belcher should be dismissed from his situation. The offer was accepted ; Belcher was immediately recalled ; and the government of Massachusetts was conferred on William Shirley, an English lawyer of respectable character and popular manners, whose ca- pacity and temper evinced a rare concurrence of active and enterprising genius with good sense, address, and discretion. He possessed some inter- est at court, but had emigrated to Boston about eight years before, on ac- count of the smallness of his fortune and the largeness of his family. The people of New Hampshire, at the same time, obtained the gratifica- tion they so earnestly coveted, in the appointment of a separate governor for themselves ; this office being now bestowed on Benning Wentworth, a popular inhabitant of the province, and the son of one of its former lieu- tenant-governors. [174L] These changes proved highly grateful to both provinces. Went worth's elevation was hailed by his fellow-citizens as "the deliverance of New Hampshire from contempt and dependence."' And Shirley, finding that the people of Massachusetts were not yet prepared to submit to the sacrifice of taxing themselves to pay off the bills of credit, ' Yet, so fickle and impatient are mankind, that, only a few years after, the people of New Hampshire, being dissatisfied with certain measures which the governor pursued in conformity with nis instructions from the crown, and having vainly petitioned for his removal from office, " would gladly have dissolved the government, and put themselves under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, had it been in their power.". Belknap. 152 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. ventured to gratify them by departing from his instructions, and permitting a reissue of those bills, accompanied with certain precautionary measures for preventing the fluctuation which their value was apt to incur, — an antidote which proved very slightly, if at all, efficacious. Whether as a politic de- vice to procure this concession, or simply from a sense of right, the Mas- sachusetts assembly had previously voteu, that, so long as Shirley retained his office, his salary should never fall short of one thousand pounds sterling per annum. His administration proved remarkably free from domestic con- troversy and the collision of political parties, — an advantage due partly to his own prudence and moderation, and in no small degree to the deference, he paid to the counsels of Colonel John Stoddard, a man highly distin- guished by the depth of his genius, the weight and force of his character, and the veneration which he inspired in all classes of his fellow-citizens. Belcher, meanwhile, who was so unjustly displaced, repaired to London, where he exhibited the most convincing proofs of his honor and probity, and of the base intrigues to which he had been sacrificed. But though his character was effectually vindicated, it- was judged impracticable or inex- pedient to restore him to office in New England. The ministers, however, promised, as some compensation for the unworthy treatment he had experi- enced, to confer on him another royal government in America ; and, in the year 1747, he was appointed governor of New Jersey, where he presided for ten years, and closed, with his life, a respected and happy administra- tion. Both as an individual and a magistrate, he was ever distinguished by his ardent piety, and his generous zeal for the diffusion of knowledge and the promotion of virtue.^ Amidst the scene of controversy and intrigue by which Massachusetts was so much disturbed and dishonored, a great deal of happiness was en- joyed in this province, and a great deal of useful talent and of admirable piety and virtue exerted. Many excellent persons, representing the oldest and most considerable Puritan families, labored with pious and patriotic ardor to promote the worth and welfare of their fellow-citizens, and both honorably illustrated and successfully propagated by their example the vir- tues that characterized the fathers of New England. The most distinguished of those individuals was John Stoddard, whom we have already had occa- sion to name, and who, preeminent alike in wisdom, probity, and public spirit, received from the universal attribution of his contemporaries the title of a great and good man.^ Among other fruits which manifested that the pristine qualities and sentiments of the people of Massachusetts were pre- served from decay, the efforts that were made to impart civil improvement and religious instruction to the Indians deserve a lasting and honorable com- memoration. In the year 1737, the legislature of Massachusetts granted to a troop of the Housatonic Indians a settlement in the western part of the province, which obtained the name of Stockbrldge, and subsequently derived a considerable accession of Indian residents from the resort of converts to Christianity gained from a great variety of tribes by the labors of the provincial missionaries. At this settlement, the most assiduous en- deavours were made by benevolent individuals, aided by the public funds of the provincial community, to instruct the Indians in useful knowledge, and to educate them in habits of virtue and civility. » Douglass. Trumbull. Hutchinson. Belknap. S. Smith. Dwight's Travels. Eliot's Biographical Dictionary of JVew England. * " After him," says Dwight, in Scriptural phrase, " men spake not again." CHAP. I] JONATHAN EDWARDS. J 53 The charitable enterprise was crowned with encouraging success ; and, in addition to its happy effects upon a numerous and increasing Indian society at Stockbridge, contributed to revive the ardor of missionary zeal through- out New England, and to awaken the same spirit in other provincial com- munities which had hitherto been strangers to it. Now was seen, though on a smaller scale than had been anticipated by many sanguine and philanthropic promoters of American colonization, another instance of union and inter- course mutually happy and beneficial to the civilized and savage men who jointly occupied the territory of the New World, — an intercourse in which charity manifestly proved itself doubly blessed ; for the efforts of the colo- nists to communicate the benefits of their knowledge and superiority tended even more effectually to the improvement of their own faculties and charac- ter than to the advantage of the race to which their labors were devoted. This grand and glorious conception had not yet been realized in any other portion of the British dominions in America, except New England. The Pennsylvanian Quakers treated the Indians with mildness, equity, and for- bearance, disarmed their jealousy by the display of implicit confidence, and gained their friendship by liberal presents and a courteous and affectionate address. But the only advantage (and doubtless a very great one) that re- sulted from this policy was the peaceful establishment of the colony of Penn- sylvania, — without the derivation of any benefit, temporal or spiritual, to the Indian race from the vicinity of European arts and knowledge. The gov- ernment of New York occasionally lavished caresses and subsidies on its savage neighbours ; but instead of attempting to alter, rather studied to pro- mote, their roving and barbarous habits, for the purposes of commerce and of war, [1741.] New England alone had hitherto afforded the example of communities of men which steadily pursued the civil and religious improve- ment of the Indians as a part of their state policy, and of individual mis- sionaries who willingly devoted their lives to this object. The superintendence of the various measures and establishments under- taken by the people of Massachusetts for the benefit of the Indians was con- fided to a board denominated the Commissioners for Indian Affairs at Bos- ton, whose pecuniary resources were derived partly from occasional grants by the provincial legislature, but chiefly from private and voluntary contri- butions of the colonists, aided by a religious society in Scotland. The first pastor appointed by these commissioners for the setdement at Stock- bridge was John Sergeant, a native of New Jersey, and a man of excellent sense, learning, and piety, who enjoyed a ministry happy, honored, and successful, till his death in the year 1749. The highest expectations were entertained of advantage to the establishment from his successor in the pas- toral office, — the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, a native of Connecticut, and afterwards president of Princeton College, in New Jersey ; one of the greatest theologians and metaphysical writers of modern times, and no less distinguished among his contemporaries for the severe and awful sanctitude of his life, and his ardent zeal for the propagation of Christian knowledge and sentiment, than admired by posterity for the strength and depth of his understanding, and the grandeur, penetration, and comprehension of his genius.^ The assump tion of the pastoral care of Stockbridge by so emi- ' He is thus characterized by an American divine and poet : — " From scenes obscure did Heaven its Edwards call, That moral Newton, and that second Paul. He, in clear view, saw sacred systems roll Of reasoning worlds around their central soul ; OL. II. 20 154 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. neut a personage was a circumstance not less honorable to himself than to the patrons of the settlement ; but the expectations that led to it were dis- appointed. Edwards was a man of recluse habits, contemplative disposition, and unpliable manners ; more fitted to elevate the wisdom of the learned by his writings, and animate the virtue of the pious by his example, than to in- struct and train a coarse, ilhterate, and miscellaneous society. By all wise and good men who enjoyed opportunities of familiar converse with him he was regarded with the warmest attachment and the most earnest veneration. But notwithstanding the denial of his friends and biographers, there is rea- son to conclude, both from various events of his life and from the tone of many passages in his writings, that his manners, though seasoned with that rarest of human qualities, a deep and genuine humility, and solemnly graceful and pleasing, where intimacy rendered him perfectly at ease, were, in gen- eral society, so much embarrassed by involuntary reserve and formality, as to convey the impression of an austere and ungracious disposition ; and that he was more plenteously endowed with sagacity to detect, and with zeal to demonstrate, the existence and inveteracy of human infirmity, than with that condescending indulgence and tender forbearance towards its victims, without which its correction is seldom, if ever, successfully undertaken. Consider- ing the disadvantages under which he labored, it is no small praise to him, that, during the few years of his exercise of the functions of pastor at Stock- bridge, the establishment did not dechne. But neither did it advance ; and of this the explanation, if not the apology, may perhaps be derived from the fact, that, during his residence there, he composed that grand and recon- dite disquisition, which he afterwards published, on the Freedom of Human Will, — a work which has been variously regarded as a doctrinal compo- sition, but which no intelligent reader has ever attentively perused without a sentiment of admiration and astonishment at the strength and stretch of the human understanding. It obtained, in particular, the admiring praise of David Hume and the philosophers of his school, who eagerly sought to en- list some of the reasoning of the Christian teachers in support of their own system of infidelity. After the removal of Edwards from this situation to tie presidency of Princeton College,^ the care of Stockbridge was commit- ted to, and successfully undertaken by, an excellent man, the son and the worthy inheritor of the name of Sergeant, the first pastor of this settlement. While the establishment at Stockbridge was still in its infancy, a number of New England ministers, selected and supported by the Commissioners for Indian Affairs at Boston, were pursuing missionary labors among various Indian tribes. [1742.] Of these the most distinguished was a young man named David Brainerd, a native of Connecticut, who, in compliance with the solicitations which his renowned zeal and piety attracted at once from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Presbyterian ministers of New York Saw love attractive every system bind, The parent linking to each filial mind ; The end of Heaven's high w^orks resistless showed, Creating glory, and creating good." — D wight's Triumph of Ivfidelity. Edwards has at length found an editor and critical commentator worthy of him, in Foster, a clergyman of the church of England, author of The JVatural History of Enthusiasm. Yet, with much admiring respect for Mr. Foster, I think that he has far better appreciated the per sonal holiness and wonderful genius of Edwards, than the religious utility of Edwards's writings. ^ He died there in 1758, and in the fifty-fifth year of his age. From his journals it appears that his researches extended to physical, as well as ethical science, and that he anticipated and prophesied those sublime investigations of the machinery of Light, subsequently accomplished by the genius of Herschel. He openly denounced the system of negro slavery, and urged the immediate manumission of all the slaves in America. CHAP. I] DAVID BRAINERD. I55 and New Jersey, commenced in this year a brief but memorable career, unsurpassed in diligence and success since the apostohc era, and unequalled, perhaps, except by the labors of Eliot and Mayhew. Of the natural abili- ties of Brainerd it is difficult to form any distinct or satisfactory conception, — so much was their outward lustre eclipsed by the strong absorbing influ- ence of feelings which continually prompted him to divest his discourse of the graces of fancy and eloquence, and to manifest Christian doctrine, sen- timent, and character in the most unadorned, and uncompounded simplicity. Some passages of his celebrated journal display great depth and force of thought ; but it was observed of him in general, that " his discourse seemed to issue mainly from his heart ; and he rather talked religion than talked about it." Throughout his short life he labored under a hypochondriacal malady, which clouded his soul with melancholy and dejection, but was nev- er able to relax his diligence or shake his conviction of the certain, how- ever invisible, fruit of his labors. With unwearied patience he pursued his missionary exertions among the various Indian tribes adjacent to the colo- nies of Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Driven from station to station by the opposition of some of his Indian audi- tors, which was frequently excited by the artifices, as well as promoted by the vicious example, of European traders who assumed the title of Chris- tians, — at every place where he resided, he built with his own hands a dwelling-house for himself ; and, for the more effectual instruction of the savages, accommodated his style of life to a model of as much simplicity as was consistent w^th the civifized manners to w^hich he desired to lead them. His success at length was astonishing, and was more especially manifested among the Indians of the Six Nations, who were peculiarly exposed to a counteracting influence both from the example of the European traders from New York, who resorted for commercial purposes among them, and from the intrigues of some of those traders, who regarded with fear and aversion every attempt to civilize or instruct the Indians. Solemn, yet affectionate, in his address ; humble, yet earnest and indefatigable ; filled with zeal and charity ; and indulgent to every body except himself, — Brainerd excited among his auditors a mixture of tenderness and veneration ; and inducing numerous Indian converts to adopt the manners which he exemplified, as well as the faith which he inculcated, completely falsified the common theo- ry, that mankind must be morally civilized before they can be religiously converted, — by demonstrating that Christian instruction is the most effect- ual and comprehensive instrument of civilization. Exhausted by constitu- tional disease, and by the intensity of his missionary toil, Brainerd died in the year 1747, while yet in the bloom of youth; but, if temporal fame (which he was very far from affecting) may be permitted to mingle with our conceptions of the meed of such labors as his, he had first achieved a renown that amply compensated for the shortness of his life. The efficacy of his exertions was promoted and extended by the missionary operations which now began to proceed from the Moravian establishments that were formed in Pennsylvania.^ During the administration of Governor Gordon, Pennsylvania enjoyed uninterrupted repose and prosperity. Internal dissensions were repressed by the prudence and moderation of the governor, aided by the concurrence * Douglass. W. Smith. Holmes. Hawksley's and Hopkins's Memoirs of President Ed- wards. Brainerd's Jnitrwrt/. Edwards s Obsenmtions on the Life of Brainerd. Dwight's Tra?*- ets. Loskiel. See Note VII., at the end of tlie volume. 156 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. of favorable circumstances, and not a little by the wise counsels, the pop- ular virtues, and persuasive eloquence of Andrew Hamilton (whom we have already had occasion to notice), for many years speaker of the provincial assembly. Gordon, dying in 1736, was succeeded two years after by Thomas, a man of resolution and integrity, and whose administration at first gave universal satisfaction. The venerable Hamilton, on retiring from pub- he life in 1739, expressed a generous exultation in contemplating the happy condition of his countrymen. With paternal soHcitude, he reminded them that a state of liberty and harmony was no less a blessing than a virtue, and that the exercise of mutual charity and forbearance was essential to its preservation ; cautioning them to avoid the faction and animosity that had once disturbed their pubhc councils, " as a rock, which, if not escaped, the constitution of this province will, at some time or other, infallibly spHt upon." A still more distinguished actor on the stage of provincial poHtics, and af- terwards in scenes of greater interest and renown, had recently appeared in the person of Benjamin Frankhn, a native of Boston, but now a printer in Philadelphia, and since the year 1735 clerk to the assembly at Pennsylva- nia, and postmaster of the province ; — the last of which appointments he owed to the discernment of Colonel Spottiswoode, formerly governor of Virginia, and afterwards postmaster-general of America. His father was a soap-boiler and tallow-chandler in Massachusetts, whither he had emigrated on account of his Puritan principles, some years prior to the British Revo- lution. From his earhest youth, Franklin cherished a passion for reading, and for the achievement of nature^s chief masterpiece (as it has been termed), the art of writing well. He enlarged his scanty access to books by the practice of the strictest temperance and economy ; and turned the narrow- ness of the hterary field to which he was confined into an actual advantage, by the diligence with which he cultivated and appropriated the farthest ex- tent of its resources. His amplitude of mind, united with his ceaseless in- dustry, vigor, and dexterity, qualified him to advance the boundaries of sci- ence, and to embrace and conduct the most extended schemes of national pohcy ; yet his genius, not less pliant than powerful, could stoop to the hum- blest sphere of practical good, and regulate with admirable prudence and skill the economy of a city hbrary, a provincial school, a tradesmen's club, or an insurance office. Industry and frugality were promoted among his townsmen by his personal example, and recommended throughout the pro- vince by the forcible and sagacious disquisitions which he composed and pub- lished. No man ever possessed in a higher degree the art of rendering the observations of science subservient to purposes of immediate practical utih- ty. His writings are justly admired for a plain popularity and sinewy sim- plicity of style, for the' easy vigor with which conceptions the most enlarged and profound are developed, for operative good sense and philanthropy, for humorous Socratic irony, and for the art of arguing to the prudence and self-love of mankind. His readers are constantly reminded of the benefit that will result from minute frugality, ^ and taught to consider a parsimonious thrift not merely as a virtue of the highest order, but as the foundation of all that is honorable, upright, and praiseworthy in human conduct and be- haviour. The accommodations of domestic life and the simphcity and effi- cacy of municipal institutions were improved by his inventive genius ; and literary and philosophical establishments were founded and promoted by his ardor, authority, and address. In the year 1739, an influence still nobler * See Note VIII., at the end of the volume. CHAP. I] • PARTIES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 157 and more benign was exerted on the Pennsylvanians by the ministry of George Whitefield, the pupil and associate of Wesley, who resided for some time in the province, and on subsequent occasions repeated his visits to it. " It was wonderful," says Franklin, who, in attesting Whitefield's success, was biased by no partiality for his doctrines, "to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious ; so that one could not walk through the town in an evening, without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street." But the state of repose which Pennsylvania had enjoyed for some time was now drawing to a close ; and the plentiful confluence of strangers to this province, which attested and promoted its prosperity, prepared also the materials of internal discord and altercation. The Quakers still possessed the command of the assembly, and by their wealth and influence were ena- bled to engross the principal offices of government. A majority of the in- habitants, notwithstanding, belonged to other religious persuasions, and dis- sented so completely from the Quaker system of policy, especially in rela- tion to the duty and legitimacy of provisions for national defence, that only a fit occasion was wanting to manifest the discordance of the views and opinions by which the colonists were divided. In all the other royal and proprietary governments of North America the duration of the representa- tive assemblies was triennial or septennial.^ In Pennsylvania it was an- nual ; and the recommendation of this democratic peculiarity, together with the lenity of the provincial taxes, and the economical and even parsimoni- ous principles which regulated the salaries of office and every other ex- penditure of public money, had attracted thither, among other emigrants, a great number of persons habituated to political deliberations, and eager to administer, as well as to enjoy, the institutions and policy of a popular gov- ernment. The Pennsylvanian Quakers, as we have already seen, from a pretty early period regarded with uneasiness the increasing concourse of strangers differing from them in rehgious persuasion ; from which they ap- prehended a preponderance of other sentiments than theirs in the public councils, and finally, perhaps, an entire eradication of all that tincture of Quaker principle which they had infused into the provincial policy and ad- ministration. On one occasion, to which we have already adverted, they made an essay to obstruct the resort of such emigrants as a small tax was sufficient to repel ; — well aware of the facility with which industrious pov- erty could mount to a competent estate and the attainment of political fran- chises in Pennsylvania. The Quakers still formed the aristocracy of the country, and preserved their original ascendency over the deliberations of the assembly ; but a jealousy had taken root, and continued silently to grow, between the Quaker, or, as it was now termed, the old interest in the province, and the younger, less weighty, but more crescent and vigorous party, that was formed by those planters who, disowning Quakerism as re- ligious doctrine, submitted with reluctance to the imposition of its precepts and restrictions as municipal and political ordinances. The efforts of wise a nd good men, more attached to the province than to ' An act of the assembly of New York, in the year 1743, commences with the following pre- amble : — " Whereas, by an act passed in the first year of the reign of his late Majesty, of glorious memory, parliaments in Great Britain may respectively have continuance for the term of seven years and no longer; and whereas the general assembly of this, his Majesty's loyal colony, conceive it their duty, as it is their inclination, to copy after so wise an example," &c. Lawi ofJVew York. ^ 158 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. any particular party, were successfully employed for some years to mode- rate this jealousy and repress its effusions ; but the war which broke forth between England and Spain, in 1739, contributed signally to enhance and develope its utmost virulence. The Quakers had strained their pacific prin- ciples as far, at least, as the cover of a decent veil could extend, in order to reconcile their retention of political power with their submission to the military views and requisitions of the parent state. We have seen them refuse to give money which was expressly demanded for warlike purposes, and yet part with it immediately after, under the cover of a present to the king, — for whose misuse of the instrument thus confided to his hands they reckoned themselves by no means responsible, as being totally unable, in the blindness of their innocence, to conjecture. In the conclusion of the last war, after a long and stubborn contest in the assembly, a portion of the public funds was expressly appropriated to the construction of a redoubt for the protection of the shipping of Philadelphia against hostile privateers ; and some vessels belonging to Quakers having been captured while the re- doubt was building, it was remarked that several members of the Quaker society were particularly active in forwarding its completion, and procuring the establishment of a subsidiary magazine of gunpowder. This conduct certainly contributed neither to promote the prevalence of Quaker theory, nor to reconcile the other inhabitants of Pennsylvania to its ostentatious predominance, united with its practical dereliction. Governor Thomas, who was a stranger to the refinements of casuistry, gave high offence to the pre- dominant party in the assembly, by strongly recommending the enactment of a law for embodying a provincial militia, and by encouraging, meanwhile, the enlistment of poor European emigrants who had been transported to the province as indented servants of the more wealthy planters. After long debates, the assembly refused to sanction the proposed militia law ; and having warmly complained of the practice of enlisting indented servants, voted an ample indemnification to all the colonists whose servants were thus withdrawn from them. This result excited a great deal of disgust in the minds of all the Penn- sylvanians who were not votaries of Quakerism ; and, from the struggle that arose between the two parties to increase their political power, the elections to the assembly, in the present year, were disgraced by much tumult and violence. It is asserted by a Quaker historian, and seems consistent with probability, that, in this competition between superior wealth and numerical strength, it was the party to which the latter distinction belonged that pro- moted tumultuary and riotous proceedings. So greatly were the Quakers now outnumbered by the dissenters from Quakerism, that the continued legislative ascendency of the old interest was maintained by the mixed influ- ence of the wealth of its representatives, their general respectability, a toler- able degree of union among themselves, and a habitual deference entertain- ed by many persons for their long prevalent authority, — added to the na- tional and sectarian varieties by which the other inhabitants were divided. The governor vainly endeavoured to alter the determination expressed by the majority of the provincial assembly, and displaced from office a number of magistrates who particularly distinguished themselves by opposition to his wishes.^ Finding, however, that the assembly was inflexible, he address- ' One of these magistrates was John Wright, a zealous and eminent Q,uaker, who, on surren- dering his magisterial functions, addressed the grand jury of the county to which he belonged in an oration of considerable length, which has been preserved by the historian Proud. In CHAP. I] MILITARY ORGANIZATION IN PENNSYLVANIA. 159 ed himself to the inhabitants at large ; and, assisted by the powerful pen of Franklin, who heartily espoused his views, urged the peoole to take arms and form themselves into regiments for the defence and security of their country. Several of the Quakers themselves openly asserted the lawfulness of defensive war ; and when, in compliance with the governor's recommen- dations, the project of forming provincial regiments and purchasing artillery was discussed in various commercial societies of the inhabitants, a considera- ble number of the Quaker members of these societies absented themselves from the debate, and privately encouraged their less scrupulous associates to apply the common funds to the support of a provincial armament.^ The wishes of the governor and the arguments of Franklin were so cordially seconded by the spirit of the great bulk of the people, that ultimately a pro- vincial mihtia ^ was embodied and supported by an act of popular will direct- ly opposed to the sentiments and declarations of the provincial legislature. [1743.] There was thus exhibited in Pennsylvania the extraordinary spec- tacle of a martial force assembled for the protection of the state, without the consent of the legislature ; of a government defended by a military estab- lishment which it disowned and professed to disapprove. This state of matters could not endure for many years in a province of the British empire, and manifestly betokened the decline and fall of the po- litical predominance of Quakerism in Pennsylvania. The covert accession to war, which had already been repeatedly extorted from the Quakers, might have convinced them of the impossibility of reconciling the purity of their sectarian principles with the administration of political power in a mixed so- ciety ; and in the example of the Moravians, who were now established in considerable numbers in the province, and who, professing the same mild and pacific tenets with the Quakers, forbore to discredit them by employing negro slaves, or to endanger them by arrogating power or control beyond the bounds of their own rehgious society, they might have beheld a more gen- uine portraiture of practical Quakerism than was ever before represented in Pennsylvania. The quiet of the province was about this time still farther disturbed by a series of disputes between the colonists and Thomas Penn, the youngest of the proprietaries, who acquired soon after, by the death of his brother John, the principal share of the proprietary dignity and interest ; and whose selfish pohcy and ungracious manners were resented (says the historian Proud) with a disproportioned warmth of animosity, which tended rather to harden than this speech he rather incorrectly ascribed his dismission from office not to his defence of Qua- ker principles, but to his zeal for " the system of English liberty," — a system which he rec- ommended to the esteem of his auditors, in strains alike unsuitable to his circumstances and his principles, by reminding them of " the blood and treasure which have been spent in defence of it." Thus simply and beautifully he closed the discourse : — " And now, to conclude, I take my leave in the words of a judge in Israel : Here I am^ witness against me. Whom have 1 de- frauded? whom have I oppressed ? or of whose hands have I received any bribe, to blind my eyes thcreicith ? and I will restore it. May the Prince of Peace, who is the King of kings, protect the people of this province from domestic foes and foreign enemies ! is my heart's desire. And so I bid you all farewell." ' " I estimated the proportion of Quakers sincerely against defence as one to twenty-one on- ly." Franklin. It was the opinion of Franklin, that the American Quakers in general were deterred from openly sanctioning defensive war only bv a punctilious hesitation to renounce opinions that had been published by the founders of Quakerism. In the writings of various American Quukers it is acknowledged that the majority of their society were desirous of avoid- ing all discussion of this subject, and willing, under color of taxation for municipal purposes, to contribute to the support of a military establishment. ' Franklin was elected colonel of the Philadelphia regiment ; but he declined this honor, and served as a private soldier. IQQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. to correct the illiberallty of his disposition. How far this writer — not a httle perplexed, as he frequently appears to be, between his attachment to the Quakers and his reverence for the family of Penn — meant to include in his censure the Quaker colonists of Pennsylvania cannot now be ascertained ; thoug^li a strong inference that the Quakers had especially incurred the pro- prietary's resentment may be derived from the fact, that they were shortly after excluded from every office connected with the administration of his in- terest and authority. Another cause of uneasiness, which, though generally disregarded by the inhabitants of Pennsylvania, yet excited the apprehensions of reflective men, was supplied by the manifest alteration that had taken place in the senti- ments with which the colonists and the provincial government were regarded by the Indians. Some partisans of the Quakers, in alluding to this cir- cumstance, have more eagerly than successfully attempted an explanation of it redounding to the credit of those sectaries, by connecting it with the undeniable facts, that the Indians, among other complaints, asserted that they were unjustly deprived of lands which had never been fairly purchased from them ; that no such acquisitions were or could be made, except by the agents of the proprietary; and that the Quakers about this time were exclud- ed from all share in that agency. The explanatory plea, so flattering to the Quakers, which is inferred from these considerations, though exaggerated in its appHcation, is entitled to some respect : for, though the Quakers were by no means entirely blameless in their intercourse with the Indians, yet, un- doubtedly, they succeeded in gaining their good-will more effectually than any other class of the Pennsylvanian colonists, before the arrival of the Moravians. But, for a long series of years, a number of circumstances, less consistent with the claims of the Quakers to exclusive or superior vir- tue, had contributed to create and increase alienation between the Indians and the people of this province. It is admitted, even by Quaker writers, that, for several years prior to this period, the Indian tribes were treated with a neglect ^ which they naturally contrasted with the civihties and largesses of the emissaries despatched among them by the French ; who urged them to consider if their total annihilation was not manifestly portended by the rapid advances of every English colony, and might not be averted by the friendship and assistance of France. The agents of the French protested that this people sought for nothing but advantageous commercial stations in America, and, without desiring to enlarge their settlements, were willing to depend for subsistence principally on supphes derived from their own parent state. But the most serious complaint preferred by the Indians was directed against the abuse and iniquity of the commerce between the two races of people. We have seen, that, at a very early period, even William Penn found it impossible to obtain from an assembly, of which a great majori- ty were professed Quakers, any salutary regulation of the traffic between the colonists and the Indians ; and it will the less move our wonder to find that little regard was paid to a message of Governor Thomas to the Pennsylva- ' This neglect may be in part referred to circumstances which Franklin has detailed in his Historical, Review of tk? Constitution of Pennsylvania. The colonists had become impatient of the frequent treaties with the Indians, which were chiefly intended to promote the interest of the proprietaries. On these occasions, presents derived from provincial taxes, to which the proprietaries did not contribute, were made to the Indians, who, in return, renewed their an- cient protestations of friendship to the colonists, and made additional grants of land, which were added to the estates of the proprietaries. CHAP. I] INDIAN GRIEVANCES. |gj nian assembly, in the year 1744,^ declaratory of his apprehension, that the manner in which the Indian trade was ordinarily conducted would speedily involve the colonists "in some fatal quarrel with the Indians." The hke- lihood of such a quarrel was increased by the increasing prevalence of ine- briety among the Indians ; by the sordid eagerness with which the provincial traders ministered to this pernicious habit, and promoted its indulgence ; and by the fixed resentment with which reflection and experience taught the In- dians to regard the insidious temptation they were unable to resist, but the effect of which they plainly perceived was to render their property the prey of the most unequal bargains, and to propagate diseases among them by which their bodies were debilitated and their lives abridged.^ It would have been very difficult for the Pennsylvanian assembly to provide an entire and adequate remedy of the abuses of the Indian trade. Unfortunately, a just sense of the danger and the moral turpitude of these abuses was wanting in this body, and the remedial measures which it occasionally adopted were feeble, partial, and totally inefficient. An additional circumstance, differ- ently related by different writers, served to inflame the animosity between the European and the aboriginal occupants of Pennsylvania. A chief of the Delaware Indians, having killed, either maliciously or accidentally, a colonist of New Jersey, to whom he had been attached by the strongest bonds of pri- vate friendship, lamented the unhappy deed with a passionate warmth of self- reproach, which, justly or erroneously, was interpreted into a confession of premeditated guilt. In spite of the remonstrances of the Indians, the guilty or unfortunate chief was capitally punished by the sentence of a New Jersey judicature, which the Indians in general exclaimed against as an act of de- liberate murder, and a heinous affront to their race ; and for which they continually, but ineffectually, demanded atonement from the governments of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.^ The war that had prevailed for several years between Britain and Spain * This year, Arthur Dobbs, of New England, who had promoted various enterprises for the discovery of a north-west passage to India, made another attempt for the same purpose, in which he was aided by several noblemen and persons of distinction in England. As an en- couragement to such adventures, the British parliament offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds to the persons who might first accomplish this discovery. Holmes. ' Though the Indians expressed much disapprobation of the conduct of those who furnished them with ardent spirits, tney were not the less exasperated when this fatal commodity waa withheld from them. Of this an instance occurs in Franklin's account of a treaty with the Indians, which he and other commissioners were deputed to conduct by the Pennsylvanian assembly. " The Great Spirit," said one of the Indian orators, " who made all things, made every thing for some use ; and whatever use he designed any thing for, that use it should al- ways be put to. Now, when he made rum, he said. Let it he for the Indians to get drunk with; and it must be so." " Indeed," Franklin adds, " if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages, in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not impossible that rum may be the appointed means." Franklin's Memoirs. ^ S. Smith. History of J^ew Jersey. Proud. Franklin's j1f(^mo/>5. Kalm's Travels. Los- kiel. Proud's historical narrative terminates at this epoch. The remainder of his work con- tains nothing farther than a catalogue of governors, and a statistical account of Pennsylvania prior to the year 1770. It would have been impossible for him to relate the disputes that en- sued between the proprietaries and the colonists in a manner satisfactory to all his predilections. The American Revolution was a subject no less perplexing to him. Some allusions to this great struggle occur in the close of his work, and plainly prove that the principles of the Qua- ker prevailed with him over the sentiments of the patriot. He denounces the revolt of the col- oni.st8 as one of those convulsive maladies which a plethory of happiness is apt to generate in collective life; and predicts that its result will be the downfall of virtue, happiness, and liberty in America. His work, though composed during the Revolutionary War, was not published till 1797 ; and yet he suffered these expressions to remain uncancelled. In his preface, which bears the date of 179'2, no allusion is made to the patriots of the Revolution; and none but Q,uaJcers are commemorated as benefactors of Pennsylvania. VOL. II. 21 N* IQ2 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X inflicted upon the greater number of the British provinces of America no farther share of its evils than the burden of contributing to the expeditions of Admiral Vernon, and the waste of life by which his disastrous naval campaigns were signalized. Only South Carolina and Georgia had been exposed to actual attack and danger. But this year, by an enlargement of the hostile relations of the parent state, the scene of war was extended to the more northern provinces. The French, though professing peace with Britain, had repeatedly given assistance to Spain ; while the British king, as Elector of Hanover, had espoused the quarrel of the emperor of Ger- many with the French monarch : and after various mutual threats and demon- strations of hostility that consequently ensued between Britain and France, war was now formally declared by these ^ates against each other. The French colonists in America, having been apprized of this event before it was known in New England, were tempted to improve the advantage of their prior intelligence by an instant and unexpected commencement of hostihties, which accordingly broke forth without notice or delay in the quar- ter of Nova Scotia. This province had been alternately claimed and pos- sessed by the English and French for more than a century. Since the peace of Utrecht, it had acknowledged subjection to the crown of Britain ; and the French inhabitants, devoted to the interests of France, and implicitly di- rected by their priests, who exercised a sort of patriarchal government over them, were yet retained in submission, partly by the dread of seeing the dikes destroyed which they had erected to prevent the sea from over- flowing their fields, and partly by a British garrison at Annapolis, where a governor and council resided. The Indian tribes that inhabited the territory maintained their native independence, though they were attached to the French by the ties of common faith, as well as by ancient friendship and connection. On the island of Canso, adjoining the coast of Nova Scotia, the British had formed a settlement, which was resorted to by the fishermen of New England, and defended by a small fortification garrisoned by a de- tachment of troops from Annapolis. The island of Cape Breton was pos- sessed by the French, and lay between the settlements of the English in Canso and Newfoundland. There was manifest danger and impolicy in such intermixture and relative position of the settlements of rival nations, who had long disgraced their superior genius and civilization by cherishing the barbarous and impious notion that they were the natural enemies of each other. Their close vicinity in this quarter of America was rendered the more dangerous by the keen competition that prevailed between them for the appropriation of the principal share in the adjacent fisheries. Duquesnel, the governor of Cape Breton, on receiving intelligence of the declaration of war between the two parent states, conceived the hope of destroying the fishing establishments of the English by the suddenness and vigor of an unexpected attack. His first blow^, which w^as aimed at Canso, proved successful. [May 13, 1744.] Duvivier, whom he despatched from his head-quarters at Louisburg, with a few armed vessels and a force of nine hundred men, took unresisted possession of this island, burned the fort and houses, and made prisoners of the garrison and inhabitants. This success Duquesnel endeavoured to follow up by the conquest of Placentia in New foundland, and of Annapolis in Nova Scotia ; but at both these places his forces were repulsed. In the attack of Annapolis, the Krench were joined by the Indians of Nova Scotia ; but the prudent forecast of Shirley, the CHAP. I] WAR WITH FRANCE. l^ gov ernor of Massachusetts, had induced the assembly of this province, some time before, to contribute a reinforcement of two hundred men for the greater security of the garrison of Annapolis ; and to the opportune arrival of the succour thus afforded the preservation of the place was ascribed. The conduct of the French exposed them, and most justly, to the charge of rashness and precipitation. By the impetuosity of their commencement, and the extensive scheme of operations which they attempted to pursue, whiie yet unprepared with a force nearly adequate to sustain it, they prema- turely disclosed designs calculated to awaken the utmost alarm in New England, and to rouse this powerful and provoked rival to a proportioned stretch and vigor of hostile reaction, which her condition and resources were much better fitted to support. In effect, the people of New England were stimulated to a pitch of resentment, apprehension, and martial energy, that very shortly produced an effort of which neither their friends nor their enemies had supposed them to be capable, and which excited the admiration of both Europe and America. Measures were promptly adopted, in the first instance, by the governments of Massachusetts and New Hampshire to guard their frontiers from the expected incursions of the French and of the Indian allies of France in Canada. War was declared against the Indians of Nova Scotia, who had assisted in the atiack upon Annapolis ; all the frontier garrisons were reinforced ; new forts were erected ; and the ma- terials of defence were enlarged by a seasonable gift of artillery from the king. Meanwhile, though the French were not prepared to prosecute the extensive plan of conquest which their first operations announced, their privateers actively waged a harassing naval warfare that greatly endamaged the commerce of New England. The British fisheries on the coast of Nova Scotia were interrupted ; the fishermen declared their intention of re- turning no more to their wonted stations on that coast ; and so many mer- chant-vessels were captured and carried into Louisburg in the course of this summer, that it was expected that in the following year no branch of mari- time trade would be pursued by the New England merchants, except under the protection of convoy. Aroused by circumstances and prospects so fraught with injury and men- ace, the national genius of New England began fully to awaken ; and that determined, adventurous, and yet dehberate spirit by which the first colo- nists of this region were distinguished was now developed among their de- scendants with an ardor and lustre worthy of their lineage. In the close of this year, it was the general sentiment of the people of Massachusetts that Louisburg must be subdued ; but there prevailed at first almost as generally the impression that the united force of all the British colonies was inadequate to an undertaking of so much magnitude and difficulty, without assistance from the parent state. The town of Louisburg was built by the French on the island of Cape Breton, soon after the peace of Utrecht. It was designed for the security of the French shipping and fisheries, and fortified with a rampart of stone thirty-six feet in height, and a ditch eighty feet in width. There were six bastions and three batteries, contain- ing embrasures for one hundred and forty-eight pieces of cannon, of which sixty-five were mounted, and sixteen mortars. On an island at the entrance of the harbour was planted a battery of thirty cannons carrying shot of the weight of twenty-eight pounds ; and at the bottom of the harbour, directly opposite to the entrance, was the grand or royal battery, containing twenty- |g4 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. eight cannons that carried balls of forty-two pounds, and two of smaller dimensions. The entrance of the town, on the land^side, was at the west gate, across a drawbridge, near to which was a circular battery, mounting sixteen guns that carried shot of twenty-four pounds. Twenty -five yea;-s had been spent in building these works, which, though still uncompleted, had cost France at least thirty millions of livres. The place was deemed so strong as to be impregnable except by blockade, and was styled by some the Dunkirk^ and by others the Gibraltar of *Bmerica. In peace, it afforded a safe and convenient retreat for the ships of France homeward bound from the East and West Indies ; and in war, it formed a source of distress and annoyance to the northern English colonies, by harbouring the numerous privateers which infested their coasts for the destruction of their fishery and the interruption of their general commerce. It manifestly tended, besides, to facilitate the reacquisition of Nova Scotia by France, — an event which would cause an instant and formidable increase in the numerical strength of the enemies of the British crown and people. The reduction of Louisburg was, for these reasons, an object of ardent desire and of the highest import- ance to New England. In the autumn of this year, Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, impressed with the interest and eager to second the wish and spirit of his people, ad- dressed himself to the British ministry, soliciting assistance for the preserva- tion of Nova Scotia and the acquisition of Cape Breton. But before any answer was returned to his application, the rising ardor of the colonists and the spirited counsels of some leading characters among them, with whom he was wont to advise, inspired his genius with the design of attempting this important conquest with the forces of New England alone. In the com- mencement of winter, a bold surmise began to circulate and be rumored in Massachusetts, that Louisburg, however strongly fortified, might now be surprised and taken by a sudden attack, of which the efficacy would be aided by the severity of the season. This effusion of popular spirit, though entirely disregarded by many sensible and considerate persons, did not es- cape the more sagacious appreciation of Shirley and others, by whom it was justly recognized as the indication of that heroic confidence which prognosticates as well as presupposes victory, — facilitating the achievement of the purposes which it inspires, and enlarging the limits of prudence and possibility to the resolute and the brave. Various individuals have been particularized as candidates for the honor of having first suggested to Shirley a plan for the immediate attack of Louisburg, or at least afforded him the earliest aid in composing and maturing it. Among the persons with whom he took counsel on this subject were Benning Wentworth, the governor of New Hampshire, who, entertaining a high opinion of Shirley's honor and capacity, was implicitly guided by his directions in the administration of his own provincial command ; and William Vaughan, the son of a former lieu- tenant-governor of the same province, a man remarkably daring in his tem- per, and no less tenacious of his purpose, and whose zealous patriotism on this occasion made amends for the errors of his father, and restored the lustre of an honorable name. Shirley, aided by the partners of his coun- sels, made the most diligent inquiries of all persons who had ever been at Louisburg, either as traders or as prisoners, respecting the actual condition of the garrison and fortifications, the usual periods of the arrival of supplies from Europe, and the practicability of cruising off the harbour ; and received CHAP. I.] PROJECTED REDUCTION OF LOUISBURG. |g5 such information as encouraged the hope, that, even if an attempt to sur- prise the place should prove abortive, it would be compelled to yield to the continued onset of a vigorous siege, before reinforcements could arrive from France. Among other circumstances propitious to a speedy attack, Duquesnel, the governor of Cape Breton, unexpectedly died, and was succeeded by Du- chambon, an aged officer of inferior and very narrow capacity ; Duvivier, a man of spirit and activity, had sailed for Europe ; and some New Eng- land colonists, recently liberated from captivity at Louisburg, reported that the object of his voyage was to solicit immediate succour from France, and that the stores of the garrison, meanwhile, were scanty, the troops discon- tented and mutinous, and the works in some places mouldering and decayed. Animated by the result of their inquiries, Shirley and his friends proceeded with vigor and secrecy to frame the plan of ^n expedition ; in conformity with which a land force of four thousand men was to be conveyed in small transports to Canso, and thence, on the first favorable opportunity, to ad- vance to Chapeau-rouge Bay, with cannon, mortars, and all the stores and ammunition requisite for a siege ; while, to prevent the arrival of supplies to the hostile garrison, sundry vessels were to cruise off the harbour of Louisburg as soon as the state of the season would permit. An estimate was made of all the naval force that could be collected in Massachusetts and the neighbouring colonies ; and though the armed vessels were few, and the largest carried no more than twenty guns, it was considered that a reasonable prospect of success might be derived from the cooperation of this maritime armament with the land troops. But the most sanguine hopes were indulged of the opportune arrival of an auxiliary force from Britain, in comphance with the recent apphcation of Shirley ; or, at least, that Commodore Warren, who was cruising with a fleet ofl" the Leeward Islands, might be prevailed on to detach some of his vessels to join the expedition. With such aid, h was concluded that the reduction of Louisburg might be expected. It was now the commencement of that memorable year [1745] during which the centre of the British empire was shaken and desolated by the last rebellious eftbrt of the partisans of the Pretender to overthrow the gov ernment that had subsisted since the Revolution. Vainly agitating a title re- pudiated by reason, extinguished by time, and formidable only to the gallant or desperate visionaries by whom it w^as recognized, Charles Edward Stuart, with a handful of men, contrived to rush through Scotland and reach in mad career the centre of England, before flight and discomfiture terminated an enterprise less dangerous than disgraceful to the established government of Britain. In a distant extremity of the empire, the year w^as illustrated by events more honorable to the British name, and the possessions and re- nown of ^e parent state were enlarged by a conquest, for which she was principally indebted to the enterprising bravery of her American progeny. To the General Court of Massachusetts, consisting of the provincial coun- cil and the representatives, assembled at Boston in the beginning of this year [.January, 1745], Governor Shirley conveyed a message, acquainting them that he was prepared to communicate a matter of the utmost impor- tance, but of such a nature that the disclosure of it to the public at large, before it had undergone the fullest consideration of the legislature, might be detrimental to the general interest ; and desiring that they would therefore IQQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. consent to receive it under the seal of an oath of secrecy, engaging that it should not pubUcly transpire without the express authorization of both houses. The Court without the shghtest scruple acceded to this extraordinary re- quest ; ^ and Shirley thereupon communicated the plan that was formed for the invasion of Cape Breton, together with the result of the inquiries in which he had been engaged, and the reasons from which he inferred the likelihood of a successful issue to the enterprise. Nothing could exceed the amazement with which a great part of the assembly received the pro- posal of this adventurous design; by some of the members it was at once condemned as chimerical and extravagant ; and with the majority the pre- vailing sentiment was, that, even although a hope of success might not un- reasonably be indulged, the magnitude and expense of the effort would prove ruinous to the province. Yet, in professed deference to the recom- mendation of the governor, and perhaps also from real perplexity, occasioned by a struggle between adventurous spirit and considerate prudence, an am- ple and leisurely dehberation of the project w^as appointed ; and for several days it was pondered and discussed with the most earnest attention and no small difference of opinion. By the partisans of the measure it was urged, that Louisburg, while it remained in the possession of the French, would prove a perpetual scourge to the fisheries and commerce of New England ; that the actual condition of the place seemed propitious to an immediate assault, while the delay of a single year would enable the government of France to render it utterly impregnable ; that, considering the present advanced pe- riod of the year, it was unlikely that any French ships of war would be despatched to Louisburg before the fate of the enterprise was de- cided, and that, if only one should arrive, the flotilla accompanying the be- siegers would be sufficient to overpower her ; but that, on the other hand, it was highly probable that the forces of New England would be strength- ened by the arrival and cooperation of a naval armament from Britain or the West Indies. In war it was admitted that there must always be un- certainty ; but the chance here was worth the stake ; for, if the attempt should fail, the province was strong enough to sustain the weight of its evil fortune ; while a successful issue would not only free the coast of New England from molestation, but signally promote the glory and advantage of Britain, give peace, perhaps, to Europe, and doubtless procure from British justice a complete reimbursement of the charges of the adventure. To these arguments it was replied by the opposers of the scheme, that it was better to endure the pillage and diminution of the provincial trade, than to risk its destruction by the expense and the failure of so vast an enterprise ; that the garrison of Louisburg consisted of regular troops, whose disci- pline would compensate their numerical inferiority, and who in the field ' " The secret," says Belknap, " was kept for some days ; till an honest member, who performed the family "devotion at his lodgings, inadvertently discovered it, by praying for a blessing on the attempt." Of the origin and motives of the expedition the following account was afterwards published in England by Josiah Tucker, the celebrated Dean of Gloucester, a man whose rare sagacity and penetration did not prevent him from being transported into the most egregious folly by Eassion and prejudice: — "The leading men in the government of Massachusetts, havmg cen guilty of certain malpractices, for which they were in danger of being called to an ac- count, projected the expedition against Cape Breton in order to divert the storm," With equal sincerity and absurdity, he adds, — " I build nothing upon this statement; and I only offer it (because not corroborated by sufficient evidence) as a probable case, and as my own opin- ion." Tucker's Humble and Earnest. Address, «&c., Postscript. CHAP. I.] PROJECTED REDUCTION OF LOUISBURG. I^'jf would find no difficulty in overpowering the inexperienced militia of New England ; that it was impossible to rely on the accounts that were given of the decayed state of the fortifications of Louisburg or the disaffection of the French troops, and that history contained few instances of the success of efforts prompted by such expectations ; that it was absurd, especially after the repeated experience of the tardiness of British succour, to expect to be thus speedily joined by a naval force from England ; that it was more probable that the besieged would be aided by the arrival of French ships of war, with which the utmost maritime force of New England would be in- sufficient to cope ; that the preparations for the expedition would be ob- structed by the rigor of the season, and the unwillingness of the people to exchange the comfort and repose of their homes, at such a. period of the year, for the toils, privations, and dangers of so dubious an enterprise ; that, even if success were attainable, only a disproportioned share of its beneficial efTects would be reaped by the colonists ; and that failure, which seemed the more likely result, would expose them not only to a heavy and unpitied loss, but to the reproaches of England for rashly undertaking measures of such importance without her sanction or direction. These views having prevailed with a majority of the assembly, the pro- jected expedition was disallowed ; and for some days all 'thoughts of it seemed to be laid aside. Shirley, however, was not to be diverted from his partiahty for the enterprise, nor yet from his hope of inducing the provincial authorities to embrace it. But wisely refraining from personal importunity with the assembly or private applications to the members, he adopted the more prudent and efficacious poHcy of promoting petitions in unison with his views from eminent merchants and other persons of con- sideration in the colony. These petitions, which were signed by some wealthy inhabitants of Boston, and by almost all the merchants of Salem and Marblehead, earnestly entreated the assembly, for various reasons, and especially for the sake of preserving the fisheries from entire ruin, to recon- sider their recent determination, and once more revolve, ere it was yet too late, the practicability and expediency of the enterprise suggested by the governor. In compliance with these petitions, the assembly again resumed the consideration of this interesting affair. Their deliberations were con- ducted with the utmost calmness and moderation ; and no other division appeared, than what was manifestly owing, and on both sides was candidly ascribed, to conscientious difference of opinion with respect to the true in- terests of the province and the empire. After a long debate, a resolution in favor of the expedition was carried by the majority of a single voice. ^ [January .26, 1745.] The announcement of this important determination of the legislature was followed by an entire and cordial union of all parties in the measures that were necessary to carry it into immediate execution. With a magnanimous ^ Among the members of this assembly were two persons who afterwards acted a conspic- uous part in the most interesting scenes of American story, — Hutchinson, who became the historian and governor of Massachusetts ; and Oliver, who was associated with him in politi- cal sentiment, and in command as lieutenant-governor. Both had expressed their disapproba- tion of the expedition. As Oliver was repairing to the house on the day when the proposal, which he was determined to resist, was finally to be debated, he chanced to fall and break his leg. In consequence of his absence, when the house divided, the numbers on both sides were found to be equal. Hutchinson, who was the speaker, thereupon surrendered his opin- ion to what seemed to him the general desire of the province, and gave his casting vote in favor of the expedition. Gordon. 168 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. emulation to defeat their own predictions and vindicate their patriotism, the former opponents of the expedition now zealously cooperated with its original promoters in. accelerating its preparatory arrangements, and in sug- gesting ^ and facilitating the procurement of every attainable means of in- creasing the likelihood of a successful issue. In furtherance of this object, an embargo was laid on the shipping in all the provincial harbours ; and messengers were despatched to the other New England States, and to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, sohciting their assistance and coop- eration in the enterprise. All, however, declined to take any share in it, or to render the slightest aid, except the New England States ; and even of these, Rhode Island, after voting a contingent of three hundred men, acted with so much tardiness and hesitation in carrying this resolve into effect, that the enterprise was concluded before her troops were ready for the field. But the zeal and ardor that broke forth among all classes of people in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, supplied, as well as reproached, the supine indifference of the other provinces. There, every private interest, political or patrimonial, was either spontaneously absorbed by concern for the general advantage and honor, or was compelled, by the irresistible cuyent of the public will, to bend beneath this supreme consid- eration. Committees of war were appointed by the several governments, and authorized to enter all private dwelhngs and warehouses, and to appre- ciate and seize every article of clothing or provision adapted to the exigen- cies of the public service. A fleet of twelve small vessels was formed by the armed sloops belonging to the four New England States, and by hiring two privateers that belonged to Rhode Island ; and the deficiency of heavy artillery was supplied by borrowing a number of cannons from New York. An express boat was despatched to Commodore Warren to ac- quaint him with the projected expedition, and to beseech the assistance of some part of his squadron. The preparations of the colonists were facilitated by the extraordinary mildness of the winter, and by the opportune and unexpected arrival of some merchant-vessels from England, conveying an ample store of various materials which were indispensably requisite, and of which the deficiency was least capable of being supplied in America. The preceding season hav- ing been remarkably fruitful, the provisions required for victualling the forces were plentiful and cheap ; and though war had subsisted for some months with France, neither the French forces in Canada, nor their Indian allies, had given any molestation to the frontiers of New England. Some of the Indian friends of the French, indeed, having discovered the project of the English colonists, carried the tidings to Canada ; but their report was derided by the French as absurd and incredible, and no intelligence of the approaching invasion reached Cape Breton. As the preparations advanced, the expense of them was found greatly to exceed the original es- timates and expectations, insomuch that several of the first promoters of the scheme confessed, that, had they foreseen its actual cost, they would never ' Many ridiculous suggestions Were tendered, and much wild and chimerical expectation in- dulged. A catalogue of the follies thus engendered by zeal, vanity, and ignorance has been preserved by Belknap, and amply demonstrates, that, if half of the schemes benevolently elaborated by patriotic absurdity had been entertained, the colonial forces would have in- curred greater dangers from their friends than from their enemies. Perhaps no enterprise of great general interest was ever projected in the world, without an attendant crop of similar extravagances of speculation. , -' CHAP. I] PREPARATIONS FOR THE EXPEDITION. IQQ have consented to it ; but they protested that it was now too late to recede. Governor Shirley announced that in this crisis he considered himself entitled to depart from his instructions with regard to paper money, and a large issue took place under his sanction in Massachusetts, — an example which was followed in New Hampshire. The selection of a proper commander of the forces was a nice and diffi- cult duty, of which Shirley acquitted himself with his usual prudence. Upon the character and capacity of the commander depended not only the success, but the actual prosecution, of the enterprise ; for, notwithstanding the liberal recompense by which enlistment was encouraged, it was impos- sible, in a country where indigence was unknown, to collect any consid- erable number of men willing to forsake their domestic connections and em- ployments, and to engage in a painful and hazardous expedition, unless the commander of it were an individual who enjoyed their attachment and re- spect. Military skill, and experience in the conduct of regular warfare, were qualifications which it would have been vain to seek for in New England ; but good sense, ability, resolution, and popularity were indispensable requi- sites. These qualities were very happily combined in William Pepperell, a colonel of the Massachusetts mihtia, an eminent merchant, possessed of a great landed estate, and generally known and esteemed in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He was not a stranger to such scenes of war as Ameri- can experience could supply, — having served from his youth in the provin- cial militia, and inhabiting a part of the country peculiarly exposed to the assault of French and Indian hostility. Happily for his country, and for his own fame, Pepperell was induced by the earnest instances of Shirley to ac- cept the chief command of the forces ; and next to him in authority was Roger Wolcott, the lieutenant-governor of Connecticut, and one of the most respected and popular of its inhabitants. The station and character of these men, and the great sacrifices which they now incurred of ease and interest, produced a powerful effect in inciting persons of humbler rank to abandon for a season their own less important domestic concerns for the service of their country, and to imitate on a smaller scale the virtue and public spirit of their favorite leaders. Many who enlisted as private soldiers were themselves freeholders, and many more were the sons of thriving farmers and substantial tradesmen, — men, whom only views of public interest could persuade to enHst, or to consent to the enlistment of their children. It was strikingly and justly re- marked of this famous enterprise, comprehending the reduction of a reg- ular fortress, garrisoned by disciplined troops, that it was conceived and planned by a lawyer, and undertaken and conducted by a merchant com- manding a body of husbandmen and mechanics.^ George Whitefield, the Methodist, was at this time travelling and preaching in New England ; and so great was the repute of his sanctity and talents, that many persons anx- iously endeavoured to derive from his opinion an augury of the issue of the expedition. With some difficulty he was prevailed on to suggest a motto for the flag of the New Hampshire regiment ; and the words which he pro- posed were " JS'il desperandum Christo sub duce.'" Some of his follow- ers, construing this into a benediction of the enterprise by a highly gifted ' " Instructed by such examples, let rulers be persuaded that many things, which appear to be beyond measure daring and full of danger, are not less safe in the execution than admirable in the attempt ; and that the design itself, whether frustrated or successful, if conducted with ability, will draw after it immortal honors." Polybius. VOL. II. 22 I7Q HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. servant of Heaven, enlisted into it with the enthusiasm of a rehgious cru- sade ; and one of them, a regimental chaplain, carried on his shoulder a hatchet, with which he menaced the destruction of the images in the French churches. By dint of vigor and promptitude of exertion, aided by the gen- eral determination to spare no expense that could improve the chances of success, there was embodied in New England, even within a shorter time than had been anticipated, a force, of which three thousand two hundred and fifty men were supphed by Massachusetts, five hundred and sixteen by Connecticut, and three hundred and fifty by New Hampshire. Never did an army take the field, in civilized warfare, less formidable by its experience and tactical accomphshments, or more hkely, from the piety and virtue, the manly fortitude and patriotic enthusiasm that prevailed in its ranks, to min- ister occasion either of unstained and honorable triumph, or of profound affliction and regret to its country. The earnest expectation that pervaded New England was at once sustained and regulated by religious sentiment. Fasts and prayers implored the divine blessing on the enterprise ; and the people and their rulers, having exhausted all the resources of human en- deavour, and girded the choicest of them for battle, now sought to prepare their minds for either fortune by diligent address to the Great Source of hope and consolation, and awaited the result with anxious and submissive awe, or with stern composure and confidence. The troops of Massachusetts were embarked and ready to sail from Boston [March 23, 1745], when the express-boat, which had been de- spatched to Commodore Warren, returned with an answer from him, im- porting, that, as the provincial enterprise was not directed or sanctioned by Great Britain, he must decline to take any share in it. This discour- aging intelligence Shirley and Pepperell, happily, determined to withhold from the public and the army ; apprehending that its disclosure at such a crisis might induce a total relinquishment of the expedition, which they yet hoped, even if it should fail in reducing Louisburg, might be productive of advantageous results, in the recovery of Canso, the destruction of the Fretich fishery, and the increased security of the British dominion in Nova Scotia. The Massachusetts armament accordingly sailed the next morning [March 24, 1745], and, reaching Canso, found the New Hampshire troops, under the command of Colonel Samuel Moore, already arrived at this place, where the entire assemblage of the provincial army was soon after completed by the accession of the forces of Connecticut. Full of health, courage, and intrepidity, the troops here aw^aited the dissolution of the ice by which Cape Breton w^as environed ; when an important addition was made to their force, and the highest animation imparted to their hopes, by the sudden and unexpected arrival of Commodore Warren with four ships of war, — one of sixty guns, and the others of forty guns each. [April 23, 1745.] Shir- ley's application to the British ministry, in the preceding autumn, had pre- vailed with them to despatch orders to Warren to repair, with as many ships as could be safely detached from his station, to Boston, in order to concert measures for the general promotion of the king's interest in America. In consequence of these orders, which he received shortly after his refusal to comply with the provincial invitation of his assistance, Warren was making sail for Boston, when, learning from a New England vessel that the provin- cial forces had already proceeded to Canso, he altered his own course, and repaired thither also. Warren was an active, judicious, and experienced CHAP. I.] SIEGE OF LOUISBURG. 17| commander ; and nothing could be more seasonable or elating than his arrival at this juncture with a naval armament that not only promised material as- sistance in the siege, but secured the besiegers against danger from any mari- time force arriving from France. After a short consultation with Pep- perell, the commodore, with his ships of war, sailed to join and cooperate with a few armed sloops of the colonists, which had been for some time engaged in cruising before Louisburg, and had already performed the signal service of capturing several vessels bound for this place with provisions and West India commodities, and even repulsed a French ship of thirty- six guns, which vainly attempted to penetrate into the harbour. Though these cruisers were daily descried by the French from the walls of Louis- burg, no suspicion was awakened of the enterprise to which their operations were subservient. Soon after the departure of the British ships of war from Canso, Pep- perell, learning that the state of the season would admit of a disembarka- tion at Cape Breton, summoned his forces to active service, and, with the troops and transports, safely arrived in Chapeau-rouge Bay. [April 30, 1745.] In the plan of operations composed and communicated to him by Shirley, he was directed to make a nocturnal assault on the French gar- rison, and endeavour to carry the fortifications by storm and surprise. This rash enterprise, which, from the strength of the place, would doubtless have been attended with severe loss and a discouraging repulse in the commence- ment of the siege, was happily prevented by a calm which hindered the transports from entering Chapeau-rouge Bay, till the morning light revealed their approach to the French, — with whom so little apprehension existed of the vicinity of an enemy, that, when the alarm of actual invasion was sounded, most of their officers were roused by it from the slumbers which they had just begun to court, after the festive fatigue of a ball. The New England forces, having accomplished their landing, after a vain attempt to obstruct them, in which the French w^ere repulsed with some loss, made active preparation to invest the city. Vaughan, who had exerted himself with intense and diffusive ardor in promoting the expedition, enjoyed the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the provincial army, but declined to accept any stated position or particular command ; and possessing a seat in this coun- cil of war, held himself ready to undertake any service which the general might think adapted to his capacity. He now conducted an advanced column of the forces through the woods, within sight of Louisburg, and greeted the first view of the place and its battlements with three cheers. Thence, at the head of a detachment composed chiefly of the New Hamp- shire troops, he marched during the night to the north-east part of the har- bour, and setting fire to certain large warehouses situated in this quarter, destroyed them, together with a vast collection of naval stores which they contained. The smoke of this conflagration, driven by the wind into the grand battery, excited so much terror and confusion among the French, that they hastily abandoned it, and, spiking its guns, retired into the city. The next morning, Vaughan, with a handful of men, took possession of the deserted battery, and, in spite of a prompt effort of the French to dis- lodge him and regain the post they had too lightly yielded, maintained his acquisition till it was effectually secured by the arrival of a reinforcement adequate to its preservation. The guns of this battery were now unspiked and turned against the town with a good deal of execution, but with so great 172 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. an expense of powder, that it was judged proper, after a while, to discon- tinue the firing and reserve the besiegers' ammunition for the fascine bat- teries. The remarkable success which had thus far attended the enterprise contributed to animate the troops with resolution to support the arduous toils and formidable obstructions by which they now plainly perceived that their hopes of victory were confronted. The fortifications, it was ascer- tained, were of prodigious strength, and the approach to the town exceed- ingly difficult. For nearly two miles the besiegers had to transport their cannon, mortars, and ammunition across a morass, where horses or oxen would have been unserviceable, and where only the personal labor of men could be efficiently employed. This service was allotted to such of the troops as had been famiharized to toils of a kindred description by the employment of cutting down pine-trees in New England, and dragging them through the forests and across the swamps, to be disposed of as masts for vessels. Unacquainted with the art of regular approaches, the besiegers relied on no other shelter than what darkness afforded, and advanced their works only during the night ; and when some one of greater experience attempted to instruct them in processes of more scientific and continuous operation, they were only moved to merriment by the strange nomenclature of his art, and persisted with stubborn, and yet animated, exertion in pur- suing the simple dictates of their own uninstructed judgments. The heroic and patriotic ardor which hurried them to the field was by no means calcu- lated to prepare their spirits for the mechanical submission, precision, and regularity which characterize the movements of disciplined soldiers. It was a fortunate circumstance for them, during the progress of these opera- tions, that, from the mutinous disposition which the troops composing the garrison of Louisburg had previously manifested, their officers could not trust them to make a single sortie, lest they should seize the opportunity of deserting. A vigorous sally from the garrison would have been attended with great peril to the besieging troops, who, though they displayed the ut- most steadiness and circumspection when in the trenches, and always pre- sented a formidable front to the enemy, yet evinced their want of discipHne in the rear of their encampment, which continually exhibited a tumultuary scene of gayety, pastime, and confusion. At length [May 20, 1745], by dint of the most indefatigable exertions, five fascine batteries were erected, and a fire was maintained from them with considerable effisct. While the land forces, aided by a detachment of Warren's marines, were thus employed on shore, the ships of war and armed sloops cruised, with vigilant watch, off the harbour ; and on the 18th of May, the commodore succeeded in capturing a French man-of-war of sixty-four guns, carrying a large supply of stores of all sorts, intended for the use of the garrison.^ The disappointment which this capture occasioned to the besieged was pro- portioned to the joy which it afforded to the besiegers, whose auxiliary naval force was soon after augmented by the arrival and cooperation of sev- eral other English ships of war. The siege was now pressed with in- ^ Tliis vessel was commanded by the Marquis de la Maison-forte, whose arrival, the be- siegers learned, had been anxiously expected by the French garrison. How to proclaim, without seeming to overvalue, his capture was the difficulty. At length Warren suggested a plan which was adopted by Pepperell. The marquis, who was a humane man, was per- tuaded to visit his countrymen, the French prisoners, in tlieir confinement, and to write a let- ter to Duchambon, describing what he had witnessed, and recommending that the English prisoners should be treated with equal humanity and consideration. This letter, as was.fore- «een, struck the French commander with surprise and consternation. ■ OHAF. I.] CAPTURE OF LOUISBURO. J 73 creased activity and vigilance by Warren and his squadron, and with the most vigorous perseverance by the land forces. A battery, constructed by the besiegers in a commanding situation, began to overpower the island battery of the garrison ; the circular battery was nearly demolished ; and the other fortifications, as well as the town itself, had sustained considerable injury. The practicabihty of capture by storm was at length suggested ; and after some consultation between Pepperell and Warren, preparations were made to bring some of the ships of war into the harbour to cooperate with the land forces in a joint attack upon the town. Duchambon, the com- mander of the garrison, perceiving the symptoms of a general assault, afraid to incur the risk of it, and disheartened alike by the vigor of the besiegers and the hopelessness of rehef from France, demanded an armistice for the purpose of arranging the terms of a capitulation. [June 15, 1745.] Two days after, and at the end of a siege of forty-nine days, the city of Louis- burg and island of Cape Breton were surrendered to the crown of Great Britain. The garrison, which thus became prisoners, was found to consist of six hundred regular troops and thirteen hundred militia, and possessed a store of provisions and ammunition sufficient to have prolonged the siege for five or six months. When the captors entered the fortress, and per- ceived its massive and but slightly diminished strength, the bravest among them were struck with awe, and congratulated themselves on the circum- stances that had so happily intercepted the impracticable designs, first of carrying it by surprise, and afterwards of reducing it by storm. Nothing, indeed, could have occurred more opportunely for the besiegers than the surrender. From the length and hardships of the siege, their powder had begun to fail, and their effective strength was diminished by disease. Urgent application had been made to New England for reinforcements both of men and ammunition ; and though the hope of victory was there greatly depressed, the application was promptly comphed with ; and from Massachusetts and Connecticut there were despatched additional troops and supphes, which, however, did not reach their destination till after the contest was decided. Scarcely had the surrender taken place, and the besieging troops ob- tained the shelter of the captured town, than the periodical rains began, and for ten days prevailed with a violence that must have greatly impeded their operations, and would probably have induced them to relinquish the siege altogether. Till the conclusion of the enterprise, the utmost harmony pre- vailed between the provincial general and the British commodore ; the naval operations were conducted with vigor and skill ; and the behaviour of the land forces (necessarily void of the factitious merits of disciplined soldiers) was generally characterized by a firm, unbending fortitude, and a heroic daring and determination, that reflected no less honor on them than on the country to which, and not to military habit or scientific tuition, their character derivatively belonged. Notwithstanding the length and hardships of the siege, the provincial army lost altogether by sickness and the sword little more than a hundred men, of whom sixty perished in an unfortunate attack on the island battery. The conquest thus achieved w^as not less advantageous to Britain than injurious to France, whose schemes were disconcerted and deranged by it in a remarkable degree. In consequence of Duvivier's applications to the French court, he was despatched with a force which would have oeeii 174 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. sufficient not only to secure Loulsburg against the possibility of capture, but to undertake the reconquest of Nova Scotia ; but the efficacy of the suc- cour which he was hastening to bring was defeated by the superior vigor and promptitude of New England ; and learning on his passage that Louis- burg had fallen, he returned with the mortifying intelligence to France. The town was taken at a period of the year when the resort of many French ships to the harbour was usually expected. To decoy them, the French flag was kept flying on the ramparts of Louisburg ; and the eflect of this manoeuvre was the capture of so many vessels, as, added to the prizes acquired during the siege, were valued at upwards of a miUion of pounds sterling. The provincial troops, who performed the original and most substantial part of the enterprise, and who for nearly a year formed the sole British garrison by which Louisburg w^as occupied, together with the crews of the New England vessels which cooperated with the British ships of war, vainly expected and demanded a share of the prize-money that accrued from the captures. Their claim to participate in this advantage was disallowed by the British government ; and the whole of the prize-money was appropri- ated to the officers and crews of the royal ships of war. Unfortunately, the harmony that prevailed between the provincial forces and the British naval squadron during the siege did not survive its successful issue ; and it was not without dispute that Pepperell asserted his just right to receive the de- livery of the keys of the town, and to take precedence of a detachment of the naval forces in entering to assume its occupation. The British govern- ment, though favored by this provincial enterprise with the first ray of suc- cess that illustrated its arms during the war, displayed the most ilhberal desire to magnify the merits of the royal and naval force, and to depreciate the fair claim of the colonists to the glory of the conquest. Great Britain, indeed, partook the general astonishment which the achievement excited ; but her ministers blended with their surprise no small degree of jealousy against the province and the provincial pohticians, w^ho pretended, by an especial vic- torious energy, to redeem the disgrace of general disaster and defeat.^ Among other rewards, the title of a baronet was conferred as an acknowl- edgment of the services of Warren ; and though a seeming impartiality of recompense was studied, by the communication of the same dignity to Pepperell, the official accounts of the conquest of Cape Breton, that were published in England, suppressed the merits of the provincial forces in a manner that filled them with equal surprise and resentment, and taught them to consider the reputation of America as a distinct and separate interest, instead of blending it in their regard with the general glory of Britain. But in spite of ungenerous neglect and insidious disguise, the real truth broke out, and the British empire in general owned, with wonder and awakened interest and curiosity, the obligations for which it was indebted to America.^ Among other officers who distinguished themselves by their * It is remarkable that the first conquest gained by the English from the French in America, the conquest of Canada, in 1629 (ante, Book II., Chap. I.), was also the fruit of a war of which the events in Europe were disgraceful to England. 2 Even Smollett, whose national partiality has induced him to declare that " the reduction of Louisburg was chiefly owing to the vigilance and activity of Mr. Warren, one of the bravest and best officers in the service of England," has been constrained by the force of truth to add, that "the natives of New England acquired great glory from the success of this enter- prise." — " Circumstanced as the nation is," continues this writer, " the legislature cannot too tenderly cherish the interests of the British plantations in America." — " The continent of CHAP. I.] GENERAL REJOICING IN THE PROVINCES. I75 valor during the siege was David Wooster, of Connecticut, who afterwards attained the rank of general in the American service, and died fighting for the independence of his country in the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The tidings of this important victory excited a general transport of joy in New England. Considerate and rehgious men remarked with mingled gratitude and wonder the coincidence of numerous circumstances and events on which the success of the enterprise essentially depended, and which in- duced a contemporary writer to declare, that, '' if any one circumstance had taken a wrong turn on the English side, and unless every circumstance had taken a wrong turn on the French side, the expedition must have en- tirely miscarried." While the adventurous ardor, the firmness, and patri- otism of the men who projected and executed a design of such magnitude, and attended with so much danger and difficulty, were extolled with just and unstinted commendation, it was acknowledged that the attempt disclosed extreme temerity, and that, in its progress and accomplishment, the pro- pitious agency of Divine Providence was singularly manifested. It was, indeed, an enterprise which only success could justify or even excuse ; and, like the celebrated recapture of Calais by the Duke of Guise, confirmed the military maxim, that seeming impossibihty may facilitate a grand achievement. From New England, the intelligence was diffused with sur- prising rapidity through the other provinces of America, and everywhere elicited the expressions of triumph and admiration. The States which had refused their assistance in the expedition were not restrained by mean shame or jealousy from confessing the glory that New England acquired by undertaking it unaided, and conducting it with so much fortitude, persever- ance, and success. They paid a willing tribute to a renown which exalted the character and prospects of America ; and, with sympathy warmed by gratitude and exultation, hastened to tender unsolicited subsidies for the support of the New England forces and the preservation of their conquest. Even the assembly of Pennsylvania, now that the slaughter was over, were not deterred by their religious scruples from voting an instant contribution of four thousand pounds for this purpose ; three thousand pounds were contributed by New York ; and two thousand pounds by New Jersey. Virginia had not to reproach herself with having declined originally to aid New England in the expedition, of which she was first made acquainted by the intelligence of its successful issue ; and at this time some circum- stances existed that seemed likely to reawaken the jealousy that of yore prevailed between .the New Englanders and the Virginians. A remarkable revival of the primitive warmth of religious zeal had occurred of late years in New England ; and this influence, which was greatly promoted by the genius and piety of George Whitefield, was prop- agated more or less extensively by his itinerant labors in all the other pro- vincial communities. The admirable piety of the Moravians had also con- tributed to animate religious sentiment in America ; and numerous prose- lytes to their doctrines and constitutions began to appear in every one of the States. New England was regarded as the centre and focus of this influ- North America," he proceeds, " if properly cultivated, will form an inexhaustible fund of wealth and strength to Great Britain ; and, perhaps, may become the last asylum of British liberty. When the nation is enslaved by domestic despotism or foreign dominion ; when her substance is wasted, her spirit broken, and the laws and constitution of England are no more; then those colonies, sent off by our fathers, may receive and entertain their sons as hapless ex- iles and ruined refugees." Compare this with the language of Edmund Burke, cited in Note XXXIX., at the end of the volume. 176 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOR X. ence, which was viewed with apprehensive bigotry and dislike by the Epis- copal clergy and the magistracy of Virginia. Gooch, the governor of this province, though a man of excellent talents, and justly celebrated for the good sense, public spirit, and generosity by which his civil administration was characterized, was yet a stranger to the sentiment, and still more so to the principle, of religious toleration. Attached to the church of England, he beheld the multiplication of dissenters from its established system with impatient displeasure, and vainly labored to check the progress of opinion and the freedom of thought by proclamations against the assemblages of Mo- ravians and Methodists, who were threatened with a rigorous execution of all the theoretical intolerance which still pervaded the ecclesiastical constitu- tions of Virginia. This persecution, though moderated in its infliction by the humane and tolerant spirit of the age, was yet cordially abetted by many persons of consideration in Virginia, and among the rest by Edmund Pendle- ton and some other individuals who were afterwards distinguished as cham- pions of the purest principles of hberty, and of every generous right of hu- man nature. Notwithstanding the tendency of such exasperated bigotry to repress the growth of friendship and good-will betw^een this province and New Eng- land, the conquest of Louisburg was celebrated with the most enthusiastic praise and exultation in Virginia, where the only abatement of the general satisfaction was occasioned by the regret of the people that they had not enjoyed the opportunity of aiding the bravery, and sharing the danger of their countrymen. A great quantity of provisions was purchased by the Virginian government and presented to the New England garrison at Louis- burg ; and to encourage a plentiful exportation of whatever articles the col- ony could supply for their use, a trade free of all duty was allowed be- tween Virginia and Cape Breton. But honorable and gratifying as these testimonies vvere to the States of New England, the embarrassments in which they were involved by the heavy expense of the Louisburg expedition compelled them to sohcit a more substantial tribute from the justice of Brit- ain, and to urge their claim to reimbursement, from the general treasury of the empire, of the cost of an enterprise by w^hich the national honor and interest were so highly promoted. This claim, though equally supported by principles of justice and considerations of sound policy, did not prevail without urgent and protracted solicitation ; nor was the indemnity granted, till Britain had diminished the grace and enhanced the necessity of it by consenting to restore Louisburg, as the price of peace with France.^ More interest was excited in Britain by the unexpected display of martial vigor in her colonial progeny, than was inspired in the colonies by the in- teresting conflict that arose between the government and the Scottish insur- gents in the centre of the empire. Virginia was the only one of the prov- inces in which the intelligence of the rebellion in Britain awakened much attention or anxiety, or from which there was elicited any strong manifesta- tion of sentiments akin to the emotions by which the parent state was agitated.^ The utmost alarm and indignation were kindled in this province ; ' Douglass. Smollett. Hutchinson. Belknap. Trumbull. Burk. Holmes. Eliot's J^ew England Biographical Dictionary. 2 Some time after the suppression of the rebellion, indeed, a loyal address of congratulation on this event was voted by the assembly of Connecticut to the king; in which they expressed the strongest attachment to his Majesty's person, family, and government ; a deep sense of the happiness which Connecticut enjoyed under his auspicious reign ; and the utmost ab- horrence of " that unnatural and wicked rebellion raised in favor of a Popish pretender CHAP. I] EMIGRATION OF SCOTCH HIGHLANDERS. |7?jr and its inhabitants united in addresses to the British government, expressive of their loyal abhorrence of the Pretender, and pledging their lives and fortunes to the most determined resistance of his designs. Proclamations were issued by the Virginian government, denouncing, w^ith all the injustice of terror, the pretended conspiracies of the Catholic clergy of Maryland to seduce the people from their allegiance and extend the flame of civil war to America. Additional jealousy was excited even against the Protestant Dissenters by the peril to which the church of England was exposed from the arms of the Pretender ; and the religious assemblages of Presbyterians, Methodists, and Moravians were prohibited under the severest penal- ties. [1746.] The suppression of the rebellion was attended with consequences of general importance to the American States. After the rage and terror with wliich the British nation was inspired by the enterprise of the rebels had been fully satiated by the infliction of mihtary ravage on a large district of the Highlands of Scotland, and by numerous instances of the more formal, but not less barbarous executions, authorized by the ancient statutes, for the punishment of treason in England, the remainder of the victims were ex- empted from slaughter, and consigned to the mitigated penalty of trans- portation for life to the dominions of the crown in America. A great number of brave and hardy emigrants were thus distributed among all the provinces ; and the historians of the southern settlements especially have acknowledged the valuable accession which was derived from this source to the provincial strength, resources, and industry. In America these emigrants experienced much greater liberty and indulgence than even the guiltless portion of their race that remained in Scotland was permitted to enjoy. Among other ad- vantages, they obtained the privilege of wearing their peculiar garb, to which they were strongly attached, but which was now prohibited in Scot- land by an absurd and tyrannical act of parliament. It was, perhaps, im- politic of Great Britain thus to strengthen her colonies, by transplanting to them a race of men who cherished enmity against her monarchical es- tablishment, together with a deep resentment of the cruelty and humiliation inflicted on their native land. The farther resort of Scottish emigrants to America was promoted soon after by the measures adopted by the British parliament for abolishing the military tenure of lands, which had hitherto sub- sisted in Scotland, and had enabled the Highland chieftains to produce the late rebellion. The proprietors of Highland estates, no longer permitted to exact military service from the occupants of their lands, and no longer de- riving advantage from the numerous population they formerly studied to maintain around them as feudal retainers, rather than tenants, universally raised their rents and enlarged their farms ; whereby vast multitudes of Highlanders were ejected from their homes, and many more were induced voluntarily to relinquish them by the disgust and impatience which these innovations provoked. To this disappointed and discontented race the American provinces presented the strongest attractions. Here they might cheaply obtain abundance of land, and enjoy their national manners and hab- its of independence without molestation ; and here, accordingly, for many against the best of kings and the best of governments." The}' concluded by praying that " the merciful Providence vv^hich has placed his Majesty on the British throne, and given him so long and so illustrious a reign, may still protect his sacred person, subdue his enemies, make his reign prosperous, and continue the crown in his royal and illustrious family to the latest posterity." Trumbull. *. ,• VOL. II. 23 ^7JB HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. 'years after, numerous detachments of Scottish Highlanders continued annu- ally to repair.^ Meanwhile, both Britain and France were roused by the capture of Louisburg to the projection of vigorous and extended operations in Ameri- ca. Governor Shirley, flushed with the conquest which reflected so much credit on his genius and administration, contemplated nothing less than the entire and immediate subjugation of the French colonial dominions ; and when he announced the capture of Louisburg to the British ministers, he employed the utmost urgency of counsel to induce them straightway to despatch an armament suflicient not only for the preservation of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, but for the invasion and reduction of Canada. It was not without reason, that, while he suggested the expediency of farther conquest, he urged the necessity of aiding the defence of the exist- ing possessions of Britain ; for the French government, astonished and in- censed at the disgrace which it had sustained, meditated a great vindictive effort, and was preparing an expedition for the recovery of Louisburg, the conquest of Nova Scotia, the bombardment of Boston, and the devastation of the whole American coast from Nova Scotia to Georgia. The British ministers seemed at first to hearken readily to the counsels of Shirley ; and in the spring of this year, circular letters were addressed by the Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state, to the governors of all the American prov- inces of Britain except the CaroHnas and Georgia, requiring them to raise as many forces as they could afford, to cooperate with a British army in a general attack upon the American possessions of France. According to the plan of the enterprise communicated by the royal ministers to Shirley, a squadron of ships of war, under the command of Admiral Warren, together with a body of land forces under General St. Clair, were to be sent from Britain against Canada ; the troops raised in New England were directed to join the British fleet and army at Louisburg, whence the combined arma- ment was to proceed up the river St. Lawrence ; while the forces of New York and the other southern colonies were to be collected at Albany, and march thence against Crown Point and Montreal. The assembly of Massachusetts betrayed at first some disinclination to participate in the enterprise, and represented to their governor that it was impossible, without financial ruin, to make any addition to the burdens which ' the recent expedition against Louisburg had already entailed on the prov- ince. But Shirley in reply assured them that they were ruined already, unless they could procure reimbursement of their late expenditure from the parent state ; and that the surest means of obtaining such relief was to enforce the cogency of their claim to it by involving the province still more deeply in debt, and to conciliate British favor by the display of undimin- ished zeal and bravery. Additional arguments were supplied to him by the ravages which the French forces in Canada and their Indian allies now committed on the frontiers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Instead of a burdensome and inefl^ectual system of defensive warfare along a fron- ' Burk. Hewit. Williamson. Smollett. Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides. " Alas ! poor Caledonia's mountaineer, That want's stern edict e'er, and feudal grief. Had forced him from a home he loved so dear ! Yet found he here a home and glad relief" — Campbell. Some of the Highland partisans of the Pretender, in 1778, addressed to him a memorial, in which they offered to raise his standard in the back settlements of America. Sir Walter Scott told Washington Irving that be had seen the memorial. CHAP. I.] PREPARATIONS FOR INVADING CANADA. J79 tier which it was impossible to render at all points secure, Shirley advised the Massachusetts assembly rather to cooperate with an enterprise which promised finally to extinguish the source of those desolating hostihties. His reasoning, seconded by the inclinations of many of the colonists, who were averse to pause in the career of prosperous fortune, proved successful with the assembly, which, again resuming preparations for offensive war, conduct- ed them with so much spirit, that, of eight thousand two hundred ^ men which were raised by all the colonies that engaged in this design, three tliousand five hundred were furnished by Massachusetts. The provincial force thus embodied exceeded the expectations of the British ministers, who, without specifying the contingent of troops required from the respective provinces, had merely announced that it was the wish of the king that the total levies should not fall short of five thousand men. But the hopes which Britain thus again rekindled in her American colonies, of deliverance from the hostile vicinity of the French, were fated to pro- duce only a repetition of former disappointments. Whether it was, as some American politicians believed, that the British ministers were jealous of the bold and enterprising spirit of the colonists, and secretly averse to remove the restraint imposed upon them by the propinquity of a rival power, or that those ministers really suspected, as has been alleged, that the armament, which the French were preparing, ostensibly, for the invasion of America, was actually destined to invade Great Britain, — the whole summer elapsed without the arrival of troops or orders from England ; and the British fleet, which had been promised, and which consisted of nearly thirty ships of war, after delaying its departure till a period of the year when it was reckoned unsafe to risk the large vessels on the American coasts, received orders to undertake a substitutional enterprise, and performed nothing more mem- orable than an unsuccessful attempt to surprise Port L 'Orient, in Brittany. [September, 1746.] Shirley, at last, perceiving that it was vain to await any longer the arrival of an armament from Britain, resolved, with the ap- probation of Sir William Pepperell and other leading persons in New Eng- land, to attempt, with the provincial forces alone, the reduction of some part of the American possessions of France. It was proposed to detach a por- tion of the New England troops to join the forces assembled at Albany, and in conjunction with them to invest and attack the French fort at Crown Point ; a project which was warmly embraced by Clinton, the governor of New York, who solicited and engaged the assistance of the Six Nations. The preparations for this enterprise, however, were interrupted by intelli- gence from Mascarene, the governor of Nova Scotia, of the march of a body of French troops and Indians against AnnapoHs, and of symptoms of revolt among the resident population of the province. Instant succour was required to prevent this territory from being again wrested from the British dominion ; and the forces of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hamp- shire were accordingly directed to proceed to this new scene of action. [September 20, 1746.] But when they were on the point of embarking, the schemes of the provincial authorities were again disconcerted by tli ^ alarming tidings of the arrival of a French fleet and army at Chebucto Bay, ' Of these troops, New Hampshire furnished five hundred; Massachusetts, three thousand five hundred ; Rhode Island, three hundred ; Connecticut, one thousand ; New York, ono thousand six hundred ; New Jersey, five hundred ; Maryland, three hundred ; Virginia, one hundred ; and Pennsylvania (by a'popular act unsanctioned by its assembly), four hundred Belknap differs from all the other authorities in stating, that New Hampshire, on this occa- »ion, raised eight hundred men. ]3Q HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. in Nova Scotia. This armament, consisting of forty vessels, of which eleven were ships of the line, together with transports conveying upwards of three thousand disciplined troops, and a formidable apparatus of artillery and mil- itary stores, was conducted by the Duke d'Anville, a nobleman on whose courage and capacity the court of France reposed more confidence than the event seems to justify. The French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, it was expected, would cooperate with the invading forces ; and Ramsay, a French officer, with one thousand seven hundred Canadian troops and Indians, had already repaired thither in expectation of their arrival. Nothing could exceed the astonishment and dismay which this intelligence produced in New England, where the spirit of the people, worn with anxious sus- pense and disappointment, was prepared to receive the most gloomy im- pressions. In the first moments of panic, it was believed that the British colonies were now devoted to inevitable destruction. But these emotions were speedily controlled by deep-rooted fortitude and courage ; and boldly confronting the danger with which they were menaced, the New Englanders were elevated by the alarm of this emergency to the highest pitch of manly constancy and resolution. ^ The most vigorous preparations were made for the general defence. In the course of a very few days, six thousand four hundred of the Massachu- setts militia marched into Boston, and united themselves to the troops that were already assembled there ; and Connecticut announced that she was ready at the first signal to despatch an additional reinforcement of six thou- sand men. New forts and batteries were erected along the coast ; the utmost vigilance was exerted to guard against surprise ; and for six weeks the whole country resounded with the clang of martial preparation, and was pervaded by the most agitating suspense and anxiety. As time wore on without the approach of the French, the public hope was sustained by a growing conviction that succour must speedily arrive from England. It was impossible, the people generally exclaimed, that the king's ministers should be unacquainted with the sailing of the French fleet ; and unless they were willing to deliver up the colonies to the rage of the enemy, it .was not to be doubted that an English squadron would presently appear in America. But this confidence proved fallacious ; and the colonial dominion of Britain would infallibly have received a dangerous, if not a fatal blow, had not a sur- prising train of adverse circumstances occurred to dissipate the strength and confound the hopes of the invaders. The French fleet sustained much damage by storms, and several losses by shipwreck ; and while D'Anville awaited the repair and reassemblage of his scattered vessels, a pestilential fever broke out among the land forces. These calamities preyed severely on the mind of the French commander ; and their efficacy was promoted by an incident in which the sanguine temper of Shirley proved strangely subservient to the interest of New England. Partaking the general conviction of the speedy arrival of a fleet from Britain, he communicated this cheering intelligence rather as a certainty than a speculation in letters addressed to the garrison of Louisburg ; but the capture of the vessel by which his letters were conveyed, fortunately for his interest, though contrary to his views, exposed the enemy, instead of his friends, to the mistaken impression he had adopted. A division of ^ We. may well apply to this people the remark of Polybius on the Romans, that, " Such is tlieir disposition ana temper, that, whenever they have any reaj o^use of fear, they are at that ti/n«f themselves most greatly to be dreaded." aiAP. I.] FORMIDABLE FRENCH FLEET. — ITS DISPERSION. JgJ opinion now arose among the French officers ; and, in the midst of their deliberations, D'Anville suddenly died, by a stroke of apoplexy, as some reported, or by swallowing poison, as others supposed. D'Estournelle, who succeeded to the command, disheartened, like his predecessor, by the disasters that had befallen the expedition, and the apprehension that an English fleet was at hand, and learning that a reinforcement of French ships of war, which he expected from the West Indies, had returned to France, proposed a similar retreat to a council of his officers ; and in consequence of the rejection of his proposal, was attacked with a frenzy or delirium, in which he threw himself upon his sword and expired. The command of the French was now assumed by Jonquiere, the governor of Canada [Oc- tober 15, 1746], whose vigor and intrepidity gave promise of a change in the aspect of affairs, when the fleet was overtaken by a tremendous tempest, which, continuing for several days, occasioned so much loss and dispersion, that all the vessels which survived the fury of the storm hastened to return separately to France. Never had so great an armament been despatched from Europe to North America ; and never had any proved more ineffi- cient or incurred equal disasters. Had the project of the French succeeded, the British colonies would have sustained a ravage and desolation of which it is impossible to calculate the extent or the consequences. Of this the peo- ple of New England, amidst all their energy and determination, were especial- ly sensible ; and when they learned the surprising deliverance, which, without the slightest human aid or exertion, was vouchsafed to them, they acknowl- edged with grateful and solemn admiration, that, as they had formerly been indebted for victory and conquest, so now they owed their safety and rescue from destruction, to the signal favor and interposition of Divine Providence. These pious sentiments were entirely unmixed with impressions of respect or gratitude to the parent state. Indeed, the conduct of the British govern- ment, and of its naval commanders, on this occasion, was but too well cal- culated to provoke the resentment and contempt of the colonists.^ Al- though the king's ministers had received early intelligence of the departure of D'Anville's squadron for America, they made no attempt to intercept the blow with which the British colonies were threatened. Their concern extended no farther than the preservation of Louisburg, for the security of which they despatched Admiral Townsend with a squadron to reinforce the ships of war that were stationed there under Commodore Knowles ; and these two commanders, doubtless in conformity with orders which they re- ceived, contented themselves with guarding Louisburg from attack, without making the slightest demonstration in support of New England.^ * Yet, three months after the dispersion of the French squadron, the assembly of Connecti- cut voted the loyal address which we have remarked, on the suppression of the rebellion in Britain. Sometimes one or two members of a public body propose demonstrations which the majority, without relishing, are reluctant to oppose ; and hence the language even of a repre sentative assembly does not always afford a correct sample of the disposition of the people. * Belknap. Trumbull. Holmes. Smollett. Hutchinson. Igjg HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. CHAPTER II. Progress of the War. — Tumult excited by naval Impressment in Boston. — Peace of Aix- la-Chapelle. — Regulation of Paper Currency in New England. — Policy of the British Government relative to America. — Political Sentiments and Speculations of the Americans. — Condition of America, and miscellaneous Transactions. — Origin of Vermont. — The Ohio Company. — American Science and Literature. Although, by the discomfiture of the French armament, the British col- onies were relieved from the apprehension of the greatest danger to which they had ever been exposed, their frontier settlements were still harassed by predatory hostilities ; and fears were entertained of the loss of Annapolis and the revolt of Nova Scotia. No sooner was it known in New England that D'Anville's squadron was dispersed and compelled to return to France, than the troops originally destined to Nova Scotia were again directed to proceed thither without delay, for the purpose of capturing or expelling the Canadian forces assembled under the command of the Chevalier Ramsay. This expedition proved unfortunate. Only the regiment embodied in Mas- sachusetts, amounting to six hundred men, commanded by Colonel Noble, reached Nova Scotia ; the troops of Rhode Island having been shipwrecked on their passage, and those of New Hampshire driven back by contrary winds. [January 31, 1747.^] In the middle of a tempestuous night, the Massachusetts regiment was suddenly attacked by a superior French force ; and, after an obstinate resistance and the loss of its commander and a hundred and sixty men, was compelled to surrender. Notw^ithstanding this victory, Ramsay judged it proper to defer the attack upon Annapolis ; and the French inhabitants of Nova Scotia forbore to incur the danger of open revolt till the arrival of succours, which they still hoped to receive, from France. Nor were their hopes ill founded. The French government, more irritated by the loss of Louisburg than discouraged by the disastrous issue of D'An- ville's expedition, prepared with unabated spirit to retrieve its recent failure and repeat the intercepted blow. A strong naval force, equipped with the utmost speed for this purpose, set sail from France, under the command of Jonquiere, the governor of Canada, but was overtaken by a British fleet, commanded by Admirals Anson and Warren, and, after a gallant resistance, defeated and captured. [May 3, 1747.] Ramsay, apprized of this catastro- phe, hastened to evacuate Nova Scotia, and reconducted his troops to Canada ; whence the French, with the aid of their Indian allies, continued to infest the borders of New England and New York with hostilities re- sembling more the practices of banditti than the operations of civilized war- fare, and tending to no other results than obscure individual suffering and partial havoc and devastation. The frontier settlements of New Hampshire, in particular, were exposed to such incessant danger from these incursions, that the inhabitants were * No seminary of learning having yet arisen in Rhode Island, several public-spirited citizens this year founded a library at Newport for the promotion of literature m the colony. One of them contributed books to the value of five hundred pounds sterling. A charter of in- corporation was obtained from the provincial government, and a handsome building erected for the library. The plan seems to have been derived from that of the Library Company of Philadelphia, which was formed under the auspices of Dr. Franklin about five years before. Franklin's Memoirs. Holme*. CHAP. II.] RAVAGES OF THE FRENCH AND INDIANS. 183 compelled to fortify their houses, and could never venture to stir from them unarmed. They were probably on that account the less willing to maintain public fortresses ; and notwithstanding the urgent entreaties of their governor, the assembly of this province positively refused to make any grant for the support of Fort Dummer, which was situated in the territory that New Hampshire had recently and undeservedly gained from Massachusetts. This defect of public spirit, however, was supplied by the generosity of the peo- ple of Massachusetts, who undertook to defend for the neighbouring State a possession of which her intrigues had despoiled them. The most con- siderable of the enterprises undertaken by the French Canadians and their allies were directed against iwo forts on Connecticut Kiver, garrisoned by detachments of the Massachusetts militia. One of them was taken ; but the other, which was occupied by Captain Stevens and thirty men, though a place of little strength, and hotly attacked for several days by a very superi- or force, withstood the assailants with a vigor and success that excited uni- versal surprise and applause. In the territory of New York, among other ravages committed by the French and their allies, the village of Saratoga, containing thirty families, was entirely destroyed, and the inhabitants massa- cred without reserve or discrimination. The annals of New Hampshire, during the last two years of the war, present a long and mournful catalogue of plantations laid waste, and colonists slain or carried into captivity by the enemy. Pillage, rather than conquest, was the object of the invaders ; and their prowess was directed less against states and armies, than against dwelling-houses, families, rural industry, and domestic life. This was the style of warfare most conformable to the tastes, the habits, and the interests of the savages who cooperated with the French. They had no relish or conception of wars in which private property was respected ; they had nothing to gain from conquests achieved in conjunction with a more powerful ally ; and preferably approved those predatory hostili- ties which afforded the greatest scope to the qualifications in which they excelled, enriched them with plunder, and exasperated the mutual animosity of the rival European powers, without affording to either a decisive superi- ority over the other. It is probable that the French, unless they were actuated by mere hatred and cruelty, pursued this barbarous system of warfare chiefly in order to cultivate their own interest with the savages, and to confirm them in habits of hostility to the English. Yet it was remarked, that, during the present war, the Indians, whether from increased humanity or improved policy, displayed a degree of forbearance and clemency which they never before exhibited, and which the English had deemed incompati- ble with the savage nature of such belligerents. They inflicted no tortures on their prisoners, and very rarely slew them ; in general, they lavished upon them the most tender and compassionate attentions ; and on one oc- casion they evinced the rare moderation of sparing a prisoner, who, after suing for and obtaining quarter, wounded his captor and endeavoured to es- cape. No attempt was made by the British colonists to requite these preda- tory hostilities on the territory of the enemy. Though filled with resent- ment against the French, they were generally averse to any active enter- prise short of the invasion and complete conquest of Canada. Their war fare was entirely defensive ; and it seems in general to have been conducted with more bravery than skill or efficiency. A confusion of councils and a multiplicity of directors caused every project and purpose to transpire before 184 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. it was carried into effect, and produced frequent changes of measures, and the most injurious delays in their execution. The Canadian government, of which the frame was more simple and compendious, was enabled to act with greater promptitude and secrecy ; and, enjoying the plenitude of arbitrary power, it granted commissions to none of its subjects but such as had distinguished themselves by their talents and exploits. But the British provincial governors, controlled by jealous and independent assemblies, were frequently compelled or tempted to con- fer military commands on useful adherents and popular politicians, who mistook ambition or patriotic zeal for science and capacity ; and they were disabled from exerting that concentrated readiness and energy which charac- terized the executive policy of the French. In addition to the losses in- flicted by the depredations of the enemy, a great expense was incurred for the maintenance of numerous troops, who were yet too few to cover the frontiers, and rarely succeeded in avenging the violation of them, by over- taking or intercepting the invaders. During the latter years of this war, the most perfect contrast appears in every point between the conduct of the French and the British provincials. The operations of the French were offensive, methodical, cheap (for the charges were defrayed by plunder) , and distressing to their enemies ; the warfare of the British was defensive, desul- tory, costly, and almost entirely inefficient. Predatory incursions into the Canadian territory would have given certain employment to the British provincial troops ; and, by engaging the French to defend themselves, would, perhaps, have afforded relief to the British frontier. But this system of hostility was repugnant alike to the dignity of the States and the general sentiments of the people of New England. Besides the Canadian Indians, the French were assisted in this war by their ancient allies, the Indian tribes inhabiting the territories of Maine and Nova Scotia ; but repeated defeats had broken the strength and depressed the courage of these tribes, and their hostility, though productive of some devastation of frontier settlements, proved now less vigorous and harassing than on former occasions.^ It was an indirect consequence of the war, that produced the most notable event by which this year was signalized in America [1747] : a tumultuary « movement in Massachusetts, which for a time suspended the functions of | government, and in some of its features exhibited so close an analogy to the grander scene that arose about twenty years after, that it appears like a rehearsal, as it was certainly an omen, of the leading and initial events of the American Revolution. Had the warning which it was fitted to convey been duly appreciated by the British government, this remarkable occurrence might have tended to avert the great extremity which it resembled and be- tokened. During the prevalence of feudal manners and institutions in England, the crown exercised the prerogative of equipping its navies in war, by appropri- ating, or, as it was termed, impressing, the vessels and the seamen employed by the merchants. The revenue of the crown was not more capable of maintaining a standing naval establishment than a standing army of land forces; and the feudal institutions did not admit of the same regulated service and definite subordination of the national merchants and seamen, as of the terri- torial barons and vassals, to the king. The aids which he obtained from them were, accordingly, irregular, occasional, and the fruits of a prerogative » Douglass. Universal History. Wynne. Hutchinson. Belknap. Trumbull. Holmes. CHAP. II] NAVAL IMPRESSMENT.^ ' |35 restrained by no constitutional principle or limitation. By the territorial vassals there were rendered to the king the contingents of personal or pecu- niary service ascertained by their respective charters ; but from the mer- chants and traders he exacted compulsory loans and gifts of their property, to an extent bounded only by his power, his rapacity, or the emergency of the occasion. This overweening prerogative was at length controlled by the rising importance of that order of men whose rights and interests were peculiarly its prey. When, in process of time, the increasing wealth and consequence of the merchants and tradesmen of England had paved the way to the introduction of a more regular and general system of liberty in the place of the feudal institutions, all classes of the people were enabled to claim the protection of fixed and settled law ; and while the crown was in- vested with a larger and simpler revenue than it formerly enjoyed, it was restricted from irregular aids and arbitrary exactions. Such, at least, were the principles of that system of which the gradual rise and development corresponded with the dechne and fall of the feudal establishments. But although the British constitution was now generally leavened with these lib- eral principles, it was not entirely pervaded by them, and still continued to be defaced by some traces of feudal prerogative and arbitrary power. The convenience of the crown and the unprotected condition of common mari- ners preserved, in particular, the prerogative of impressment from more than a partial abolition ; and though the vessels of merchants were ex- empted from arbitrary appropriation to the public service, the persons of seamen continued to be subjected to the hardship of this peculiar liability. A striking instance, among many others, of the unequal respect entertained by the English laws for the property of the rich and the lives of the poor ! So late as the nineteenth century. Great Britain has still continued to pre- serve, in the impressment of sailors, a practice which even those who de- fend it on the tyrannical plea of necessity have acknowledged, neverthe- less, to be a flagrant outrage on popular liberty, and a violation of the prin- ciples of the British constitution. The ministers of the crown, in conformity with opinions which they obtained from the attorney and solicitor-general of England, had repeatedly asserted the legitimacy of extending the practice of impressment to the American provinces ; but, aware of the determined, though silent, oppo- sition with which the colonists and their assemblies withstood this preten- sion, they very rarely attempted to carry it into effect. The governors of Virginia ventured occasionally to issue proclamations authorizing the im- pressment of mariners ; which, though they attracted no open comment from the assembly or the planters, were still so far from commanding acqui- escence, that, in every one of the few instances in which impressment was attempted, it was resisted and defeated by popular interference.^ Till now, no attempt was ever made to introduce this odious and arbitrarv practice among a people so jealous of their liberties as the inhabitants of New England ; and the British government, notwithstanding the haughti- * As America was the quarter of the British empire in which this practice was first re- sisted, so an American was the first writer by whom its indefensible injustice was demon- strated. The arguments by which it is commonly defended were refuted in a masterly man- ner by Dr. Franklin, in his Remarks on Judge Fosters Apology for Impressment. Either a nation must have virtually lost its independence, or its political system must be unjust and defective, when it cannot ofier sufficient inducements to persuade its people volun- tarily to undertake its defence. VOL. II. 24 - p* ]36 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X, ness of its pretensions, was practically contented with making occasional de- mands of levies of men for the supply of its armaments from the New Eng- land States, and had no reason to complain of the inefficacy of these requisitions. But, unfortunately, the English ministers neglected to incul- cate on their naval commanders the same cautious forbearance of which they themselves perceived the expediency ; and Commodore Knowles, who was stationed at this time with some English ships of war at Nantasket, in Massachusetts, having lost a number of his sailors by desertion, bethought himself of repairing the loss and recruiting his crews by a vigorous act of impressment at Boston. [November 17, 1747.] For this purpose, he de- tached his boats to the town at an early hour in the morning, and, taking the people by surprise, not only seized all the seamen that were found in the vessels lying in the harbour, but, with the undiscriminating violence that usually attends the impress service, swept the wharves, and carried off a great many apprentices to ship-carpenters and working landsmen. At Lon- don, such an act of power might have been safely perpetrated, and the victims of it would have obtained little sympathy from their countrymen ; ^ but at Boston it produced a burst of popular indignation so violent, that the frame of the established executive government tottered and sank be- neath its fury. All the inhabitants of the town were astonished and provoked ; but the rage of the working classes was perfectly uncontrollable. A numerous concourse of these persons, hastily seizing whatever arms they could find, repaired to the governor's house to demand satisfaction from some of the captains of the British squadron who happened to be there at the time. These officers, arming themselves with carbines, expressed their deter- mination to preserve their liberty or lose their hves ; and a scene of blood- shed would have ensued, but for the address of a number of sedate per- sons, who, mixing with the multitude, prevailed with them to refrain from breaking into the house. A deputy sheriff, at the same time, attempting with more zeal than discretion to exert his authority for the restoration of order, was seized by the populace, carried away in triumph, and impounded in the stocks ; where the rueful aspect of magisterial dignity, partaking the penance which it was accustomed to inflict, excited a degree of merriment that tended to cool the general choler. But when the evening came, and no tidings were received of the restoration of the impressed men, the public rage broke forth with redoubled violence and uproar ; and several thousands of people, assembhng around the town-house where the General Court was sitting, assaulted the doors and windows of the building with stones and brickbats, and clamorously demanded that either their country- men should be restored, or the English officers detained as hostages for their recovery. The governor, trusting to his popularity, ventured to ad- dress the exasperated multitude from the balcony of the town-house ; and in a prudent and conciliating speech declared his disapprobation of the impress- ment, pledged his utmost endeavours to obtain the discharge of every one of the inhabitants who had been carried ofl^, but withal mildly reproved * Yet the most popular national song in England addresses mariners in this well known couplet : — " We freely invite you, not press you like slaves ; For who should be free but the sons of the waves ? " Nothing can exceed the rapture of patriotic exultation with which this song is applauded in the crowded theatres of London during a French war, and at the very time when the Thames is covered with press-gangs. CHAP. II.] IMPRESSMENT AND TUMULT AT BOSTON. 187 the irregular proceedings of his auditors. Several wealthy and respectable citizens addressed the populace in the same strain, and entreated them to disperse and quietly await the result of the dehberations of the assembly. But the rioters, it has been supposed, were secretly encouraged by some persons of consideration, more willing to impel popular violence than to abide an open responsibility for its excesses, and were thus rendered the tools of superior craft, while they were abandoned at the same time to the unre- strained mastery of their own excited passions. Deaf to the moderate counsels of the governor and the other orators by whom he was supported, they insisted with obstinate vehemence that the seizure and restraint of the English officers who were in the city w^as the only effectual method to procure the release of their fellow-townsmen. Shirley, escorted by a company of his friends and certain of the principal inhabitants, then retired with some difficulty to his own house, while the violence of the people was diverted to a different quarter by a report that a barge belonging to one of the English ships had just arrived in the harbour. Rushing tumultuously to seize it, they dragged a huge boat through the streets with as much ease and expedition as if it had been cleaving the water ; and, having exhibited it in front of the governor's house, set fire to it and destroyed it. Next morning, the militia of the province were summoned to assist the governor in quelling the popular commotion ; but their sympathies were all on the side of their countrymen, and they dechned to appear in array. The insurgents now succeeded in securing the persons of the Eng- lish officers who were on shore ; and having planted a guard over some of them, they engaged others by their parole not to return to their ships without leave from the people. Shirley, finding that his authority was sus- pended, took refuge in the castle, w^hence he WTOte to Commodore Knowles, representing the confusion into which he had plunged the province, and urging the immediate release of the persons impressed. But Knowles at first refused to hearken to any terms of accommodation, until his officers were permitted to rejoin him ; and even threatened to bombard the town, if they should be longer detained. He offered also to send a strong body of marines to assist Shirley in reducing the rioters ; an offer which the governor had too much sense and prudence to accept. The assembly, meanwhile, were greatly perplexed. At first, they showed a disinchnation to interfere in a controversy in Which the provocation received by the people and the vindictive outrage committed by them were so nearly balanced ; and were probably afraid of increasing the popular ir- ritation by an ineffectual attempt to control it. It w^as not long, however, before they perceived the impropriety of leaving the governor unsupported in a struggle in which his conduct was entirely blameless. Some persons of high spirit, who had counselled him to remain at his post, and who, per- haps, regretted the inculpation which the popular cause sustained from the predicament in which he stood, began now angrily to question if his retire- ment should not be construed into an abdication of his functions. Per- ceiving the danger of farther indecision, and probably judging that the public fervor was spent, the assembly passed a series of resolutions, proclaiming that the conduct of the insurgents ^ was repugnant to municipal government * From the terms of this official act it appears that a part of the insurgent force was com- posed ofnp^roes. Notwithstanding the language now employed by the Massachusetts assem- bly, " there is reason to believe," says Burk, " that this assembly, like that of Virginia, winked at the popular excesses." It i» plain, from a letter of Shirley, quoted by this writer, 188 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. and order [November 19, 1747] ; requiring all officers, civil and military, to render their instant and utmost aid to discourage and extinguish the popular tumult ; pledging themselves with their lives and estates to support the authority of the governor ; and engaging to adopt every possible means of redressing the injury by which the existing disorders were produced. The council, at the same time, issued a mandate for the liberation of the naval officers who were put in ward by the insurgents, and declared them to be under the special protection of the government. As soon as these proceedings were known, the popular ferment began to subside, and the in- surgents to disperse. A few hours after, a general meeting of the inhabit- ants of Boston was convoked ; and though many persons openly protested against all measures opposed to the present spirit of the people, as tending to encourage a repetition of the arbitrary act which Knowles had commit- ted, yet more moderate counsels prevailed with the majority ; and reso- lutions were adopted, which, while they expressed an indignant sense of the insult that the province had sustained from the British commodore, con- demned the lawless and tumultuous violence by which the government was trampled under the feet of the populace. On the following day, the tran- quillity of the town was completely restored ; the miHtia, of their own ac- cord, repaired to attend the governor at the castle ; and, in the midst of a numerous concourse of approving citizens, reconducted him, with much parade, to his own house. Knowles soon after released the men whom he had impressed, and departed with his squadron, to the great satisfaction of the colonists. No attempt was made by the provincial authorities to pun- ish any of the insurgents ; nor was any resentment openly expressed by the British government at the resolute and successful opposition by which its pretensions were resisted and defeated.^ In the following year [April, 1748], peace was restored between Britain, France, and Spain, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, — the most inglorious and impolitic compact to which Britain acceded since the Revolution oP 168S. It was stipulated that all conquests on every side should be re- stored ; and the effect of this provision was, that the valuable acquisition of Cape Breton was surrendered to France,^ in return for territorial restitu- tions, of which only the empress queen of Hungary and the States General of Holland reaped the advantage. This arrangement produced the most pamful surprise and mortification in New England, where the people com- plained that a possession of the highest importance to their interests, the acquisition of their bravery, and the first conspicuous trophy of American glory, was sacrificed for the benefit of Germany and Holland. But if the substance of the concession was disadvantageous to America, the accessory provisions by which it was fortified were no less dishonorable to Britain ; for, in deference to the jealousy of the French and their impatient eagerness to regain Cape Breton, the British king agreed to send two Englishmen of rank and distinction to France as hostages for the due fulfilment of their sovereign's engagements. The treaty, indeed, betrays the strangest dis- regard of the interest and dignity of Britain. The right of English ships to navigate the American seas without liability to search and detention was that the governor himself believed that the rioters were secretly encouraged, though not open- ly countenanced, by the principal inhabitants of Boston. ' Hutchinson. Burk. 2 We have witnessed similar instances of restitution, on the part of the British court, of Canada, which was conquered in 1629 by Sir David Kirk, ^nd of Nova Scotia, which was subdued in 1654 by Cromwell. CHAP. IL] TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. J 39 not even alluded to ; although this claim was the original source of the hostilities between Britain and Spain. The encroachments of the French on the territory of the Six Nations, and their grand project of connecting, by a chain of mihtary posts, their settlements on the rivers St. Lawrence and Mississippi, were passed over with a silence which might be con- strued as importing acquiescence in those formidable pretensions. The limits of Nova Scotia were left in the same state of uncertainty which had already supplied occasion of quarrel ; for the adjustment of them was again remitted to the experienced inefficacy of the discussions and nego- tiations of commissaries, to be named by the French and British kings, — with this most absurd proviso (which might well seem the suggestion of a satirist of both parties), " that all things shall be replaced on the footing on which they were or ought to have been prior to the commencement of hos- tilities." In short, after a war which proved calamitous and distressing to every quarter of the British empire, and advanced the national debt of Brit- ain to the sum of eighty millions sterling, the nation concluded a peace by which she parted with the single dear-bought prize that her arms had won, without procuring in return the slightest national advantage, the redress of any part of the injury of which she had justly complained, or the recogni- tion or additional security of any one of her rights which had been previous- ly invaded. Not one of the belligerents was a gainer by the war. To all of them the termination of it was advantageous, except to Britain, where the reasons and purposes for which it was originally undertaken seemed to have been entirely forgotten. The cession of Cape Breton, however disagreeable to the inhabitants of New England, added force to the claim, which for some time they had urged at the British court, for reimbursement of the expenses attending the enterprise by which that island was conquered. Some members of the ministerial cabinet for a while contended that it would be a sufficient in- demnification, if a sum were granted adequate to the redemption of the bills issued by the provincial governments on account of the expedition, at their depreciated value. But Bollan, one of the provincial agents, exposed the unfairness of this proposition, and clearly demonstrated that the depre- ciation of the value of these bills was as effectually a charge incurred by the people as if a corresponding proportion of the bills themselves had been retired from circulation by taxes ; and, strenuously insisting for the original value of the bills, rejected all proposals of compromise. The British min- isters finally acceded to his demand ; and the reimbursement of the New F/ngland States was sanctioned by an act of parliament.^ In conformity with the desire of some wise politicians of Massachusetts, the amount of the indemnity awarded to this province was remitted in silver and copper money; and a vigorous and successful attempt was now at last made to retire all the provincial bills of credit from circulation, and to substitute a metallic in place of a paper currency. [1749.] Though it was manifest that the fluctuating value of paper money was productive of great injustice and in- convenience,^ and that with its depreciation the morals of the people were > Stat. 21 George II., Cap. 23. There was accorded bv this act, to Massachusetts, £183,649 2.9.7^/.; to New Hampshire, £16,35.5 135. 4d.; to Connecticut, £23,863 19^. 1^/.; and to Rhode Island, £6,322 12.f. 10^/. These sums fell far short of the entire expense that the colonies had incurred ; and much Inrger sums were granted by the same act to indemnify the expenses of the empress queen of Hungary, the king of Sardinia, the Duke of Brunswick, and otiier European allies of the British court. * "A single fact, recorded in a note to a sermon preached on the fast-day, 1748, by the 190 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. proportionally corrupted, this change was not accomplished without an ob- stinate opposition, in which a band of stock-jobbers, traders on borrowed capital, and other individuals who extracted a partial advantage from the public detriment, were supported in their selfish policy by popular ignorance and credulity. In some tumultuous assemblies that took place in Boston and its neighbourhood, a popular cry was raised that paper money was the only advantageous currency for the poor, because it was not worth hoard- ing ; and that silver and gold would fall entirely to the share of the rich, and be either exported or hoarded, without descending among the laboring classes, who must either be deprived of employment or accept commodities at an adjusted price as the wages of their labor. A majority of the assem- bly, however, persisted in the necessary measures for restoring the currency of the province to a healthy state ; yet not without apprehensions of some formidable commotion of a deluded populace instigated by crafty and inter- ested counsellors. It was the less difficult at this time to excite disturb- ance in New England, on account of the number of persons recently dis- banded from the mihtary force collected during the war, and who did not readily resume their interrupted habits of sobriety and industry. But the fears of the wise and the hopes of the dishonest proved, happily, ground- less. A feeble spark of insurrection was instantly smothered by a general expression of contempt and derision. The people very soon perceived that it was as easy for a frugal, industrious man to obtain silver as it had been to obtain paper ; and, passing from one extreme to another, they ex- pressed ere long a decided aversion to paper currency even on the most limited scale. However, about two years after, the British government judged it expedient to secure the permanence of this innovation, and prevent the recurrence of the relative evil, by a parliamentary interposition, which, on account of its professed object, seems not to have awakened any jeal- ousy in the colonists. The act of parhament for this purpose was confined to the States of New England,^ of which the several assemblies were com- manded to call in and discharge all the bills of credit they had issued, and prohibited from ever again issuing such bills, except with a circulation hm- ited to the current year, and after sufficient provision for discharging them within that period. Any governor, whether appointed by the crown or elected by the colonists, who should ratify an act of assembly derogating from the parliamentary statute, was to incur the penalty of a perpetual incapacity of public office. An exception was, however, admitted in the case of extraordinary emergencies created by war or invasion. But it was declared absolutely unlawful for the provincial assemblies ever after to admit', as they had heretofore done, bills of credit as a legal tender for the payment of private debts. ^ Rev. Mr. Appleton, of Cambridge, gives an impressive view of the depreciation, with its baneful effects. An aged widow, whose husband died more than forty years before that time, had three pounds a year settled on her instead of her dower; and that sum would at that day, and at the place where she still lived, procure toward her support two cords of wood, four bushels of Indian corn, one bushel of rye, one bushel of malt, fifty pounds of pork, and sixty pounds of beef In 1748, she could not purchase more than one eighth part of that amount of the necessaries of life. And this, adds the humane preacher, is, in a measure, the situation of many widows in the land." Holmes. ' The American historians, in general, have erroneously represented this act as extending its provisions to all the colonies. It was in the year 1763, that bills of credit were abolished in all the American provinces by the act of parliament, 4 George III., Cap. 34. 2 Stat. 24 George II., Cap 53 (A D. 1751). Smollett. Millot. Hutchinson. Minot's Coniinuaiionqf the History of MacsachuseUs. Burk. Belknap. Trumbull. The comparative CHAP. II.] BRITISH DOMINION IN NOVA SCOTIA. |9] Notwithstanding the indifference displayed by Great Britain for the wishes and the advantage of her American colonies, in the treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle, yet the surprising exertions which they made during the war strongly aroused her attention to their situation and prospects, and to the interests of her own dominion over them ; and many important schemes and considerations relative to America were entertained and pondered about this time in the British cabinet. The situation of Nova Scotia demanded immediate attention, which was additionally invited by a project that was suggested for combining the improvement of the British dominion in this province with the benefit of a great number of English soldiers and sailors, whom the peace deprived of subsistence, and for whose behoof justice and policy equally demanded that some public provision should speedily be made. Even if the commissaries of France and England should succeed in preventing a renewal of disputes between the two nations, by a peaceful and satisfactory adjustment pf the boundaries of Nova Scotia, something more was necessary to render the British dominion secure in this province, where the inhabitants, it was well known, were discontented with their subjection to Britain, and cherished both the desire and the hope of being reunited to the French monarchy. Upon every rupture or dispute be- tween the two crowns, they communicated intelligence to their countrymen in Canada, and intrigued in behalf of France with the adjacent Indian tribes ; and during the late war they had been manifestly on the point of breaking into open revolt. A scheme was now projected by certain of the Eng- lish ministers, and especially by the Earl of Halifax, president of the Board of Trade and Plantations, of introducing a British population into this ter- ritory, by encouraging a number of the disbanded officers, troops, and ships' crews of the late war-establishment to repair thither as permanent settlers. The parliament approved this design, and voted in the first instance towards its execution the sum of forty thousand pounds. Advantageous terms of settlement, being tendered by the government, were accepted by nearly four thousand adventurers, who, with their families, were transported at the pub- lic expense to the Bay of Chebucto, where they built the town of Halifax. They were accompanied by Colonel Edward Cornwallis, who was appointed governor and commander-in-chief of Nova Scotia. The French colonists were allowed peaceably to remain in the country ; and having pledged themselves to submit, to the English government, with the qualification that they should never be required to bear arms against France, they came to be denominated French Neutrals. The British parliament continued annu- ally to repeat pecuniary grants for the support of this settlement, which, in the year 1755, had cost the nation upwards of four hundred thousand pounds. Its establishment was viewed with much apprehension by the French, who, though they did not think proper to promulgate their displeas- ure, clandestinely employed emissaries to incite the Indians to harass the value of tNf. cuirenciesin the several British colonies, in the year 1748, appears from the following ^uie (extracted from Douglass) of their exchanges with London. For £ 100 sterling, New Eniffland 1,100 currency. New York ...... 190 East Jersey 190 West Jersey 180 Pennsylvania 180 Maryland 200 Virginia 120 to 125 North Carolina 1,000 South Carolina 7.50 192 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. British colonists with hostilities calculated to deter them from extending or improving their plantations. Partly from this cause, and doubtless in part from the character of the first settlers and the habit they contracted of de- pending on Britain for support, they made little progress either in agriculture or in fisheries ; and the colony, subsisting chiefly on the sums expended by the military and naval forces maintained there by the parent state, almost entirely failed to answer the expectations of its projectors.^ But the policy which the British government was to pursue with regard to the older colonial dependencies of the empire in America was a subject of deeper interest and nicer care. The unexpected vigor that New England displayed in the conquest of Cape Breton, the glory that she gained by that achievement at a time when the British arms were unsuccessful in every other quarter of the world, and the spirit of independence which kept pace whh her rising strength, excited some perplexity. The colonies, it was evident- ly seen, were rapidly advancing from national pupilage to manhood ; and the inquiry was naturally suggested. Should not their institutions undergo some corresponding alteration ? Should not a new system of law, pohcy, and mutual correspondence be devised, to supply between the parent state and her dependencies the fast relaxing bonds of relative strength and weakness ?^ From the measures and propositions of the British ministers it may be inferred that their minds were occupied with these considerations ; though they neither projected nor executed any scheme of policy worthy of the emergency, and probably at length calmed their solicitude by confusedly trusting to the influence of habitual subjection on America, or by figuring with fond hope a postponement of the inevitable crisis, and of the neces- sity of making provision for it. Indeed, it is certain that the British min- isters were but imperfectly acquainted with the real growth and condition of the American provinces, where the continual formation of new settle- ments, which long remained unknown, or little known, to the parent state, and impervious alike to her arms and authority, not only enlarged the colo- nial population, but fostered sentiments of independence, hardy habits, and enterprising disposhions. No wise, enlarged prospective system in relation to America was ever cultivated in the British cabinet, where colonial afl^airs (except in the emergencies of war or negotiation with rival European powers) were customarily viewed rather as the province of the Board of Trade, than as included within the higher departments of state policy ; and, however dissatisfied the ministers might be from time to time with the aspect of this important branch of the British empire, they were embarrassed in the projection of extensive schemes by their inexperience in the conception and application of relative general principles, and their imperfect acquaint- ance with local details. The most obvious means of fortifying the British dominion over the colo- nies, and rendering their progressive resources tributary to the strength of the supreme government of the empire, was to carry into practical effect the pretended right of subjecting America to the direct taxation of the par- liament of Great Britain. If this had been accomphshed, the resources of the American provinces and the industry of their nihabitants would have ^ Smollett. Hewit. Holmes. ' " The colonies," said Lord Chancellor Northington, some years after, in the British House of Lords, " are become too big to be governed by the laws tney at first set out with. They have, therefore, run into confusion, and it will be the policy of this country to form a phn of laws for them " CHAP. II.] BILL ABOLISHING AMERICAN CHARTERS. J 93 been mortgaged for ever to the support of regal and aristocratical grandeur and of European luxury and wars ; nor could a more effectual process have been devised for the subjugation of liberty in England itself. We have seen a proposition to tax America originate in Britain so early as the close of the seventeenth century, 1 and the same project subsequently reproduced and recommended to the British nation by Sir Wilham Keith. ^ When the war with Spain broke out, in the year 1739, Keith's scheme, which, among other particulars, proposed, 'Hhat the duties of stamps upon parchment and paper in England be extended by act of parliament to all the American plantations j^^ was suggested to Sir Robert Walpole, as a politic device for evading the necessity of imposing additional taxes on England. Walpole is said to have received the proposition with a smile, and to have negatived it by this memorable reply : — "I will leave that to some of my successors who have more courage than I have, and are less friends to commerce than I am. It has been a maxim with me, during my administration, to encourage the trade of the American colonies in the utmost latitude ; nay, it has been necessary to pass over some irregularities in their trade with Europe ; for, by encouraging them to an extensive growing foreign commerce, if they gain five hundred thousand pounds, I am convinced that in two years after- wards full two hundred and fifty thousand pounds of their gains will be in his Majesty's exchequer, by the labor and produce of this kingdom, as immense quantities of every kind of our manufactures go thither ; and as they increase in their foreign trade, more of our produce will be wanted. This is taxing them more agreeably to their own constitution and ours.^' In 1748, three years after the New England enterprise against Cape Bre- ton, the project of taxing America was again resumed, and so far enter- tained by the British cabinet, that Pelham, the prime minister, communi- cated it to the various provincial governments, and desired to know their opmions with regard to it. Of the answers which they returned no farther account has been preserved than that they assigned such reasons as induced the ministry to abandon the design.^ Another measure, which succeeded the relinquished purpose of taxing the American colonies, was the repetition of an attempt, of which we have already witnessed several instances, to invade their chartered systems of liberty. A bill was introduced into the British parliament, in the year 1748, by ''vhich all the American charters were abolished, and the king's in- structionc to the provincial governors were rendered equivalent to legal en- actments During the disputes that prevailed between Massachusetts and the cro^vn, about twenty years before, this stretch of arbitrary power might have been attempted with some likelihood of success. But the op- portunity was irretrievably lost ; and now, every circumstance in the rel- ative situation of Britain and America combined to increase the odium of the project, and the efficacy of the resistance which it was calculated to provoke. To the valor of the Americans Britain was indebted for the principal, and almost the solitary achievement, by which her wounded honor was avenged and her mihtary reputation supported in the late war ; and it was by the conquest which the Americans had won for her that she was enabled to purchase a peace. A more unsuitable juncture for an attempt to bereave^ them of their liberties could hardly be imagined. The bill, as » Appendix I., arUe. s Book VIII., Chap. II., ante. ' 3 Political Register for 1767. Gordon. Burk. Walsh's Mppeal. VOL. II. 25 Q 194 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. might easily have been foreseen, was vigorously opposed by the provincial agents in England, and especially by the agents of Massachusetts ; its injus- tice to America, and the danger which British liberty would incur from the establishment of such a precedent, were clearly demonstrated ; and the ministers of the crown, after a protracted discussion, finding the obstruc- tions to their wishes insurmountable, withdrew the bill, and once more desisted from the impolitic controversy which they had so rashly renewed. The act of parliament which was passed shortly after for the regulation of bills of credit in New England, and to which we have already had occasion to advert, was believed by some American politicians to have been a device of petty pride on the part of the British court to cover the disgrace of this defeat.^ In default of a parliamentary abrogation of the American consti- tutions, an attempt was made by the British ministers to effect a practical enlargement of the royal prerogative in several of the provinces, by the ar- bitrary strain of the powers which they conferred and of the policy which they dictated in the commissions and instructions to the provincial gov- ernors who were appointed by the crown. Of this encroaching policy, which produced no other effect than to exercise the defensive spirit of lib- erty in America and rouse it to greater vigilance and jealousy, some in- stances will present themselves in the progress of our narration.^ The most politic of all the schemes that were at this time [1749] pro- posed in the British cabinet was a project of introducing an ecclesiastical es- tablishment, derived from the model of the church of England, and particu- larly the order of bishops, into North America. The pretext assigned for this innovation was, that many non-juring clergymen of the Episcopal per- suasion, attached to the cause of the Pretender, had recently emigrated from Britain to America, and that it was desirable to create a board of ecclesi- astical dignitaries for the purpose of controlling their proceedings and coun- teracting their influence ; but doubtless it was intended, in part at least, to answer the ends of strengthening royal prerogative in America, — of giving to the state, through the church of England, an accession of influence over the colonists, — and of imparting to their institutions a greater degree of ar- istocratical character and tendency. The views of the statesmen by whom this design was entertained were inspired by the suggestion of Butler, Bishop of Durham, and were confirmed and seconded by the zealous co- operation of Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the society instituted for the propagation of the gospel. This society had received very errone- ous impressions of the religious character of the colonists in general from some worthless and incapable missionaries which it sent to America ; and Seeker, who partook these impressions, had promulgated them from the pul- pit in a strain of vehement and presumptuous invective. Such demeanour by no means tended to conciliate the favor of the Americans to the pro- posed ecclesiastical establishment. From the intolerance and bitterness of spirit disclosed by the chief promoters of the scheme, it was natural to fore- bode a total absence of moderation in the conduct of it. The bare announcement of it provoked accordingly the utmost alarm and the strongest expressions of aversion and opposition in New England, of ^ Minot. ^ " While the ministers of kings were looking into their laws and records to decide what should be the rights of men in the colonies, nature was establishing a system of freedom in America, which they could neither comprehend nor discern." Williams's History of Vermont^ Preface. CHAP. II.] SCHEME OF AN EPISCOPAL ESTABLISHMENT. 195 which the popular assemblies and leading politicians had for many years constituted themselves the guardians of the general liberties of America. So faithfully did they sustain this generous part on the present occasion, that iheir opposition was not relaxed by an offer to exempt New England from the operation of the projected measure. And yet it was one of the New England States, and one of which the inhabitants in general were noted for the zeal with which they continued to cherish the primitive sentiments, opinions, and institutions of the Puritans, which supphed the only consid- erable party in America by which the project of the English ministry was cordially approved. In the year 1722, Cutler, the rector of Yale College, in Connecticut, and several other clergymen of this province, suddenly and publicly retracted their previous profession of the vahdity of Presbyterian or Congregational ordination, proclaimed themselves converts to Episcopacy, and declared their conviction that no ordination to ecclesiastical functions could be vahdly derived except from the bishops of the church of Eng- land. This schism excited at the time no small astonishment and mortifica- tion in the colony. A public conference and disputation took place, in presence of the governor, between the heads of the provincial clergy who adhered to their primitive ordinances and the seceders to Episcopacy ; and the issue of the discussion was, that about half of the votaries of Episco- pacy were reconverted to their original opinions, — a result which was regarded with disappointment in Connecticut, on account of its inadequacy to the general desire, — but which must impart a feeling of satisfaction and surprise to all who are familiar with the common issue of such polemical debates. It is less surprising, that those of the dissidents, whom the con- troversy failed to reduce to their original system, clung with increased ardor and tenacity to the novelties they had embraced. By their arguments and example, the Episcopal party in Connecticut had subsequently gained an accession of votaries less remarkable for their numbers than their zeal, and by whom the proposed legal establishment of Episcopacy in America was now hailed with the liveliest expressions of hope, joy, and approbation. 1 But the general voice of New England, supported and reechoed by the dissenters from the established church in Britain, overpowered the purpose both of the British and the American partisans of Episcopacy. It v/as in vain that the British court endeavoured to silence the opposition of some of the most popular clergymen of New England by tempting offers of ecclesiastical preferment ; and no less ineffectual were the assurances, subsequently tendered, that the innovation should not extend to New Eng- land, and that the jurisdiction of the bishops appointed in the other colo- nies should be strictly limited to the clergy, and should not be permitted to extend to the laity. These propositions — even backed by the offer, that, if the authority of the bishops was recognized in America, their emoluments would be provided (in the first instance, at least) by the British treasury — could neither subdue nor mitigate the fixed aversion with which the people of New England, and especially the citizens of Massachusetts, contem- plated a project of intrusting any degree of power to a body of ecclesiasti- cal functio naries dependent on the crown. They regarded with appre- * About three years after (in 1752), there were in Pennsylvania nine Episcopal ministers and twenty-seven Episcopal churches ; in New Jersey, eight Episcopal ministers ; in New York, twelve ; in Connecticut, eight ministers and sixteen churches ; in Rhode Island, five minis- ters and six churches ; in Massachusetts, ten ministers and ten churches ; and in New Hamp- ■hire, one minister and one church. Holmes. 19G HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. hensive jealousy that principle of increase inherent in every form or de- scription of power irresponsible to the general will, and peculiarly incident, as they justly imagined, to ecclesiastical authority. Some of the leading personages in the British cabinet were at length induced to express an open dissent from the opinions of their colleagues on this important point, — fearing, perhaps, that Episcopal grandeur and authority in England would be endangered by the exemplification of a simpler aud more primitive model of Episcopacy in America. After much passionate discussion, fruitlessly prolonged by Seeker and the partisans of his opinions, the cabinet of Britain finally abandoned, or at least postponed, the design of giving a legal estab- hshment to Episcopacy in the colonies. ^ The issue of all these discussions and deliberations was, that the British government, instead of altering, continued to pursue, its wonted narrow, unimproved colonial policy even more strictly than before ; and the only new measure that was carried into effect was one w^hich extended the op- eration of that principle which had long been openly avowed, that the colo- nists were a dependent people, existing for the benefit of the inhabitants of Great Britain, and that it was lawful and expedient that they should be restricted to pursuits tending to the enrichment of the parent state, and ex- cluded from every branch of industry, however beneficial to themselves, which might render them the competitors of British merchants and manu- facturers. The importation of iron from America had been discouraged hitherto by heavy duties ; while a great part of the supply of material on which the manufacturers of iron in Britain depended was procured by an expensive and disadvantageous commerce with Sweden. The idea was now suggested of drawing these supphes from America, where, instead of the money annually remitted to Sweden, British goods would be accepted in exchange ; and with this politic view there w^as combined the less liberal purpose of checking a successful attempt which had recently been made to establish the manufacture of iron in New England. [1750.] An act of par- liament^ was accordingly passed, authorizing the importation of pig and bar iron from the American colonies, duty-free, into the port of London ; but the exemption was strictly confined to this port ; and the iron conveyed thither, in virtue of the act, was not to be afterwards transported farther than ten miles into the country, except for the use of the royal dock-yards. The object of this restriction was to prevent any diminution of the profits which the proprietors of mines and woods in England derived from the supplies of mineral produce and fuel which they afforded to the country manufactur- ers of iron. In the metropolis and its immediate neighbourhood, the man- ufacturers depended entirely on foreign supplies. In concurrence with provisions so cautiously adapted to the protection of every British interest, it was ordained, for the farther advantage of the iron manufacture in Britain, that no mill or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron, nor any plating forge, nor any furnace for making steel, should be erected or continued in any of the American colonies, under the penalty of a heavy fine, and of the destruction of the machine as a public nuisance.^ Four of the machines prohibited by this arbitrary law were already established in Massachusetts.'* ' Trumbull. Minot. Holmes. Gordon. J^nnual Register for 1766. « Stat. 23 George II., Cap. 29. See Note IX., at the end of the volume. ' The other commercial statutes passed about this time in relation to America are noticed in the close of Book IX., ante. * Smollett. Minot. " Our nailers," says an American writer, in reference to this period, CHAP. II.] POLICY OF IMPORTING SLAVES INTO AMERICA. 197 There was one class of reasoners in the parent state, whose views seem to have been not ineffectually pressed upon the ministers of the crown, and who predicted the continued submission of the colonies, as the result of a constant and ample importation of negro slaves into America. We have seen under what conditions Queen Ehzabeth permitted the rise of the British slave-trade, with what fatal vigor it increased, and how soon the mask of benevolence to the negroes was discarded. Britain had since become the greatest slave-trading state in the world, and was as desirous to obtain a monopoly of this as of other branches of commerce. In the year 1745, there was published at London a treatise, entitled. The African Slave Trade, the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Trade in America. " If the negro trade," says the author of this treatise, "be thrown into the hands of our rivals, and our colonies are to depend on the labor of white men, they will either soon be undone, or shake off their dependence on the crown of England. For white men cannot be obtained so cheaply, nor the labor of a sufficient number be had for the expense of their maintenance only, as we have of the Africans." " Were it possi- ble," he continues, " for white men to answer the end of negroes in plant- ing, must we not drain our own country of husbandmen, manufacturers, and mechanics ? Might not the consequence be, that our colonies would inter- fere with the manufactures of these kingdoms, as the Palatines attempted in Pennsylvania ? In such case, indeed, we might have just reason to dread the prosperity of our colonies ; but while we can supply them abundantly with negroes, we need be under no such apprehensions." ^ It was not in the parent state alone and her ministerial cabinet that an increased attention was now directed to the political relations between Brit- ain and America, and to the manifest truth, that a change in these relations was inevitably portended by the great alteration which had already taken place, and which every year was enlarging, in the relative strength and weakness of the two countries. Superior power and fancied expediency, instead of the everlasting principles of justice, had been the basis of a great part of the colonial policy of the parent state ; and while this basis was continually becoming more narrow and insecure, ihe policy to which it administered support was rendered more, instead of less, burdensome and illiberal. These important facts, and their consequences, were perceived and pondered by the Americans ; and views and speculations corresponding to their altered condition and prospects exercised the thoughts of some of their leading pohticians. We have seen how early the idea of independence was suggested to the colonists by the jealous suspicions or interested artifice which prompted Nicholson, Quarry, and other partisans -of royal preroga- tive in America, as well as the members of the Board of Trade in Eng- land, to impute to them the design of realizing this idea ; and how uni- formly the policy of the British government was calculated to recommend "can now afford spikes and large nails cheaper than from England." Douglass. It is re- markable that Hutchinson invariably refrains from noticing the introduction of laws discred- itable to the justice and liberality of British policy. He alludes in general terms to the ex- isting commercial restrictions, in the close of his second volume, and exhorts his countrymen to patience and filial resignation to the will of the parent state, whose protection they enjoyed. * This is an anonymous work ; the author merely styling himself .41 British Merchant. There is a copy of it in the British Museum. It was probably in answer to it that there was pub- lished, a few jrears after, a pamphlet (noticed in Clarkson's History of the Molition of the Slave-trade) entitled j3n Essay in Vindication of the Colonies of America., and containing the most indignant reprobation of slavery, and of the pretence that necessity or sound policy could ever be opposed to the dictates of Christianity. 198 HISTORY cm NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X* independence to the Americans, by associating it with the strongest impres- sions of dignity and interest. The grand poHtical error of that selfish and harshly domineering system, first disclosed by the JsTavigation Act^ was, that, in proportion to its endurance, it became no less dangerous to pursue than to abandon it. To pursue it was to increase an offensive burden on the colonists, in proportion to their capacity of resisting its imposition ; — and this was the course which the parent state actually embraced. To abandon it was to make a humiliating avowal of injustice, or a dangerous concession to the strength of a people whose weakness had been abused ; — a stretch of magnanimity unexampled in the conduct of any sovereign state. It was wittily and argumentatively replied to the American complaints of the increasing exactions of Britain, about twenty years after this period, by a distinguished champion ^ of the British poHcy, that the ox has no reason to complain of the aggravation of the burdens that were imposed on the calf. Of this similitude, which was much admired at the time, the most signifi- cant feature consists in the frank avowal that the Americans were regarded by the politicians of Great Britain as an inferior and dependent race of beings.^ The hypothetical complaint of the ox would be well deserving of attention, if time had developed in him a faculty superior to brutal strength ; and the increased pressure of the yoke of servitude upon him would be equally unjust and impolitic, if his ability and inclination to resist were pro- portioned to his capacity of enduring it. In the actual condition of North America, at this period, there were two circumstances unfavorable to national independence, or at least to its speedy attainment. One of these w^as the defect of harmony, union, and concert among the several provincial governments ; the other was the vicinity of the French settlements, where there existed at once a people unfriendly to the British colonists, and a government hostile, for its own sake, to American liberty. The diminution of religious bigotry, and the increas- ing sense of common interest, had for many years contributed to foster a principle of union and mutual dependence among the respective provinces, which the languor and seeming indifference of Britain toward all that related to the defence and security of her colonies tended farther to promote. Frequently had she disappointed them of her promised succour, and taught them first to indulge hopes of safety and glory, and then to refer the accom- plishment of these hopes to their own unaided valor and force. As early as the year 1643, we have seen^ a federal league established among the States of New England, for the purpose of increasing the vigor and efficien- cy of their national strength. About a century afterwards, the project of a kindred institution, embracing all the American colonies, was suggested by a writer, whose work, entitled " A Description of the English Province of Carolana, by the Spaniards called Florida^ and by the French, La Louis- iane^^^ was pubhshed in the year 1741. Daniel Coxe, the author of this tract, was the son of Dr. Coxe who in the end of the seventeenth century speculated largely in colonial property, and acquired a considerable share of the proprietary interest in New Jersey, as well as of some more dubious claims to the territory comprehended within the colonial establishments ' Dr. Johnson. * Doan Swift, in one of his works, describing the contemptuous treatment of Ireland by some of its British rulers, says, " They looked down upon that kingdom as if it had been one of thrir colonies of outcasts in America.^' 3 Book II., Chap. III., ante. CHAPv II.] SCHEME OF A FEDERAL LEAGUE. ]99 of the Spaniards in North America.^ In the preface to his work, he pro- posed, for the more effectual defence of the British settlements against the hostile vicinity of the French and the Indians, '' that all the colonies ap- pertaining to the crown of Great Britain on the northern continent of Amer- ica be united under a legal, regular, and firm estabhshment ; over which a lieutenant or supreme governor may be constituted and appointed to preside on the spot, to whom the governors of each colony shall be subordinate." " It is farther humbly proposed," this writer continued, " that two deputies shall be annually elected by the council and assembly of each province, who are to be in the nature of a great council or general convention of the estates of the colonies ; and by the order, consent, or approbation of the lieutenant or governor-general, shall meet together, consult and advise for the good of the whole, settle and appoint particular quotas or proportions of money, men, provisions, &,c., that each respective government is to raise for their mutual defence and safety, as well as, if necessary, for offence and inva- sion of their enemies ; in all which cases the governor-general, or lieuten- ant, is to have a negative, but not to enact any thing without their concur- rence or that of the majority of them." In this plan (which is developed at considerable length and supported with great force of argument by its author)^ we behold the germ of that more celebrated, though less original project, which was again ineffectually recommended by an American statesman in the year 1754 ; and which, not many years after, was actually embraced by his countrj men and rendered instrumental to the achievement of their independence. It was only some of the more enterprising politicians of America that were favorable to the scheme of a federal imion of the several provinces. The people in general were disinclined to this change, from which they apprehended an increase of the efficacy of royal prerogative, and an encroachment on their separate and peculiar provincial usages and insthutions. They reasonably concluded that the authority of the crown would be invigorated by an arrangement which must render its administration more simple and compact ; and they naturally regarded with suspicion a project which had been supported by Nicholson and other pohticians devoted to the interests of arbitrarj^ power. A remarkable instance occurred, about this time, of the keen and even morbid jealousy of British aggression, which prevailed in New England. The as- sembly of Virginia having undertaken a general revision of its legislative code, a similar proceeding was recommended by the king to the assembly of Massachusetts [1751], where all parties united in acknowledging that it might be productive of results the most advantageous and desirable. Many of the old and yet subsisting laws of Massachusetts contained provisions which were now universally admitted to be injudicious and inconvenient, and which every body would have been glad to have subjected to legislatori- al expurgation, if a satisfactory assurance could have been obtained that no attempt would be made to give a further extension or insidious bias to the application of this principle. But the majority of the assembly entertained a rooted jealousy of the designs of the crown, and finally refused to comply with the king's suggestion, from the apprehension that some latent purpose of encroachment was couched beneath it.^ The subjugation of the French settlements in America was an object to which the most ardent wishes of the British colonists were directed ; and ^ See a note to Book IV., Chap. I., ante. * Coxe's Carolana, Preface. ^ Hatchinson. 200 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. when we consider the scenes of danger and calamity to which they had been exposed by the vicinity of this rival power and people, it seems almost su- perfluous to inquire for any farther cause of the wishes which they cherished. But when we find that the Americans firmly entertained the conviction that Britain was restrained, by regard to the stabihty of her own colonial domin- ion, and by apprehensions of i^Lmerican independence, from attempting the reduction of the French settlements, — it seems not unreasonable to con- clude that their own wishes and views were secretly flowing towards the same object which they figured to themselves as the source of contemplative alarm to the parent state. More than forty years before the present period, there prevailed, as we have already seen, in the minds of some of the colo- nists of New England, a violent jealousy and mistrust of the real designs and pohcy of Great Britain with respect to the French empire in America. The sentiments of these persons, indeed, were doubtless in part the passion- ate suggestions of irritation and disappointment. But they had subsequently been propagated in the other American provinces, and embraced as the result of deliberate reflection by many intelhgent men. Some insight into the opinions of the Americans on this point is alForded by the interesting work of Peter Kalm, a sensible and accomplished Swede, and the friend of his illustrious countryman, Linnaeus, who visited North America in 1748, and for two years after continued to reside and travel in several of the prov- inces, and to explore and record the most interesting particulars of their condition. In the various States which he visited, he conversed with the persons most distinguished in the walks of science, Hterature, and pohtics ; ^ and the views which he has expressed in the following curious passage rep- resent the impressions he derived from the communications of those indi- viduals. "It is of great advantage to the crown of England," says this writer, "that the North American colonies are near a country under the govern- ment of the French, like Canada. There is reason to believe that the king never was earnest in his attempts to expel the French from their possessions there^ though it might have been done with Httle difficulty ; for the English colonies in this part of the world have increased so much in their number of inhabitants and in their riches, that they almost vie with Old England. Now, in order to keep up the authority and trade of the mother country, and to answer several other purposes, they are forbidden to establish new manu- factures, which would turn to the disadvantage of the British commerce ; they are not allowed to dig for any gold or silver, unless they send it to England immediately ; they have not the liberty of trading to any parts that do not belong to the British dominions, excepting some settled places ; and foreign traders are not allowed to send their ships to them. These and some other restrictions occasion the inhabitants of the English colonies to grow less tender for their mother country. This coldness is kept up by the many foreigners, such as Germans, Dutch, and French, settled here, and living among the English, who commonly have no particular attachment to Old England. Add to this, likewise, that many people can never be con- tented with their possessions, though they be ever so great, and will always ^ Among others, he conversed intimatoiy with Dr. Frankhn (Kalm's Travels^ passim, and Franklin's Correspondence) y — a circumstance, which, coupled with the strain of the passage c^uoted in the text, may be thought to justify the surmise that has been entertained, that Frank- lin, in subsequently recommending the conquest of Canada to the British nation, foresaw con- sequences from this measure very different from those which he argumentatively predicted. CHAP. II.] STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA. 201 be desirous of getting more, and of enjoying the pleasure which arises from change ; and their over great Hberty and their prosperity often lead them to licentiousness. I have been told by English subjects, and not only by such as were natives of America.^ but even by those who had emigrated from Eu- rope, that the English colonies in J^orth America, within the space of thirty or fifty years hence, would be able to form a state by themselves, entirely in- dependent of Old England. But as the whole country which lies along the seashore is unguarded, while on the land side it is harassed by the French in time of war, these dangerous neighbours are sufficient to prevent the con- nection of the colonies with their mother country from being quite broken off ; the English government has, therefore, sufficient reason to consider the French in J^orth America as the best guardians of the submission of their colonies.'''* ^ (From the work of this philosophic traveller, and other sources of infor- mation, we are enabled to glean some interesting particulars illustrative of the internal condition of the North American provinces in the middle of the eighteenth century. Population had of late years advanced with a vig- orous pace in all the States, but with peculiar and astonishing rapidity in Pennsylvania, which in the year 1749 contained two hundred and twenty thousand, and four years afterwards two hundred and fifty thousand inhabit- ants. In 1755, the population of this province amounted to two hundred and eighty thousand.^ A considerable part of this increase was derived from Germany, from which in the summer of 1749 no fewer than twelve thou- sand emigrants arrived at Philadelphia. In the year 1751, there emigrated to Pennsylvania four thousand three hundred and seventeen Germans, and one thousand persons from England and Ireland. The greater number of these emigrants consisted of people who sold their service for a term of years, in order to defray the expense of their transportation. Sometimes aged parents pledged the labor of their children for this purpose, — con- verting thereby what proved a burden in Europe into a means of inde- pendence in America ; and in many instances, German emigrants, who brought with them a competent stock of money, chose to commence their American career as indented servants, in order to acquire cheaply some experience of the country and acquaintance with its language. A penalty was inflicted on any clergyman celebrating the marriage of an indented ser- vant without the consent of his master, or of a negro with an inhabitant of European extraction. The Quakers, in general (so Kalm says), had be- come rather less than more scrupulous than at first with regard to the em- ployment of negro slaves ; " and now," he adds, " they have as many ne- groes as other people." ^ Yet many of the inhabitants condemned slavery * Kalm. This was published in Sweden several years before the British conquest of Canada. ^ In Moheau's admirable work, Recherckes sur la Population, &c., it is stated, that Dr. Franklin described the population of Pennsylvania as amounting to one million in the year 1751. If Franklin ever gave any such exaggerated description, it must have been done to serve some political purpose. ^ Thomas Chalkley, a minister highly and justly renowned among the Quakers for his active and unwearied zeal and his profound and ardent piety, published a journal of his nu- merous travels and ministerial labors, from the beginning till about the middle of the eight- eenth century, in all the American States, and in several of the West India Islands, where he appears to have accurately noted and conscientiously rebuked every existing evil, except ncerro slavery. It is curious to contrast his steady, resentful retrospect to the ancient persecu- tion of the Quakers in New England, with his blindness to the actual oppression inflicted by the institution of negro slavery, and the existing support which this institution derived from the accession of his fellow-sectaries. VOL. 11. 26 202 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X as repugnant to Christianity ; and some peculiarly zealous Quakers in Phil- adelphia had set the example of liberating their slaves, after the enjoyment of their service for a certain time. The comparatively gentle treatment of slaves in this part of America may be inferred from the facts, that very few were now imported from abroad, and that great numbers were reared on the plantations of the colo- nists. A planter killing his negro was declared by law guilty of a capital felony ; but no instance had ever occurred of the actual execution of this dictate of even-handed justice. A few years before, a master who had murdered his slave was persuaded by the magistrates to depart from the prov- ince, that they might not be compelled to afford the negroes the triumph of witnessing his punishment. A strong though silent testimony against negro slavery, and against every principle hostile to the interest and happiness of the human race, was afforded by the members of the Moravian brotherhood, who for many years had resorted in large and increasing numbers to Penn- sylvania. Count Zinzendorf, the president or bishop of this religious society, visited America in 1742. " His behaviour," says Kalm, " led many of the Pennsylvanians to beheve that he was disordered in his intellects," — a re- proach which the apostoHc zeal of the first Christian pastors attracted, and which the count seems to have equally merited by the rare elevation of his views, the fervor of his piety, and the energy of his labors. By him and his associates were founded the Moravian missions among the Indians, which were afterwards pursued with the most admirable virtue and success.^ In their neatness, and the excellence of their general economy, the settlements of the Moravians are allowed by a Quaker writer to have surpassed those of all the other inhabitants of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, in the year 1749, contained eleven places of worship ;^ and two years after, its popula- tion was estimated at seventeen thousand persons, of whom six thousand were negroes. Three printers were established in this town ; and three newspapers, two in the Enghsh, and one in the German tongue, were pub- lished there every week. Governor Thomas, having resigned the presidency of Pennsylvania, was succeeded in 1748 by James Hamilton, a native of the province, and son of the celebrated lawyer and patriot, Andrew Ham- ilton. ^ New Jersey, in the year 1738, contained, as we have seen, 47,637 in- habitants, of whom 3,981 were slaves. In 1745, the population of this State amounted to 61,403, including 6,079 Quakers and 4,606 slaves. We have already remarked the pecuHar usage by which the practice of the medical art among this people was confined almost entirely to women. Of another strange peculiarity in their manners the following account has been preserved by Kalm. The widow of a bankrupt was held (whether by legal ordinance or merely by popular opinion does not appear) to be liable for the debts of her deceased husband, and to retain that Hability even after contract- ing another matrimonial engagement, unless she were married to her second husband with no other habihment on her person than her shift. "^ " The ^ See Note X., at the end of the volume. * Namely, — one Church of England, two Presbyterian, two Quaker, one Baptist, one Swedish, one Dutch Lutlieran, one Dutch Calvinist, one Moravian, and one Roman Catholic. 3 Douglass. Kalm. Proud. Loskiel. Warden. Holmes. * From the words of Kalm, it may be doubted whether this absurdity was imported into New Jersey from Sweden or from England That the notion, and its relative usage, though totally unsupported by law, has prevailed till a very late period in some parts of England is certain. In the end of the year 1827, a widow was married in her shift to a respectable tradesman or shopkeeper in a country church in England. CHAP. II.] STATE OF NEW YORK. 203 Swedish clergymen here," says Kalra, " have often been obhged to marry women in this hght and unexpensive dress. This appears from the regis- ters kept in the churches and from the accounts given by the clergymen themselves. I have likewise often seen accounts of such marriages in the English newspapers which are printed in these colonies."^ The population of the province of New York, which, in the year 1732, amounted to somewhat more than sixty thousand persons, had advanced in 1749 to one hundred thousand. In 1756, it amounted to 110,317 per- sons, including 13,542 slaves. Kalm celebrates the handsome and substan- tial architecture of the houses in the town of New York ; and describes the walls of the apartments as " quite covered with all sorts of drawings and pictures in small frames." In the year 1754, and in imitation of a similar institution at Philadelphia, a classical and philosophical academy was es- tablished at New York. The language and habits of the primitive colonists of this province subsisted in the most entire preservation at Albany, where the great bulk of the inhabitants were Dutchmen by birth or descent. They were noted in particular for extreme attention to niceness and cleanhness of domestic accommodation, for diligence in business, a close frugality, and the consequent accumulation of wealth. But their enrichment did not exclu- sively flow from sources so respectable. The temptations incident to the Indian trade, in which they w^ere deeply engaged, depraved their characters and manners with sentiments and practices the most sordid and disgraceful.^ In no other quarter of British or French America were the frauds with which the Indians reproached the Europeans so extensively and systematic- ally practised. The merchants of Albany gloried in the success and dex- terity of their commercial chicane ; and as they practised equal dishonesty and displayed equal selfishness in their intercourse with their fellow-subjects 'both in New York and the other provinces, they were the objects of general aversion and disdain. This representation of the character of the Albanians was repeated to Kalm, the traveller, in every part of America that he visit- ed, and was confirmed by his own personal observation of that people. "We have already remarked their dishonorable conduct towards the inhab- itants of New England in the war which preceded the treaty of Utrecht. They had pursued the same policy during the late war ; and not only pur- chased the plunder of Massachusetts and New Hampshire from the Indian alhes of the French, but encouraged these marauders, by the most tempting offers, to persevere in their depredations. The people of New England were so incensed at these transactions, which the Indians were at no pains to conceal, that they threatened, in case a new war should break out, that their first enterprise would be the sack and destruction of Albany. It must be remembered, however, that these charges, though generally, were not universally, applicable to the population of Albany, where some of the principal inhabitants, untainted by the prevailing depravation of principle and manners, were distinguished by a rare and therefore more notable superiority in equity, politeness, benevolence, and pubHc spirit. " Outside the doors of houses here," says Kalm, " are seats, which in the evening are covered with people of both sexes ; but this is rather troublesome, as those who pass by are obliged to greet every body, unless they will shock the politeness of the inhabitants of this town."^ i S. Smith. Kalm. " ~~~~ ' A great deal of hazard was incurred by the European traders, who were often defrauded 'k\ and sometimes murdered by the Indians. Loskiel. ^ 2 Warden. Kalm. Holmes. 204 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. Whether from a settled design of encroachment on American liberty, or from mere carelessness or arrogance on the part of the British government, it had been the invariable practice of the court since the Revolution to invest the governors of New York with an extraordinary, and indeed un- constitutional, plenitude of official power. Nay, the practice was still con- tinued of delegating to them in their commissions the command of the militia of Connecticut. The governors were in this manner led to entertain very erroneous ideas of their actual authority, and were continually engaged in disputes with the provincial assembly. " Our representatives," says the historian of New York, " agreeably to the general sense of their constitu- ents, are tenacious in the opinion, that the inhabitants of this colony are en- titled to all the privileges of Englishmen ; that they have a right to partici- pate in the legislative power ; and that the session of assemblies here is wisely substituted instead of a representation in parliament^ which, all things considered, would at this remote distance be extremely inconvenient and dangerous. The governors, on the other hand, in general entertain political sentiments of a quite different nature. All the immunities we enjoy, accord- ing to them, not only flow from, but absolutely depend upon, the mere grace and will of the crown. It is easy to conceive that contentions must naturally attend such a contradiction of sentiments."^ New York at this time possessed a greater share of commerce than any other town in North America. [1751.] Boston and Philadelphia approached in this respect the most nearly, and, indeed, very closely to it. The mer- chants of New York and Philadelphia were continually in debt to their cor- respondents in England. No discovery of coal seems yet to have been made in any of the provinces ; but, during the short possession that the British enjoyed of Cape Breton, it was ascertained that an abundant supply of this mineral existed in the bowels of that island. It was customary for ships re- turning without any other freight from England to America, to repair first to Newcastle, and take in cargoes of coals, which served as ballast during the voyage, and afterwards fetched some profit in the colonies ; especially at New York and in South Carolina.^ Kalm has dwelt with benevolent satisfaction, and the surprise of a Euro- pean, on the comfort and plenty that prevailed universally among the agri- cultural population of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, — the only British colonies, unfortunately, to which *his personal ob- servation extended. There, every inhabitant of the country, even the hum- blest peasant, possessed an orchard stocked with a profusion of the richest fruit. The lively relish with which these strong, healthy people must have enjoyed such natural luxuries was far from restraining the liberality of dis- position which the bounty of their soil was fitted to inspire ; and passengers were everywhere, by common consent, entitled to a gratuitous and unstinted indulgence in the produce of gardens which they might happen or choose to approach. So sacred was the right, that the most churlish and sordid owner dared not question it ; and so common was its exercise, that it at- * W. Smith. This author quotes the following censure of the notions of the New York assemblies, from a pamphlet published in England in 1752, and entitled ^n Essay on the Gov- ernment of the Colonies : — "I would advise these gentlemci; for the future to drop those parlia- mentary airs and style about liberty and property, and keep within their sphere. The king's commission and instructions are their charter. If they abuse his Majesty's favors, they are but tenants at will." ^ " We have known coals, salt, and other articles, brought by way of ballast, sold cheaper in Charleston than in London." He wit. CHAP. II.] AGRICULTURE IN THE MIDDLE STATES. 205 tracted remark from nobody but strangers. Thus a table of hospitality was spread over all the face of the land ; and the sense of property was ren- dered a less selfish and exclusive principle in America than in Europe. i But the cheapness and fertility of the land was everywhere productive of a careless and slovenly system of husbandry. It was the universal practice of farmers to cultivate a portion of their ground as long as it would produce a crop without manuring ; and then to leave it fallow, or convert it into pasture, while they transferred their cul- ture to new spots which had been covered with woods from time imme- morial. " In a word," says the Swedish traveller, " the corn-fields, the meadows, the forests, the cattle, &c., are treated with equal carelessness ; and the English nation, so well skilled in these branches of husbandry, is with difficulty recognized. We can hardly be more lavish of our woods in Sweden and Finland, than they are here ; their eyes are fixed upon the present, and they are blind to futurity. I was astonished, when 1 heard the country people complaining of the badness of their pastures ; but I likewise perceived their negligence, and often saw excellent plants growing on their own grounds, which only required a little more attention and as- sistance from their unexperienced owners. I found everywhere the wisdom and goodness of the Creator ; but too seldom saw any acknowledgment or adequate estimation of it among men." The cattle and the crops of the American farmers sustained frequent and considerable damage from wild beasts and vermin. Laws still continued to be passed by the assembly of New York, offering rewards for the destruction of panthers, wolves, and wild-cats. In Pennsylvania, such devastation was committed on the crops of maize by the squirrels, that a premium of threepence was offered by the provincial government for every squirrel's head ; and in one year alone the sum of eight thousand pounds was expended by the treasury of Penn- sylvania on this account. The other provinces were not exempt from the inconvenience occasioned by the multitude and the ravages of squirrels, of which no fewer than eleven thousand five hundred and eighty-eight were destroyed within ten days by a party of hunters at Providence, in the year 1759. But the most formidable obstructions which American husbandry has ever encountered must be referred to the instrumentality of the insect creation. The extensive and irresistible ravage inflicted by various tribes of flies compelled the farmers, in several of the provinces, to abandon the cultivation of pease, and in others the culture of wheat. In some parts of North America, by the operations of a particular description of caterpillar, whole forests have been utterly destroyed.^ Massachusetts, which in the year 1731 contained one hundred and twenty- two thousand six hundred inhabitants, had increased the number of its people in 1742 to one hundred and sixty-four thousand, and in 1753 to * A similar practice was prescribed to the ancient Jews. Deut. xxiii. 24. " We wondered, at first, very much," says Kalm, " when our guide leaped over the hedge into the orchards, and gathered some agreeable fruit for us. But our astonishment was still greater, when we saw that the people in the garden were so little concerned at it as not even to look at us. We aftervyards found very frequently, that the country people in Sweden and Finland guarded their turnips more carefully than the people here do the most exquisite fruits." Thislearned Swede has omitted to remark a notable distinction between the condition of the peasantry in America and those of his own country, where no person in the rank of a peasant was then fjermitted to acquire landed property or transmit it to his children. These rights, which the aws of Sweden confined to the order of nobility, were enjoyed by every Swedish farmer who emigrated to America. 2 Laws ofMw York from 1691 to 1751. Kalm. Annual Register for 1759. R 206 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. two hundred and twenty thousand. The population of the province of Maine, which was subject to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, has been estimated by one statistical writer at ten thousand in the year 1750. The population of Rhode Island, which in 1730 amounted to 17,935 persons, of whom ] ,648 were slaves, had increased in the year 1748 to 32,773, in- cluding 4,373 slaves. In 1753, the total population of Rhode Island was thirty-five thousand. At the close of the seventeenth century, Connecticut contained thirty thousand, and New Hampshire ten thousand inhabitants. In the year 1749, the population of New Hampshire was thirty thousand ; and in the year 1753, that of Connecticut one hundred thousand. In 1756, the population of Connecticut amounted to 131,805, including 3,587 slaves. ^ A strong ebullition of religious zeal and fervor had been excited, of late years, in many parts of New England, by the instrumentality of some remarkable preachers, of whom the most celebrated were Jonathan Edwards, whom we have already noticed, and George Whitefield, the Methodist. The labors and success of these great men and their associates are related with much minuteness of detail by several of the provincial historians. The warmth of religious sentiment and dihgence in religious duty, which their ministry promoted in a surprising degree, were decried, as the impulse of frenzy and delusion, by a numerous party of the clergy and laity in New England, as well as in the other American States ; and, unfortunately, in some instances, these charges derived support from the weakness and im- prudence, the disorderly demeanour and enthusiastic extravagance of senti- ment, betrayed by various individuals who professed to have undergone a spiritual renovation.^ Probably some fraud and hypocrisy, and doubtless much error and delusion, contributed to obstruct and discredit the propaga- tion of an influence which no candid and well informed Christian will other- wise denominate than a signal dispensation of divine grace to North America. The controversies and dissensions occasioned by this religious Revival^ as it was termed, were prolonged for a great many years in New England ; but a consequence at once more lasting and beneficial was visible in the general animation of piety and virtue among a considerable body of the people.^ Various causes, however, contributed to promote impressions of a differ- ent tendency among the inhabitants of New England. To some of these causes, and especially to the pernicious influence of an unstable currency, we have already had frequent occasion to advert. The peace which fol- lowed the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was attended with evils as well as ad- vantages ; or rather, it gave scope to evils which the war had prepared. The disbanded officers and soldiers formed in every province a class of men, who, having been for a time released from steady industry and trained to the pa- rade and bustle of military life, were averse to return to more humbly la- ^ Adams's Twenty-six Letters on Important Subjects. Warden. 2 " Satan, upon this occasion," says a New England writer, " acted a double part. He first attempted to stop the good work by open opposition ; and afterwards, transfbrmmg himself in- to an angel of light, produced a flood of entnusiasm and false religion under various names." Eliot's JVew England Biography. 3 Jonathan Edwards's J^arrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of many hun- dred Souls., &c. Trumbull, Vol. II., Chap. VIII. This chapter of Trumbull's work contains the most candid and sensible account I have ever seen of an interesting portion of the eccle- siastical history of New England. A similar revival of religious zeal occurred about the same period in various parts of Scot- land ; and much correspondence on the subject took place between the Scottish and the American ministers. Gillies' Life of M' Laurin. CHAP. II.] STATE OF NEW ENGLAND. 207 borious occupations. To the officers of the provincial regiments the change was rendered the more unacceptable, from their not enjoying the advantage of half-pay. Their reluctance to embrace the sober habits and toils of civil life was increased by the hopes they indulged, and which were too soon fulfilled, of resuming their military occupation. The late war had not been conducted to a decisive issue, and the causes by which it was kindled were evidently not removed. As an antidote to the loose and idle manners of which those persons set the example, some benevolent citizens of Boston, with the aid of the provincial government, estabhshed, in 1749, a society for the promotion of industry and frugality ; ^ and to repair the loss of people occasioned by the war, the assembly at the same time granted four townships of land for the use of such foreign Protestants as might be dis- posed to emigrate to Massachusetts, and offered to transport them gratui- tously in a frigate that belonged to the province. It has been recorded, as a proof of the altered tastes and manners of some of the inhabitants of Massachusetts, that in the year 1750 there occurred the first instance of a dramatic entertainment in New England. A tragedy was performed at a coffee-house in Boston by two young Englishmen, assisted by some of their American comrades. The revel its participators intended to have kept secret from the public ; but, in the pressure which occurred at the door to gain admittance to the spectacle, a disturbance was created which rendered the affair notorious. The legislature, in consequence, promptly interfered to forbid the repetition of such practices ; and for the preservation of that system of economy and sobriety which had been transmitted to the presenc generation from their forefathers, a law was passed prohibiting all theatrical performances. The reasons assigned in the preamble of the act are " the prevention and avoidance of the many great mischiefs which arise from public stage-plays, interludes, and other theatrical entertainments, which not only occasion great and unnecessary expenses, and discourage industry and fru- gality, but Hkewise tend greatly to increase impiety and a contempt for religion." ^ A discovery was made, several years before this period, in New England, by Josiah Franklin, father of the American Pythagoras, of a method of attracting the resort of herrings from the sea to a river which they had never visited before. Observing, that, of two rivers whose mouths w^ere not far asunder, one was regularly frequented at the spawning season by the fish, of which none were found in the other, he was struck with the notion that the herrings were directed by some secret instinct to spawTi in the same channel where they were originally hatched ; and verified this conjecture by catching some of them, and depositing their spawn, which he extracted, in * "-The anniversary of the establishment of this society was celebrated with much solemnity in the year 1753. In the afternoon, about three hundred young female spinsters, decently dressed, appeared on the common at their spinning-wheels. The weavers also appeared cleanly dressed in garments of their own weaving. One of them, working at a loom on a stage, was carried on men's shoulders, attended with music. An immense number of specta- tors was present." Holmes. A spectacle far more interesting to a benevolent and philosophic mind than a tilt or tournament. 2 Belknap. Minot. Holmes. A theatre was at last established in Boston in the year 1794, Holmes. But the'ancient spirit and manners of New England, though expelled from this sanc- tuary, still continued to flourish among the sober and prosperous citizens of Salem ; and when the manager of the Boston theatre applied to the proprietors of the market-house of Salem for leave to exhibit a dramatic entertainment in the upper story of this building, he was informed by them in reply, that they would sooner set it on fire. Dwight. In Connecticut, perhaps the most moral and happy of the North American States, theatrical performances continued to be prohibited by law m the commencement of the nineteenth century. Ibid. 208 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. the bed of the neglected river, which from thence afforded a plentiful sup- ply of fish.i In this simple, ingenious, and useful experiment we recognize the parentage of Benjamin Franklin's understanding, the qualities by whose early impress the foundations of his mind were laid and the bent of his genius imparted. In the New England States, as well as in the other provinces of America, the general simplicity of manners, and the facility of supporting a family, rendered celibacy exceedingly rare, and promoted early marriages.^ The value of life was increased, and sentiments of patriotism were cherished, by the general diffusion of a substantial and respectable happiness. A numerous offspring was prized as a treasure, not dreaded as an incumbrance ; and re- gard for the public welfare combined with motives of domestic felicity in prompting to the multiplication of a happy race. Kalm has preserved a list, extracted from American newspapers, of cases that occurred in Penn- sylvania, New Jersey, and New England, illustrative of the most obvious and interesting effect of this state of society, • — the great number of their own descendants by which many of the colonists beheld themselves sur- rounded. From this and from other accounts it appears to have been not uncommon for parents to see their progeny amount to sixty, seventy, or eighty persons. Sometimes a hundred persons vvere assembled in the house, and entertained at the table of their common pregenitor. Various cases oc- curred of individuals who beheld their children, grandchildren, great- grandchildren, and also the offspring of these last, to the number of two, three, and sometimes more than five, hundred souls. ^ Doubtless, a beneficial effect on human character and disposition was pro- duced by this great extension of parental feeling and family ties. An aged New England er, living in a small town or in the country, could hardly cast his eyes on a group of persons in which he would not recognize a kinsman. It was common in New Hampshire, says Belknap, to see three generations tilling the ground in the same field. Whenever the son of a New Hamp- shire farmer could build a log-house, he bethought himself of marrying ; and the young women of the province willingly embraced the early offers of these swains to promote them to the management of a household and a dairy. A frugal and industrious farmer was easily able to provide set- tlements for his elder sons, and furnish them with the means of supporting themselves ; he commonly bequeathed the paternal farm to the youngest son, who continued to reside with him and support his declining years. A great deal of fellow-feeling and cordial warmth of neighbourly regard prevailed in all quarters of New England. When a farmer's house was burned, it ______ ^ The general effect produced by the early marriages of the Americans on human manners, character, and constitution is a very curious, and, as far as I know, unexplored, subject of in- quiry. Franklin wrote a well known essay on early marriages ; but it contains no observations on the experience of his own country, and is entirely speculative and conjectural. Some ob- servations far more valuable and interesting upon this subject occur in Moheau's Recherches sur la Population de la France. Williams, the historian of Vermont, asserts that the early mar- riages of the Americans prove remarkably conducive to domestic happiness and the general welfare of society. Young people marry, not because they possess a competent estate, but because they know that they can procure it ; and their choice, undepraved by pride or ambi- tion, is determined solely by love and esteem. Other writers have maintained that the early marriages of the Americans are prejudicial to the growth and improvement, bodily and mental, of the human frame. ^ Kalm. Belknap. Dwight's Travels. Hutchinson, Jinnuol Register for 1761 and for 1763. In the commencement of the nineteenth century, Dwight met with a New Englander who had seen his descendants amount in number to more than 1,500. CHAP. II.] ORIGIN OF VERMONT. ^ 209 was a sacred and inviolable law of kindness among his neighbours, that they should unite to assist him in building and stocking a new one. A less amiable, though very natural sentiment, that generally prevailed at this time among the people of New England, was a strong detestation of the Indian race, whose ravage and cruelty in war they had so often ex- perienced. The comparative humanity which the Indians displayed in the late war conduced very little, if at all, to soften the animosity with which they were regarded by the colonists. In New Hampshire and the eastern parts of Massachusetts, many persons openly protested, that these savages, having conducted their hostilities after the example of wild beasts or robbers, were not entitled to the common privileges of humanity, and ought not to be suffered to shelter themselves from the punishment of their crimes by treaties which they never observed any farther than accorded with their own con- venience, interest, or caprice. Several Indians were killed and wounded after the peace ; and the provincial governments, having vainly endeavoured to bring the perpetrators of these outrages to justice, exerted themselves more successfully to pacify the injured tribes by liberal presents and profes- sions of regret. Soon after the termination of the late war, many persons applied to Ben- ning Wentworth, the governor of New Hampshire, for grants of land in the western part of this province. Wentworth, presuming that New Hampshire ought to extend as far westward as Massachusetts, assigned to these appli- cants, in the year 1749, a township, six miles square, which received the name of Bennington, and was situated twenty-four miles eastward of Hud- son's River, and six miles northward of the line of Massachusetts. For sev- eral years after, he continued, under the same supposition, to confer grants of land on the western side of Connecticut River. The settlements which afterwards ensued from these transactions gave rise to much controversy be- tween New Hampshire and New York, — by which the jurisdiction of the territory was disputed, — and to the most violent disputes between the planters of the territory and the government of New York. These settle- ments were for several years distinguished by the name of The JSTew Hamp- shire Grants, and in process of time expanded into that flourishing com- munity which was subsequently formed into the separate province of Ver- mont.^ A dissension which arose in Massachusetts in the year 1749 resembled in its commencement, though not in its issue, the more famous controversy that occurred some time after in the parent state between the British House of Commons and the electors of Middlesex in relation to the celebrated demagogue, John Wilkes. Allen, a member of the provincial assembly, having vented some coarse disrespect against Governor Shirley, in one of his speeches, and decHned to make what the house considered a proper apol- ogy, was expelled from his seat for this instance of contumacy. His con- stituents, who were satisfied with the apology which he had tendered, in- stantly reelected him ; but the house declared that he was incapable of being chosen, and that the election was void. The people, however, were not dis- posed to sanction this assumed power of a single branch of the legislature to divest a citizen of his political rights. Allen was again elected ; and the house, though it had attempted to control, no longer presumed to resist, ' Belknap. Williams's History of Vermont. See Note XL, at the end of the volume. VOL. II. 27 R* 210 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. the general determination, but admitted him without farther demur J The Massachusetts assembly so truly and substantially represented the sentiments and interests of the provincial population, that it could never regard the prevalence of deliberate popular will as a triumph over itself. In the year 1750, we remark a transaction in which the government of Connecticut betrayed a notable departure from those principles of justice and moderation by which the usual course of its policy was characterized. The boundary line between this province and Massachusetts had been finally as- certained in the year 1713 ; and on this occasion it was arranged, by general consent, that the towns of Woodstock, Somers, Suffield, and Enfield, though included by the course of the line within the territory of Connecti- cut, should yet remain subject to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, by whose people they were founded and reared ; and an equivalent was given for the soil, by an assignment of unoccupied lands within the province of Massa- chusetts. The government of Connecticut accepted this equivalent, and af- terwards sold the lands of which it consisted, and applied the price of them to the use of the colony. The inhabitants of the towns above mentioned were content to remain under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, till, in the course of the late war, they perceived that their taxes were much heavier than the corresponding burdens imposed on the people of Connecticut. At the close of the war, they conceived the idea of bettering their situation and evading their share of the contribution for liquidating the public debt of Mas- sachusetts, by transferring their allegiance to Connecticut ; and with this view petitioned the assembly of Connecticut to admit them within its juris- diction. Their apphcation was communicated to the government of Mas- sachusetts, which, remembering the unfortunate issue of its previous dis- putes with New Hampshire and Rhode Island, betrayed no small perplexity and hesitation, and, instead of vigorously asserting its rights, proposed a compromise. Encouraged by these symptoms of timidity, the inhabitants of Woodstock and the three other towns openly disclaimed submission to Massachusetts, and resisted the collectors of its provincial taxes. The assembly of Connecticut, perceiv^ing that Massachusetts was employing in- efficient and indecisive measures to reduce the towns to obedience, now openly countenanced their revolt, and at length, by a formal act, declared them united to the colony of Connecticut. It was urged, in defence of this proceeding, that the inhabitants of the four towns derived from the original provincial charter an indefeasible right to the jurisdiction of Connecticut, of which the legislature of this province was incompetent to deprive them, and of which the race of inhabitants in 1750 could not be divested by the act of their predecessors in 1713. Upon this specious pretext Connecticut supported her claim ; and yielding, without reserve, to the suggestions of that interested policy to which she had unworthily listened, retained her usurped jurisdiction, without even offering to restore the equivalent formerly accepted for its renunciation, or making the slightest compensation of any kind to Massachusetts.^ ' Minot. ' Trumbull. Hutchinson. " I may very justly repeat," says Hutchinson, " the observation formerly made in a controversy between these two colonies, that communities or bodies of men are capable jointly of such acts as, being the act of any one member separately, would cause him to be ashamed." This is a favorite sentiment of Hutchinson, whose own most interest- ing experience was that of an individual opposed to communities or bodies of men. Trumbull's account of this matter is very unsatisfactory. The patriotic partiality of this wor- thy man seems to have rendered it very difficult, if not impossible, for him to believe that the CHAP. II.] GERMAN EMIGRANTS IN MASSACHUSETTS. 211 The invitation tendered to foreign Protestants, in 1749, by the assembly of Massachusetts, having induced a number of Germans to repair to this province, some popular and enterprising colonists were led to conceive the hope of enriching themselves and benefiting their country by transporting an additional number of German emigrants, and with their assistance laying the foundation of manufacturing establishments in New England. The pro- jection of this scheme was by no means creditable to the sagacity of its authors ; and the measures which ensued on it left a stain on their own and their country's honor. Instead of undertaking the enterprise simply as indi- viduals, they proposed to render the assembly a party to it, and by their influence were unfortunately successful in inducing this body to entertain a correspondence with one Luther, a counsellor at law and a purveyor of em- igrants in Germany. This correspondence, which commenced in mutual misapprehension, was productive of disappointment and disgrace. The as- sembly had intended to take no farther part in the project than might serve to forward the views of the individuals by whom the experiment was planned ; but Luther, and his countrymen, whom he persuaded to emigrate to Mas- sachusetts, were induced to consider the assembly as principals in the negotiation, and pledged to insure the full measure of recompense and ad- vantage by the proposition of which the emigrants were attracted. The private undertakers of the scheme made an attempt, with the assistance of these emigrants, to found a manufacturing town at Braintree, near Boston ; but finding the experiment not likely to succeed, they yielded to the first discouragement, abandoned their views and their German associates, and de- clined to fulfil engagements, w^hich, though equitably due from themselves alone, their artifice or timidity had contrived, in appearance, to fasten upon the representative assembly of their country. But the assembly was not disposed to acknowledge such liability, and entirely repudiated the trans- action thus unexpectedly deserted by its original promoters. Governor Shirley, at this time, was in Europe ; having been appointed to act as one of the commissaries on the part of Britain, for arranging with France the limits of Nova Scotia ; but Phips, the lieutenant-governor, and several of the provincial counsellors and representatives, who regarded the honor of their country as inseparable from its interests, strenuously urged the assembly to pay the penalty of its negligence, and to fulfil the obligations, in which, whether dehberately or unadvisedly, it had been unfortunately in- volved. Their urgency was ineffectual. The assembly neither recognized its own responsibility to the claims of the emigrants, nor enforced satisfac- tion of them from the individuals by whom it had been entrapped into this dis- agreeable predicament. Luther, who had incurred a considerable expense, was unable to obtain the slightest indemnification ; and the emigrants, bitterly lamenting their disappointment, were left to shift as they best could for themselves.^ This faulty passage in the history of Massachusetts (to which a parallel has already appeared in the annals of New York, in 1737) sug- gests to the citizens and politicians of a republic the propriety of cultivating with peculiar care a nice sense of strict and continuous responsibility to the people of Connecticut, in a dispute with their neighbours, could ever be in the wrong. But the great end of history can never be answered by disguising or suppressing the errors into which exemplary men and virtuous communities may have been betrayed. The caution suggested by the frailties, no less than the emulation inspired by the virtues, of their forefathers is a valuable part of the inheritance of a nation ; and history, which is the testament of time, should record with fidelity every particular of his bequest. ' ' Hutchinson. 212 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. -principles of honor ; without which, absohite power is divested of an impor- tant and salutary restraint, and regard to national interest is but selfishness exerted on an extended scale. When the indissoluble connection between the moraHty and the happiness of nations, as well as of individuals, shall be generally recognized, politics will become a generous science, and institu- tions of government the schools of every virtue. Few particulars have been transmitted of the condition of Virginia and Maryland at this period. Of the entire population of Virginia, the only ac- counts, or rather estimates, that have been preserved, are manifestly and absurdly erroneous. Warden, for instance, asserts that it amounted, in the year 1749, to eighty -five thousand persons. And yet, from Jefferson's lists, it appears that the tithable inhabitants alone (that is, the white men above the age of sixteen, and the negro slaves, male and female, above the same age) amounted, in the year 1748, to 82,100. The population of Maryland, which, at the close of the seventeenth century, amounted to about thirty thousand persons, was found, in the year 1755, to have ad- vanced to 153,564, including 42,764 negro slaves, 3,592 mulattoes, 6,870 voluntary indented servants, and 1,981 transported felons. More than two thousand negro slaves were annually imported into Maryland alone. In these, and the other Southern States where slaves abounded, much greater inequalities of condition were now visible among the planters, than in the more northern States, where, though slavery was tolerated, its actual prev- alence was not extensive. Some of the planters of Virginia and Mary- land possessed, each, no fewer than five hundred slaves ; and one Maryland planter possessed as many as thirteen hundred. Inequality of condition, pro- moted by the institution of entails, which had prevailed for some time in Vir- ginia, generated in this province a class of aristocrats or patricians, who were regarded with considerable jealousy by the humbler but more numerous order of farmers or yeomen. The wealthy planters were generally unac- quainted with business, which they disdained to study or pursue, and devoted to amusement ; and the greater part of the commerce of Virginia was con- ducted by adventurers from Scotland,^ who, in many instances, found it easy to acquire considerable fortunes. It was in the Southern States that Toryism, w^hich, in America, signified a predilection for royal prerogative and an admiration of aristocracy and hereditary distinctions, possessed the most numerous votaries. There was none of the States, however, in which a party, more or less numerous, of this class of thinkers was not to be found. Probably there has never ex- isted a single community of men, in the world, entirely pervaded by the love of liberty ; a sentiment which can never prevail in its highest force, or merit the name of a generous passion, except when united with the virtues of self-denial, humanity, moderation, and justice. In servile senti- ments and practices there is much to flatter the natural inclinations of mankind ; to obey accommodates the indolence — to corrupt, and be cor- rupted, the avarice and ambition — of human nature. To regard with pecu- liar veneration one or a few individuals, lifted up by general consent and ' I have been informed by my lather, a native of Glasgow, in Scotland, that in his boyhood, which was prior to the American Revolution, it was common to hear adventurous lads in Glasgow say, " I will go out to Virginia." Many did actually go as storekeepers for mercan- tile houses m Glasgow, and in time became partners in these houses. Every planter bought his foreign commodities at one particular store, and consigned the produce of his plantation to the mercantile house in the parent state connected with this store. Glasgow engrossed at least a half of the North American trade, prior to the Revolution. CHAP. II.] THE OHIO COMPANY. 213 homage to a vast, though fanciful, superiority over the rest of mankind, ministers gratification to every shade and intermixture of human pride, vanity, and idolatry. Even in Pennsylvania, and in the bosom of a humble Qua- ker family, we find about this time the most ardent admiration of royalty expressed by the celebrated Benjamin West, then a young lad, and for many years after a Quaker, who declared, as a reason for choosing the occupation of a painter, " that a painter was a companion for kings and em- perors ; and that, although none of these dignitaries were to be found in America, there were plenty of them in other parts of the world." Nay, we are told that the grave, sagacious, Puritan father of Dr. Franklin, who had himself emigrated from the hemisphere of royalty, used to stimulate the industry of his son by reminding him (with literal application of the words of Scripture) , that a man who is diligent in his calling may hope to stand before kings, and to outgrow the gross fellowship of men of low de- gree.i In 1749, General Gooch resigned the government of Virginia, and re- turned to England, honored with the regret and benediction of a people over whom he had presided for twenty-two years. He received the dig- nity of a baronet from the crown in recompense of his services ; and, till the end of his fife, preserved a friendly correspondence with the Virginians. There was formed in the same year an association, composed of certain London merchants trading to Virginia and Maryland, and of a number of wealthy Virginian planters, which assumed the name of the Ohio Company, and obtained from the crown a grant of six hundred thousand acres of land adjacent to the river Ohio, together with a patent conferring the privilege of exclusive trade with the Indian tribes on the banks of that river. One object of this association was to undertake the execution of the politic scheme that had been suggested by Governor Spottiswoode, and to form settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains, and connections of com- merce with the Indians, which might stem the progress of the French occu- pations. Various grants of land in the same quarter were made soon after by the Virginian government to private adventurers, who were required to abstain from all encroachment on the privileges and possessions of the Ohio Company. The measures adopted by this company, in furtherance of the great designs which it undertook, were conducted with extreme impru- dence. The Indian tribes adjacent to the scene of its projected settle- ments were so unfavorably disposed towards the French, that a very little attention to justice and courtesy on the part of the directors of the company might have secured to it their friendship and assistance. But the directors, without ever soliciting the permission of the Indians or ofi^ering to purchase their rights to the soil, despatched agents to survey and assume possession of stations that might appear to them suitable to the company's purposes. These agents, too, whether of their own accord or in compliance with in- structions from their superiors, dechned at first to specify the purpose of their operations, and answered the inquiries of the Indians in a dark, myste- rious manner, which excited the deepest alarm in their inquisitive and sus- picious minds. The private traders of Virginia and Pennsylvania, who had begun to penetrate into this region and obtain a share of its commerce, were disgusted when they learned the exclusive privileges which „\ere ' History of the British Dominions in America. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia. Warden. Win's Life of Henry. Winterbotham. GslIVs Life of tVest. Franklin's jlfemoirs. Holmes. 214 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. conferred on the company, and studiously fomented the jealousy which the Indians had already conceived.^ Thus inauspiciously commenced the first systematic attempt of the English to check the rapid strides of the French dominion in America. That the French would take umbrage at the estab- lishment and projects of the Ohio Company was easily foreseen ; and with such a prospect, nothing could be more imprudent than the policy which aroused so much additional enmity and opposition. We have already adverted^ to the condition which South Carolina and Georgia had attained at this period. The population of North Carolina, w^hich in the year 1710 amounted to six thousand persons, had in 1749 advanced to forty-three thousand. In this year a circumstance occurred, which was the means of introducing shortly after into North Carolina a considerable number of the most pious and industrious emigrants who had resorted to America since the first colonization of New England. The Moravian brethren had now formed large and flourishing settlements in Pennsylvania, where they pursued their secular occupations and their mis- sionary enterprises with a success which kindled the emulation and attracted the resort of increasing numbers of their fellow-sectaries from Europe. A troop of these intending emigrants, admonished by the experience of their friends in Georgia, and informed, perhaps, of the controversy that prevailed in Pennsylvania respecting a military establishment, petitioned the British government for some pledge that a departure from their principles would not be required from them in America. An act of parliament^ was accordingly passed in 1749, admitting the affirmation of Moravians in America as equiv- alent to an oath, and discharging them from liability to perform military service. This transaction, in which the Earl of Granville, who was then president of the council, took a share as a minister of state, naturally at- tracted his consideration as a proprietor of American territory. He con- ceived the hope of inducing a body of these peaceable and industrious men to colonize the large and almost vacant domain which was reserved to his family on the dissolution of the proprietary system in Carolina ; and so suc- cessful were his negotiations for this purpose with the Moravian deputies who came to England to solicit the pledge of the British government, that very soon after a detachment of Moravians repaired from the principal station of the society at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, to North Carolina, where they founded a settlement to which they gave the name of Bethabara. They were subsequently joined by accessions of their sectarian associates, both from other parts of America and from Europe; and formed a society (says the historian of this province) which set an excellent example of the virtues of industry and terhperance, and seemed, in spite of Indian wars and other adverse circumstances, to enjoy as much happiness as the lot of humanity admits. From North Carolina there were exported in the year 1753 upwards of sixty thousand barrels of tar, twelve thousand barrels of pitch, ten thousand barrels of turpentine, and about thirty thousand deer- skins, besides lumber and other commodities.^ ' Smollett. Holmes. Burk. " This project," says Biirk, " afforded the justesl uneasiness and offence to the natives, who saw that even the wilderness, whither they had retired, did not save them from the rapacity of their invaders. Their right to the lands might have been purchased for a small sum, prudently expended in nails, paints, blankets, and hatchets." The occupations of the French, consisting of bounded military positions, instead of spreading settlements, excited less jealousy in the Indians. « Pook IX., ante. 3 22 George II., Cap. 30. * Warden. Williamson. Holmes. CHAP. II.] SCIENCE AND LITERATURE IN AMERICA. 215 There assembled in 1751, at Albany, a convention consisting of Clinton, the governor of New York, commissioners appointed by the governments of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Carolina, and deputies who represented the Indian confederacy of the Six Nations. Bull, the commissioner from South Carolina, was attended to this congress by the king and other chiefs of the Catawba tribe or nation of Indians, between whom and the Six Nations a long and bloody war had prevailed. A peace was now concluded between these savage beUigerents, by the mediation of their civilized allies.^ In conformity with an act of parliament adjudging the correction of the existing calendar, the new style of chronological computation was introduced in the year 1752 into the American provinces and every other part of the British dominions. From this time, the year, instead of beginning on the 25th of March, was computed from the first day of January. The third day of September was now dated the fourteenth ; and a consistent change harmonized the reckoning of all the other days of the year. This refor- mation of the calendar, rendered necessary by the precession of the equi- nox, was decreed by Pope Gregory the Thirteenth in 1582 ; but though his decretal was readily obeyed in all countries where the Catholic faith prevailed, the Protestants had hitherto indulged an aversion to admit so im- portant an innovation, which seemed to reflect credit on the wisdom and authority of the Roman pontiff.^ It was in the same year, that Dr. Frankhn, having discovered the analogy between lightning and electricity, verified this grand conjecture by an ex- periment which excited the applause and admiration of the civilized w^orld, and shed a brilliant ray of philosophic glory on his name, his country, and his age.^ The metaphysical and- theological writings of Jonathan Ed- wards contributed about the same time to elevate the reputation of Ameri- can genius, and convinced the scholars of Europe that America had already given birth to philosophers worthy to be acknowledged as the instructors of the old world, as well as the new. Symptoms of a rising or increasmg regard for science and literature now began to appear in almost all the American provinces. The colleges of New England continued to flourish, and were enlarged ; libraries, academies, and philosophical societies arose in these States, and in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and South Carolina. The progress of scientific research in America was facilitated by the friendly counsel and aid which its votaries received from the most distinguished philosophers in Europe, — among whom Linnaeus, Sir Hans Sloane, and Peter Collinson^ deserve an especial and honorable commemoration. A taste for the study of botany and zoology was awakened in America by Mark Catesby, the English naturalist, who visited South Carolina in 1722, and, nine years after, published at London his J^atural History of Carolina and Florida. These walks of science, than which none are more closely allied with moral virtue and temperate use of life, were now cultivated with ardor and success by Colden, an inhabitant, and afterwards lieutenant governor, of New York, Glover and Clayton, Virginian planters. Garden, a physician in South Carolina, and other learned and intelligent men ; but by none with greater genius and celebrity than John Bartram, a Pennsylvanian ' Drayton. Holmes. s Smollett. Holmes. ^ Franklin's Memmrs. " With Franklin, grasp the lightning's fiery wing." — Campbell. * See Note XH., at the end of the volume. 216 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. Quaker and farmer, whom Linnaeus pronounced to be "the greatest natural botanist in the world." Bartram established the first botanical garden in iVmerica, and, in pursuit of his favorite study, performed numerous jour- neys with unwearied vigor and dauntless courage, among the fiercest and most jealous of the Indian tribes. At the age of seventy he travelled through East Florida, in order to explore its natural productions, and af- terwards pubhshed a journal of his observations. And yet withal, he sup- ported a numerous family by his own personal labor as a farmer. He was a pious and benevolent man, and gave liberty to the only slave he pos- sessed, and who gratefully remained with him as a voluntary servant. He was elected a member of the most illustrious societies and academies in Europe ; and, before his death, received the appointment of American botanist to the British king.^ Some proficiency in mathematics and astronomy ^ had already been evinced by the Americans. John Winthrop, a native of Boston, and now professor of mathematics in Harvard College, was a man of profound research and extensive learning. He was highly respected by the philosophers of Europe, and published a treatise upon comets, which gained him much celebrity. Thomas Godfrey, of Philadelphia, a self-taught mathematician, the Pascal of America, invented about this time the instrument which, by a misnomer mjurious to his fame, passes under the name of Hadley's quadrant. David Rittenhouse, of Pennsylvania, with no preceptor but his genius, and no as- sistant but his labor, had now begun those philosophical researches, in the course of which he was led for a time to believe himself the first author of the sublime invention of fluxions, and subsequently gained high repute as an astronomer, and the inventor of the American orrery. This remarkable man occupied originally a very humble station ; and in his youth, while conducting a plough, usually traced on its handles his mathematical calcula- tions. William Douglass, a physician in Boston, was celebrated for his pro- ficiency in mathematics, and, in 1744, published an ingenious almanac enti- tled JVIercurius Anglicanus. He is more generally known as the author of the historical and statistical work published a few years after under the title of A Summary of the British Settlements in America, and which, together with many faults, contains a great deal of valuable information. He was a Scotchman by birth, and had emigrated to New England, where he died in 1753. Thomas Prince, a native and minister of Boston, published, in 1736, the first volume of a work which he entitled The Chronological His- tory of J^ew England. He was a man of superior genius, and by intensely laborious study had accumulated a vast stock of knowledge ; but by under- taking too much, he fell short of the execution of his design in this work, which was never completed. His introductory epitome, which cost him im- mense labor, begins at the creation of the world. He died in 1758. * His taste and genius were inherited by his son, William Bartram, author of the interest- ing Travels in Carolina^ Georgia., and Florida. Some prospect appeared, at one time, of a diligent and successful cultivation of natural his- tory in Canada, under the auspices of the Marquis de la Galissoniere, who for a short period was governor of this province. " Galissoniere," says Kalm, who visited him in 1749, "re- minded me of our own Linnaeus. When he spoke of the use of natural history, and of its subservience to national greatness, I was astonished to hear him deduce his reasons from politics, as well as science and philosophy." Kalm. The third volume of Kalm's work con- tains many curious particulars illustrative of the state of society and manners in Canada. * America will probably be distinguished hereafter by the pursuit of astronomical observa- tion. A letter which I have seen from Benjamin Franklin to Dr. (Sir William) Herschel af- firms, that, from the superior clearness of its atmosphere, the climate of America is more fa- vorable to this pursuit than the climate of Europe. CHAP. II.] SCIENCE AND LITERATURE IN AMERICA. 217 Stith, a professor in William and Mary College, published, in 1747, his History of Virginia, — a work to which we have already adverted.^ Tim- othy Cutler, Elisha Williams, and Thomas Clap, successively presidents of Yale College, in Connecticut, distinguished themselves by their attainments in classical and Oriental literature. Many other professors in the colleges of New England have been celebrated for their genius, taste, and superior erudition ; but the fame even of the most distinguished of these men rests more upon the testimony of their contemporaries, than on any literary mon- uments they have left behind them. Neither lay nor clerical teachers, in this country, possessed the leisure which the institutions of England have so long placed within the reach of a numerous body of studious men. Their lives were more active than speculative ; their chief business was not the replenishment of their own minds with a ceaseless accumulation of learn- ing, but the personal administration of the functions of tuition ; and they were expected to make proof of their superiority, rather by the moral and intellectual improvement of their pupils and congregations, than by sohtary compositions attesting their own pecuhar and transcendent attainments, — rather by enlarging the empire and influence, than by aggrandizing the bulk and advancing the boundaries of science. The growing appetite for knowl- edge, doubtless, created an increased demand for books on every subject ; but this demand was easily and copiously supplied from Europe. Theology and ecclesiastical controversy still continued to be the chief themes which the native literature of New England was employed to illustrate. Between the beginning and the middle of the eighteenth century, a great number of well educated men, and some persons of very high attainments in science and literature, repaired, among other emigrants, from Britain to America. It was a happy and memorable feature in the character of the American col- onists, and especially of the people of New England, that the work of tu- ition in all its branches was greatly honored among them, and that no civil functionary was regarded with more respect or crowned with more distinguished praise than a diligent and conscientious schoolmaster.^ We have already remarked the rise of newspapers in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. These pow- erful engines for the circulation of sentiment and opinion were established in the year 1745 in Maryland, and in 1755 in Connecticut.^ In the year 1753, there was published at Dublin, by Dr. James M'Sparran, who had (by appointment of the Bishop of London and a mis- sionary society in England) officiated for several years as a minister of the gospel in North America, a work bearing this unwieldy title : — America Dissected : being a full and true Account of all the American Colonies ; shewing the Intemperance of the Climates, excessive Heat and Cold, and sudden violent Changes of Weather, terrible and mischievous Thunder and Lightning, bad and unwholesome Air, destructive to human Bodies ; Bad- ness of Money, Danger from Enemies, but, above all. Danger to the Souls 1 Book I., Chap. III., ante. ' Kalm. Campbc'll. Miller's Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century. Eliot's JVew England Biography. Burk. Dwight's Travels. I was informed by an elegant and accomplished Vir- ginian lady, that, even so late as the close of the eighteenth century, it was customary for the daughters of the wealthiest planters in the province to be educated at day-schools taught by male preceptors, generally clergymen in years. She herself was educated in this manner. From the memoirs of Anthony Benezet, the Quaker philanthropist, it appears, that, after teach- ing boys during the greater part of his life, he became the schoolmaster of girls, in nis old age, in Pennsylvania. 3 Dwight. VOL. II. 28 » 218 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. of the poor People that remove thither.^ from the multifarious wicked and pestilent Heresies that prevail in those Parts. In several Letters from a Reverend Divine of the Church of England, Missionary to America and Doctor of Divinity ; published as a Caution to unsteady People who may be tempted to leave their native Country. The caution intended by this splenetic and intolerant partisan of the church of England must have operated beneficially to America, if it deterred persons of temper and understanding similar to his own from resorting to her soil. He decries the religious estate of all the provinces, but especially of Rhode Island, where he had chiefly resided, and where he represents the Quakers as then forming by far the most powerful class of the people, and engrossing all the functions of government. The only objects in America that obtain his praise, or, in- deed, escape his disapprobation, are the ecclesiastical assemblies on the model of the church of England, and the fine breed of horses for which Rhode Island was renowned. He reproaches the Rhode Islanders with an extreme addiction to lawsuits, — which, nevertheless, appear to have formed a principal part of his own occupation during his stay in the country. ^ CHAPTER III. View of the colonial Dominion and Policy of Britain and France in America. — Renewal of Disputes between the French and English Colonists. — Hostilities on the Virginian Fron- tier. — Benjamin Franklin — his Plan for a Federal -Union of the American Provinces. — Discontents in Virginia — North Carolina — and New York. — Preparations of France and Britain for W^ar. We have seen the American colonies of France and England repeat- edly involved in wars which originated between their respective parent states, and of which the causes were ministered by European interests and quarrels. It seemed, on these occasions, that the colonial hostilities were but secondary movements, accessory and subordinate to the main current of affairs in a distant channel ; and that the repose of America depended chiefly on the temper and relations subsisting between the governments and the nations of Europe. We are now to enter upon a different scene, representing a war which was kindled by collisions arising in America, and of which the flames, first breaking forth in this region, progressively extended to Europe, and were not quenched till their devouring rage had been felt in every quar- ter of the globe. [1752.] Even in the previous scenes of warfare which occurred in North America, it was manifest that the French and British colonists were animated by stronger passion than mere dutiful sympathy with the contemporary quarrels of the distant empires to which they were politically attached. Both the last war, and the preceding one in the reign of Queen Anne, though in formal semblance but the extensions of European strife, were preceded and prepared by disputes of American birth ; and the intervening contest between New England and the Indian allies of France * Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society. Britain has furnished numerous suc- cessors to Dr. M'Sparran in the task, so grateful to royalist and patrician predilections, of heaping censure and detraction on America and her people. Oi the calumnies vented by these writers an admirable exposition and refutation may be found in Mr. Walsh's Jipjpeal from the Judgments of Great Britain respecting the United States of .America. CHAP. Ill] COLLISIONS OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 219 was substantially a war carried on between the French and English col- onists, at a time when peace subsisted between their respective parent states. The causes of enmity, dispute, and collision, which had been mul- tiplying for many years between the two European races by which the colonization of North America was principally shared, were now hastening to a complete maturity, and threatened this great continent with a signal rev- olution of empire, as the result of a decisive struggle of France and Eng- land for its sole dominion. Of this struggle the power which had introduced despotic monarchy and hereditary nobility into America was fated to be the victim. But had the rival state been gifted with more political fore- sight, she would hardly have suffered either ambition or resentment to precipitate her upon a conquest, of which the manifest effect was to con- vert France from the interested supporter of the ascendency of Europe over America, into the vindictive patron of American independence. Had either or both of the contending monarchs perceived how injurious their collision must prove to the interests of royalty, surely the war which we are now approaching would never have broken out, and human prudence would have intercepted that mighty stream of events, which, commencing with the con- quest of Canada, and issuing in the independence of North America, and the impulse thereby communicated to the spirit of liberty and revolution throughout all the world, has so wonderfully displayed the dominion of Su- preme Wisdom and Beneficence over the senseless, selfish, and malignant passions of men. When we consider the vast extent of the North American continent, even now ^ but partially replenished with inhabitants and subdued by culti- vation, we are led to inquire with surprise how it was possible that so early as the middle of the eighteenth century a practical collision should have arisen between the pretensions of the French and English colonists. That two colonial societies, which had not yet existed a hundred and fifty years, — which formed but an inconsiderable fraction of the total population of the empires to which they respectively belonged, and yet possessed terri- tories far exceeding the dimensions of the parent states, and utterly dis- proportioned to any power of cultivation which for centuries they could hope to exert, — that these colonies, I say, during the course of their brief existence, should have been repeatedly engaged in sanguinary wars, and should already, from conflicting schemes of poHcy, have reached a crisis at which the conquest of the one was deemed requisite to the security of the other, is not the least remarkable instance recorded in history of the boundless range of human ambition, and of the total inadequacy of the largest possessions to impart contentment or satiate cupidity. Another in- stance, illustrative of these considerations, has been already exhibited to our view in the history of the Dutch and Swedish colonists of New York and Delaware. While these territories respectively possessed but a hand- ful of inhabitants, and afforded an almost boundless scope to the peaceful and profitable labors of colonization, the two infant communities regarded each other with jealous hatred and fear, and plunged into hostilities of which the aggressor was the victim. But in addition to considerations ap- plicable to every portion and community of the human race, there are others derived from the national character, sentiments, and temper of the French and English, which contribute to account for the early and violent col- lision between their colonial establishments in America. ' This was written in the year 1828. 220 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. The claim preferred by Edward the Third of England to the throne of France, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, seems to have given the first occasion to that mutual animosity between the French and English people, which, nourished by a succession of national disputes, broke forth into numberless wars, and produced a greater effusion of blood than attended the rivalry of the Greeks and Persians, or of the Romans and Carthaginians. It has been affirmed by a great philosophic historian ^ that this antipathy was cherished in a far stronger degree by the English than by the French, whose position in the middle of Europe involved them in a greater variety of hos- tile relations than the English, and mitigated the force of national hatred by multiplying the channels in which it flowed. Perhaps a juster consideration will account that the reciprocal animosities of the two nations were substan- tially much less disproportioned than this writer has been willing to suppose. More sincerity and consistent principle mingled with the sentiments of the Enghsh ; more politic address and artifice regulated the passions of the French. The English were the most apt to suspect and to threaten injury ; the French were the least prompt to profess enmity, and the least re- strained by honor and good faith from indulging in it.^ But even supposing this estimate erroneous, as perhaps it is, and that an unequal degree of ani- mosity subsisted between the subjects of France and England in Europe, their relative position in America was calculated to restore at once the balance of mutual dislike, and to fortify every unfriendly sentiment which they imported from their respective parent states.^ The English now be- came the nearest and the most formidable neighbours of the French, whose passions, discharged from participation in the pohtics of Europe, had leisure to unite their strength in a single channel ; while, to the British colonists in general, and especially to the people of New England, who were most ap- proximated to Canada and Nova Scotia, the religious faith and civil policy of the French were objects of greater aversion than to any class of the domestic population of Great Britain. Institutions more purely democratical subsisted, and liberty flourished with greater vigor, in the British colonies than in Britain ; while a stricter system of despotism prevailed in the French colonies than in France. The Enghsh colonists stigmatized the French as idolaters, and the French de- nounced the English as heretics. The English despised the French as slaves ; while the French, attached to arbitrary power, and sharing all its prejudices, regarded with aversion the rival principle of liberty which was cherished by the Enghsh.'* The mutual enmity of the French and Enghsh colonists was farther promoted by their competitions to gain a monopoly of the trade and good- will of a variety of Indian tribes, all of which were en- gaged in frequent wars, and expected that their quarrels should be espoused by their friends ; and some of which had the sagacity to perceive that the * Hume. 2 France, even when her councils were guided by Richelieu, aided and encouraged the Scottish Covenanters, the most determined enemies of the Catholic faith and of unlimited monarchy, to resist Charles the First. Louis the Fourteenth, even while he was oppressing the Protestants in France, and encouraging Charles the Second to pursue arbitrary power in England, maintained a correspondence with the English politicians who were opposed to Charles's tyrannical designs, and who abetted the prosecutions for the Popish Plot. 3 We might suppose that Kalm, the traveller, was describing the provincial manners of Eng- land, when he relates that he was followed and hooted by the children in the streets of Alba- ny, because his hair was dressed in a style which was reckoned characteristic of a Frenchman. * " We are well aware," said Demosthenes to the Thebans, " of that inextinguishable hatred which kings and the slaves of kings have ever felt towards nations which have plumed themselves on being free." Freinshemius's Supplement to Quintus CurtiuSj Book I. CHAP. III.] COLLISIONS OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 221 mutual jealousy and estrangement of the two European races would be fa- vorable to the independence and authority of the Indians. The seeds of controversy between the French and English colonists were thus sown with the earliest settlements which they formed in America ; and between two nations so strongly prepossessed against each other the actual collision was rather hastened than retarded by the prodigious extent of vacant territory which sui^^unded their settlements, and naturally prevented an early and amicable adjustment of boundaries. Conflicting pretensions and territorial disputes were prepared from the first by the indefinite and extravagant charters or grants of land, which the French and English monarchs, ignorant or regardless of each other's proceedings, severally conferred on their sub- jects ; and these disagreements, which various occasions had already par- tially developed, were now brought to an early but full maturity by the progress of that ambitious system of colonial enterprise which for many years the French had actually pursued. The models of conduct and policy exhibited in the settlements of the two races of colonists differed as widely as their local positions in America, and strikingly illustrated the distinctive traits in the characters of the parent nations from which they were respectively derived. The English were in possession of the seacoast of North America, of the harbours and the mouths of rivers ; and some, but only a very few, of their settlements were actually extended as far as a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles into the interior of the country. The French were not in possession of any part of the sea- coast or of any harbours on the continent, but had made settlements on the banks of the two great rivers St. Lawrence and Mississippi, of which the sources are not far apart, and which, running respectively northeast and south, formed a line almost parallel to the seaward position of the English. These settlements of the two nations afforded an extent of territory suffi- cient to absorb for centuries the most copious emigrations from France and England ; and if the two races of planters had confined their enterprises to the avowed purpose and reasonable process of colonization, — to the cul ture and subjugation of those uncultivated wastes and forests which they either appropriated as vacant, forcibly seized, or fairly purchased from the savage proprietors, — we should still have been separated by a long interval from the time when their interests could possibly have clashed or interfered with each other. The natural employment of the colonists of America was agriculture, with the addition of a confined range of commerce ; and this was the line of action which the English pursued. Their main object was to plant and cultivate, to subdue the land by the axe, to rule it by the plough, and to clothe it with flocks ; and they never removed from the seacoasts to the interior of the country, but when they were straitened for room in the situations which they had primarily adopted. They occupied no remote or distant posts, and made no settlements but such as were capable of being maintained and supported by the natural condition of their affairs and inter- course of their people. Adhering to this policy, it was impossible that they could ever be justly charged with encroachments on the possessions of the French ; and had the conduct of the latter people been regulated by the same maxims, many centuries must have elapsed before the two nations could have been, properly speaking, even neighbours to each other in these vast and desert regions. But quite the reverse of this was the procedure of the French. The fa- 222 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. vorite object of their policy was rather extended dominion than industrious settlement and improved plantation ; and they were less attentive to the erection of agricultural or mercantile habitations than of military forts. With an ambitious latitude of grasp, they occupied and fortified posts at a prodigious distance from each other, as well as from the two provincial capitals, and in situations where they could be maintained only by elaborate and unnatural exertions of power and policy, and were but little subservient§to the pur- poses of commerce, and still less of agriculture. The British colonists were peaceable farmers and traders ; and the progress of their settlements was the natural growth of diligent and continuous cultivation. The French conducted themselves rather as roving and ambitious adventurers than as industrious settlers ; and the aggrandizement of their domains was the effect of aspiring, irregular, and impetuous enterprise. Beholding with alarmed rivalry the slow but sure and steady progress of the British col- onies in culture, population, and commerce, and instigated by envy and am- bition to dread already the increase of a power which was likely to be the more confirmed and stable because it employed no violent or irregular means of accelerating its advancement, the French had long pursued measures of which the object was to intercept the farther growth of the British settle- ments, and to confine them within a narrow range, extending only a few leagues from the seacoast. With this object they combined the design of gaining possession of one of the English harbours on the Atlantic ocean, ^ for the commercial benefit of the vast interior districts to which they laid claim, and which possessed no other maritime communication but the mouths of two rivers, neither of which afforded a convenient navigation. In prosecu- tion of their poHtic views, they studied to connect their two colonies of Can- ada and Louisiana by a chain of forts from Quebec to New Orleans, — an operation, which, though quite inappropriate to the ends of colonization, might yet have been accounted justifiable, had the new positions they as- sumed been restricted to the banks of the two great rivers, or the territory immediately adjacent to them. But, not contented with this, they advanced their military settlements so near the English frontier, and (with still more significant indication of their purpose) to so great a distance from any of their own colonies, with such vast tracts of land, either desert or inhabited by hostile savages, intervening between them, that a bare inspection of the map of America is sufficient to demonstrate the aggrandizing aim of this people, and the spirit of hostile encroachment by which they were actuated. The design of the French to restrict the growth of the British settle- ments was penetrated, as we have seen, by Spottiswoode, the governor of Virginia, as early as the year 1715 ; and but a few years later was distinctly perceived by Burnet, the governor of New York. But the representations of these politicians were disregarded by their countrymen, till experience de- monstrated what sagacity had anticipated in vain. The purpose of deliberate encroachment on the British settlements was manifested, in the year 1731, by the decisive measure of erecting the fort of Crown Point upon Lake Champlain, at a great distance from any other French estabhshment, and within the territory of the Six Nations, who were recognized by treaty as the alHes and under the protection of Britain. This daring intrusion upon the province of New York excited hardly any attention at the time, except from ^ Even as early as the reign of James the Second, and during the subsistence of peace be- tween France and England, De Callieres, a French officer, recommended to his countrymen the conquest of New York, which he insisted was " legitime par la necessite." W. Smith. CHAP. Ill] COLLISIONS OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 223 the government of Massachusetts, whose jealousy had been sharpened by many previous collisions with the French, and was kept alive by the nearer danger with which New England was menaced, of encroachment in the quarter of Nova Scotia. Before this province was finally conquered by Britain, or rather by the British colonists, during Queen Anne's War, the French endeavoured, by the extension of its boundaries, to check the ad- vance of the settlements of New England ; and even after it was surren- dered to Britain, at the peace of Utrecht, they pursued the same pohcy, by instigating the neighbouring Indians to assert pretensions opposed to the claims of the English, and by raising disputes with regard to the real mean- ing and extent of the cession which had been extorted from themselves. They still pretended right to a part of that territory of which the English reasonably understood that the whole was ceded ; and these pretensions were rendered the more dangerous by their concurrence with the sentiments of the French inhabitants of the territory confessedly ceded, and of the neighbouring Indians, as well as by the establishment which France was permitted to retain in the island of Cape Breton. The hostile attitude which the French force in America thus progressively assumed would long before the present period have provoked a decisive struggle for the sole dominion of this continent, if a corresponding spirit had been manifested by the rival power and people. But the British colonists, devoted to the pursuits of peaceful industry, were not easily aroused to military enterprise ; and their political views and solicitudes, as well as those of the parent state, were divided by the jealousies which they reciprocally entertained, — on the one hand, of encroaching sovereignty, — on the other, of relaxing submission and dependence. If the French, from the unready resistance and languid retorts which they experienced, reaped the political advantage of improving their military positions, they incurred the moral dis- advantage of rendering themselves more palpably the aggressors in an inevi- table quarrel ; while the British colonists derived all the benefit arising from the increase of their resources in peace, and from a sense of justice in the final appeal to arms. The British settlements far exceeded those of France in wealth and population ; and if the two races of colonists had engaged with equal vigor and determination in general hostilities, unaided by their respect- ive parent states, the issue of the contest could not long have been doubtful. But various circumstances tended to equalize the martial force which these rival colonies were capable of exerting, or, rather, to transfer the prepon- derance of active power to the French. The British were divided into a va- riety of commonwealths, separated from each other by religious diversities, as well as by distinct political constitutions, of which the independence was guarded with a vigilance of apprehension incident to the spirit of liberty ; and the only principle of union among them was their common jealousy of the parent state, — a sentiment which perplexed their politics, and tended rather to make the subjugation of their French neighbours appear additionally desirable, than to induce them to expend their own strength and resources upon this object. It was difficult to collect the force and energy of a peo- ple so circumstanced into one compact mass. In the French settlements no such principles of disunion had existence ; but a vigorous concert and simpHcity of purpose and action prevailed, — the result of a despotic regi- men congenial to the temper and sentiments of the people. No religious or political distinctions divided the several portions of the 224 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. French provincial commonwealth from each other ; and no encroachments upon charter privilegesj nor opposition to the exercise of disputed prerog- ative, relaxed the protecting and auxiliary energy of the sovereign, or the common ardor of the colonists for the promotion of his wishes and the en- largement of his empire and renown.^ The French colonists relied on, and received, much more Hberal aid from their parent state than did the English; and at the same time were more ready (generally speaking) to make ad- venturous exertions of their own unaided force in the national cause, with which all their pohtical ideas and sentiments were blended. Accustomed to prompt and implicit obedience to despotic power, the conformity between their civil habits and the system of military discipline rendered them always capable of being easily moulded into armies and employed as efficient in- struments of war and conquest. Undistracted either by internal jealousies and emulations, or by the nurture and defence of domestic liberty, their political ambition was confined to the single object of French glory and aggrandizement ; while, from their local situation, opposition to the colonial empire of England was the only sphere of action in which the pohtical en- mity and national prejudice of which they were susceptible could be ex- erted. The governors of Canada were generally soldiers of reputation, and were intrusted with the absolute regulation and superintendence of Indian affairs ; whereas the English governors frequently owed their appointments to court favor, parliamentary interest, or aristocratical patronage, and aban- doned the province of Indian affairs to private traders, who were indifferent to the public welfare, and actuated only by the most sordid motives and considerations. With the exception of the Six Nations and their tributa- ries, the French, from their first settlement in America, had been remarka- bly successful in conciliating the affections and gaining the adherence of the Indian tribes ; and, in this respect, their priests proved far more useful political instruments than the clergymen and missionaries of the English. While unity of design and promptitude of decision invigorated the councils and conduct of the French, the most judicious projects entertained by the English were often endangered or rendered abortive by the jealous caution and protracted deliberations of their numerous representative assemblies. Governor Shirley, we have seen, when he undertook the conquest of Louis- burg, found it more difficult to overcome the doubt and hesitation of his people than to overpower the resistance of their enemy ; and lost the time in defending his measure, which a French governor would have employed in improving its chances of success. Hence, though the actual force of the French settlements was indisputably inferior to that of the English, it was in artificial structure more nimble, compact, and disposable, and was capable of being directed with more celerity upon any given point, — an advantage that has often counterpoised, and even outweighed, disparity of bulk and numerical superiority. Of the various points in dispute between France and England, not one was adjusted by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The boundaries of the British empire in North America, and the disputed property of Tobago and other islands in the West Indies, were left to be settled by the negotiation of commissaries, — a procedure in which it is easy for either party, by cun- * The effect of such an entire and unquahfied despotism as characterized the policy of France towards Canada in repressing tliose discontents which are nourished by a system so checkered as that which was applied to the colonies of Britain is well unfolded in the speech (preserved by Thucydides, Book I.) of the Athenian ambassador at Sparta. CHAP. HI] COLLISIONS OF THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH. 225 ning and chicanery, to perplex the discussion, and indefinitely to protract its issue. This policy the French were fully prepared to pursue ; and, in unison with it, they pushed with redoubled vigor their system of territorial encroachment. Even previous to the appointment of commissaries on either side, and very soon after the conclusion of the peace, they attempted to make an establishment in Tobago ; but, warned by the violent expression of indignation which was provoked from the merchants of Britain by this measure, they receded from a pretension which seemed likely too soon to precipitate matters to an extremity, and, on the first complaint of the British government, consented to abandon the undertaking. Their conduct on this occasion, which admits of no cavil or disguise, justifies a presumption very unfavorable to their good faith in the other contemporary collisions and disputes, of which the merits, whether by artifice or accident, have been involved in greater doubt and obscurity. Eagerly resuming* possession of Cape Breton, restored to them by the treaty of peace, the French speedily perceived that some of the advantages which they might hope to derive from this possession were likely to be counteracted by the establish- ment of the colonists despatched from Britain under Cornwallis to Nova Scotia ; and though they had no pretence for disputing the legitimacy of this enterprise, they employed the most active endeavours to render it inef- fectual. Their Indian allies attacked the English settlements in Nova Scotia ; and, in the commencement of the year 1750, a band of two thou- sand five hundred French troops, detached by the governor of Canada, and reinforced by Indian auxiliaries, took possession of the whole tract of coun- try from Chignecto, along the north side of the Bay of Fundy, to Kennebec River, which they declared to be still the property of the Most Christian King, and to which they invited all the French Neutrals, as they were called, to repair from the district confessedly ceded to Britain. Various skirmishes ensued between the forces of Cornwalhs and the French and In- dians ; a number of forts were built, and some were taken and destroyed on both sides ; but the French continued to maintain their position and fortify their interest. Cornwallis urgently solicited assistance from the government of Massachusetts, and would probably have obtained it, but for the absence of the popular and enterprising Shirley, who had repaired to Europe in order to act as one of the commissaries of Britain in the approaching discus- sions with France. Spencer Phips, the heutenant-governor, whose influ- ence was not proportioned to his merit, recommended an expedition to Nova Scotia ; but the assembly declared that their own province was likely to need all its forces for its own protection. They had just received intelligence of an encroachment on the territory of Massachusetts, by a settlement which the French were reported to have commenced on the river Lechock, about five leagues eastward of Penobscot ; and Clinton, the governor of New York, had communicated to them the alarming tidings, that the French authorities in Canada were diligently endeavouring to se- duce the Six Nations from the British interest, and had urged the New England governments to unite their counsels with his, in opposition to these dangerous intrigues. Thus, before the peace announced by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was fully established, the French engaged in measures which plainly tended to a renewal of the war. These collisions demonstrated the necessity of an immediate change in the relative posture of the two nations, and hastened the appointment of the VOL. II. 29 226 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X commissaries, whose conferences accordingly commenced at Paris in the close of the year 1750, but, as rrwght easily have been foreseen, produced only increased disagreement, perplexity, and irritation. Memorials and documents were compiled on both .sides, till they attained a bulk more fitted to confuse than elucidate the points and merits of the controversy ; and not the slightest approach had laeen made to the adjustment of any one article of dispute, when the negotiation was finally abandoned in despair of an amicable issue. From the voluminous length of the discussion, the vari- ety and intricacy of the details which it embraced, and the opposite views which the commissaries entertained of the state of facts and the authority of documents, it was not difficult for either party, in its report of the pro- ceedings, to fix a plausible imputation of blame upon the other ; and it is not surprising that a controversy which issued in such memorable events and signal revolutions of empire should have been regarded ever since through the medium of the strongest national prejudice and partiality. Doubtless some part, and probably no inconsiderable part, of the difficulties by which a conventional adjustment of the pretensions of the two parties was ob- structed arose from the conflicting terms of titulary writs on which they respectively reposed a fair and entire reliance. And, indeed, this appears no less a concession due to candor and liberality, than a conclusion una- voidably suggested by the nature of the object in dispute, which was a vast extent of country to which two nations preferred claims founded on grants and charters of their respective monarchs, who, at the very time when they executed these deeds, were ignorant of the dimensions and boundaries of the region which they pretended to describe and bestow. It was impossible that such charters should not frequently clash and contradict each other ; and while both parties referred to them, reasoned from them, and accounted them of equal force and validity, an amicable adjustment of the differences to which they administered support was rendered a matter of the greatest difficulty. Even the most sincere and zealously Christian politicians have accounted themselves exempted, as the representatives of their countrymen, from the obligations of generous concession and magnanimous forbearance, which, as individuals, they would have readily acknowledged. We have remarked various disputes that were engendered between the several English provinces by the vague and inconsistent definitions of territo- ry contained in their charters ; and when such collisions occurred between members of the same common empire, it is not' wonderful that they sprung up and were maintained with greater keenness and obstinacy between two nations long accustomed to regard each other with sentiments of rivalry and dislike. Yet, with the amplest allowance for these considerations, we should postpone substantial truth to fanciful candor and affected impartiality, iij hesitating to pronounce that the obstructions to an amicable issue of the controversy were not only magnified, but rendered absolutely insuperable, by the disregard of honor, good faith, and moderation, with which the pre- tensions of France were advocated. The policy which had been exempli- fied by the French colonists in America was now espoused and defended by the French politicians in Europe. Not only did the commissaries on be- half of France reject the authority of maps which had been published and revised by the ministers of their own country, ^ but they refused to abide by ' " M. Bellin," says W. Smith, " published a new set of maps ; the first plate being thought too favorable to our claims. Shirley took occasion to speak of this alteration to Bellin at CHAP. III.] FRENCH PRETENSIONS IN THE OHIO VALLEY. 227 the definition of the boundaries of Nova Scotia for which the French cab- inet formerly contended, when the region designated by this name was ac- knowledged to form a part of the dominion of France.^ Governer Shirley, one of the British commissaries, during the progress of the negotiation, committed the folly of marrying, at the age of sixty, a yoimg and lovely French girl, the daughter of his landlord at Paris, — a circumstance which exposed him to ridicule in England, and aroused in America some angry suspicions of his defection to the interests, or, at least, of his relaxed op- position to the pretensions of France. But the injustice of these suspicions was demonstrated on his return to Massachusetts [1753], when he plainly showed that neither the endearments of conjugal affection nor the arts of the French commissaries had been able to bias his sentiments or baffle his pene- tration ; and openly proclaimed that an accommodation with France was hopeless, that only martial arbitrament could now terminate the controversy, and that the interest of Britain demanded that this inevitable appeal should be no longer deferred.^ Meanwhile, in addition to the previous controversies and the increasing hopelessness of a peaceful adjustment of them, new subjects of dispute arose between the two nations. The extension of the Virginian settlements to the banks of the river Ohio, and especially the occupation of a part of this re- gion by the English Ohio Company, were calculated to bring to a decisive test the long prevalent suspicion of the purpose of the French to render the line of forts which they . had been erecting subservient not merely to the communication between their own colonies, but to the confinement of the British settlements, and the obstruction of their advances into the interior of the country. Nor did the French hesitate a moment to afford une- quivocal proof of their entire purpose, and to resist the first attempt of their rivals to overleap the boundaries within which they were resolved to inclose them. A menace of the governor of Canada, that he would treat as ene- mies any of the subjects of Britain who should settle near the Ohio, or presume even to trade with the Indian inhabitants of this region, having been disregarded, was promptly enforced by the seizure of a number of Brit- ish traders, who were carried as prisoners to a fort which the French were erecting at Presque Isle, on Lake Erie. Other British traders, and servants of the Ohio Company, retreated in alarm from the stations which they had begun to occupy ; and the French, perceiving that the critical juncture was come, when their ambitious system of policy, now plainly disclosed, must be either defended by force or completely abandoned, proceeded with aug- mented diligence to supply whatever was yet defective in its subsidiary arrangements and preparations. A fort was built at Niagara, within the do- minions of the Indian allies of Britain ; and, in addition to the fort on Lake Erie, two others were built at commanding positions on the banks of the Paris, and informed him that one hundred copies of his first maps were dispersed in London ; upon which he discovered some surprise ; but, instead of urging any thing in support of the variation in liis new draft, said, smiling, We in France must follow the commands of the kiv^." 1 "The conferences," says Smollett, " were rendered abortive by every art of cavilling, chicanery, and procrastination, which the French commissioners opposed to the justice and perspicuity of the English claims. They not only misinterpreted treaties, though expressed with the utmost precision, and perplexed the conferences with difficulties and matter foreign to the subject, but they carried the finesse of perfidy so far, as to produce false charts and maps of the country, in which the rivers and boundaries were misplaced and misrepresented." 2 Smollett. Hewit. VV. Smith. Wynne. Trumbull. Burk. Hutchinson. Minot. Belknap. Yet this ye.ir the British parliament, in^their address to the king, with strange de- lusion or insincerity, congratulated him on the manifest stability of the peace. 228 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. Ohio. Thus, at length, the French succeeded in completing their long- projected communication between the mouth of the Mississippi and the river St. Lawrence. The complaints against these measures transmitted from America to Britain, concurring with the failure of the negotiations at Paris, and seconded by the influence and activity of the British merchants who were interested in the scheme of the Ohio Company, excited more attention in the parent state than colonial wrongs and quarrels had usually obtained ; and a memori- al was accordingly presented this year by Lord Albemarle, the British am- bassador to the court of France, requiring, in peremptory terms, that satis- faction should be aftbrded to the injured subjects of Britain ; that the fort erected at Niagara shodld be evacuated and destroyed ; and that positive orders should be issued to the French commanders in America to desist from farther encroachments and attacks upon the British settlements and colonists. The French court, not yet prepared for an open rupture, or at least willing to defer it as long as possible, returned to this application an answer, of which the tone was compliant, though the terms were evasive. Some Englishmen, who had been sent prisoners from America to France, were instantly set at liberty ; and assurances were given of the transmission of such orders to the governor of Canada as would infallibly prevent all future cause of complaint. These assurances produced the effect of amus- ing the British government a litde longer ; but, although public orders in conformity with them were actually sent to America, it is probable that they were nullified by private instructions ; for they were violated without scruple by the French provincial authorities. Jonquiere, the governor of Canada, not only continued to multiply and strengthen the fortifications along the line which his countrymen now pretended right to regard as the limit of the English territory, but openly encouraged the Indians, and permitted the French, to attack the English settlers and traders, both in Nova Scotia and on the Ohio. The pretensions of France to withstand the British settle- ments on the Ohio indicated such a devouring ambition, and disclosed a policy so manifestly calculated to arrest the growth and diminish the security of the colonial dominions of Britain, that they would probably have provoked more general and efficient opposition in America, but for the indiscretion and rapacity which we have already remarked in the conduct of the Ohio Company. Hamilton, the governor of Pennsylvania, strongly represented to the assembly of this province the expediency of erecting forts as well as barter-houses for the use of the Pennsylvanian traders with the Indians on the Ohio ; but though a majority of the Pennsylvanian assembly relished the proposal and passed a resolution in conformity with it, yet the interests of individuals, who regarded the monopoly of the Ohio Company with jeal- ous aversion, prevailed so far, as to prevent either this, or any other de- fensive measure, from being carried into execution.^ An attempt, which was made in the same year, by the governor of Vir- ginia, to resist the encroachments of France, led to the first appearance of the illustrious George Washington on the scene of American affairs. It is interesting to mark the earliest dawn of a career of such exalted and un- sullied glory. Robert Dinwiddie, who now arrived in Virginia with the ap- pointment of governor of this province, w^as quickly made sensible of the critical state that the relations between the French and English had attained ^Smollett! Wynnev Bur£ '■ ~ CHAP. HI.] MISSION OF WASHINGTON TO THE FRENCH. 229 on its frontiers. Perceiving the necessity of instant and resolute interfer- ence in behalf of his countrymen who were expelled from their settlements, and desirous to gain more distinct information with regard to the region which was the subject of these conflicting pretensions, he was induced to commit this important task, which the approach of a rigorous winter render- ed still more arduous, to Washington, a young Virginian planter, only twen- ty-one years of age. This remarkable youth had conceived a strong predi- lection for the British naval service, and at the age of fifteen was prevented only by the entreaties of his mother from accepting the situation, which was obtained for him, of midshipman in an English ship of war. He was already distinguished as a surveyor and civil engineer in his native province, and held the rank of major as well as the office of adjutant-general of its mihtia. Undaunted by the toil and danger of a winter journey, of which two hundred miles lay through a trackless desert inhabited by Indians, some of whom were open enemies and others doubtful friends, the youthful envoy cheerfully undertook the mission ; and, with a single attendant, surmounted all the peril and foulness of the way, and succeeded in penetrating to a French fort erected on the river Le Bmuf^ which falls into the Ohio. To the commander of this fort he carried a letter from Governor Dinwiddle, requiring the evacuation of the place, and a relinquishment of the other re- cent encroachments on the British dominion in the same quarter. St. Pierre, the French commandant on the Ohio, returned for answer to this apphca- tion, that it belonged not to him to arbitrate the conflicting claims of France and England, and that he had acted and must still continue to act in implicit obedience to the directions of the governor of Canada. Washington per- formed the duties of his mission with vigor and ability ; and after a painful and laborious expedition, which occupied more than two months, regained in safety the capital of Virginia. [January 16, 1754.] A journal, in which he recorded the particulars of his travel and the fruits of his observation, was published soon after, and impressed his countrymen with a high respect for the solidity of his judgment, and the calm, determined fortitude of his character. Governor Dinwiddle, finding that nothing was to be gained by amicable negotiation, projected the construction of forts at various places which had been surveyed and selected by Washington ; and the assembly agreeing to defray the expense of these operations, materials were procured and the works commenced without delay. Unfortunately, no means were taken to gain the consent of the natives to this measure, which accordingly served only to increase the jealousy and malevolence with which they had begun to regard the English. A regiment was raised at the same time by the Virginian gov- ernment, and Washington, who was its lieutenant-colonel, marched with two companies, in advance of the main body, to the Great Meadows, situated within the disputed territory. [April, 1754.] Here he learned from some friendly Indians, that the French, with a force of six hundred men and eigh- teen pieces of cannon, having attacked and destroyed a fort which the Vir- ginians had been erecting, were themselves engaged in completing another fort at the confluence of the Alleghany and Monongahela, one of the spots which was especially recommended in his own journal to the occupation of his countrymen ; and that a detachment of French troops from this place was then on its march towards the Great Meadows, and had encamped for the night in the bosom of a retired valley at a short distance. Convinced T 230 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. that this was a hostile movement, Washington availed himself of the prof- fered guidance of the Indians, and, advancing with his troops on a dark and rainy night, effectually surprised the French encampment. The Virginians, rousing the enemy by a sudden discharge of firearms, completely discon- certed them by rushing forward to close attack, and compelled them instant- ly to surrender. 1 Washington, after this success, erected at the Great Meadows a small stockade fort, which received the name of Fort Necessity, and then ad- vanced with his troops, which, by the accession of two companies, one from New York and the other from North Carolina, now amounted to four hun- dred men, towards the new French fort called Duquesne,^ with the inten- tion of dislodging the enemy. But learning on his march that the French had been reinforced and were approaching with a great body of Indian auxiharies to attack him, he retreated to Fort Necessity, and endeavoured to strengthen its defences by the construction of a ditch around the stockade. Before this operation was completed, the fort was attacked, on the fourth of July, by a very superior force, under the command of De Villiers. The garrison made a vigorous defence from ten in the morning till a late hour at night, when De Villiers having sounded a parley and tendered a capitu- lation, they at first refused, but finally consented, to surrender, or, more properly speaking, to evacuate the fort, on condition that they should be allowed to march out with the honors of war, to retain their arms and bag- gage, and to retire without molestation into the inhabited parts of Virginia, — and that the French themselves, instead of advancing farther at present, or even retaining the evacuated fort, should retreat to their previous station at Monongahela. Fifty-eight of the Virginians, and two hundred of the French, were killed and wounded in the encounter. Such a capitulation was by no means calculated either to damp the spirit of the Virginians or to depress the reputation of their commander. It was violated, however, with unscrupulous barbarity by the Indians who were united to the forces of De Villiers, and who, hovering round the Virginians during the whole of their retreat, harassed them with frequent attacks, and killed and wounded a considerable number of them. At the close of this unsuccessful expedi- tion, the Virginian assembly, with equal justice and magnanimity, expressed by a vote of thanks its approbation of the conduct of Washington and his troops.^ Though the British ministers had obtained from the parliament, in the preceding year, a felicitation to the king on the pretended stability of peace, it was impossible that they could disguise from themselves that the progress of affairs ever since the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle tended manifestly to a rupture with France, and that the two nations were already on the brink of another war. The conferences at Paris had proved abortive, and the disputes which were there ineffectually discussed had not only multiphed in the interval, but broken forth into actual hostihties in America. In the East ' Some French writers declared that the conduct of Washington, on this occasion, betrayed the most savage barbarity ; and taxed him personally with acts of wanton and unmanly blood- shed. These charges, repeated in various publications, rendered Washington very odious to the French, who afterwards, however, forgot or disbelieved them, when the War of Independ- ence rendered Washington their ally. 2 Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania, stands upon the ground that was formerly occupied by Fort Duquesne. 3 Marshall's Life of Washington. Burk. Minot. Trumbull. Rogers's American Bio- graphical Dictionary. CHAP. Ill] INDECISION OF THE BRITISH MINISTRY. 231 Indies, also, the colonial empire of Britain was disturbed and invaded by the ambition and intrigues of the French court. ^ That, in such circum- stances, a declaration of war should have been retarded, and the French permitted to extend and mature their system of encroachment, seems to have arisen not from blindness or credulity on the part of the British minis- ters, but from the perplexity and irresolution which they felt with regard to the manner of conducting hostilities in America, and the extent to which these hostilities might, consistently with prudence, be carried. The French court entertained simpler views with regard to America, and was far more bent upon conquest in that quarter than the English ; and for this reason, that the liberty that prevailed in the English settlements was a dangerous neighbour to the French colonial empire, whereas the vicinity of the French power was a circumstance favorable to the continued ascendency of Britain over her colonies. Whether these colonies should be defended and their invaders encountered by British troops, or by their own forces ; in what manner their counsels and political organization should be united, in order to give due efficacy to the latter mode of defence, without rendering their combined vigor dangerous to the parent state ; and how far it would be expedient to push, or possible to pause in, the career of successful warfare conducted in either of these ways, — were questions, which the British min- isters, distracted between their jealousy of the colonists and their resentment against the enemy, revolved with much hesitation and embarrassment. Eventually, their indecision, concurring with the immoderate ambition of France, forced upon them the very extremity to which they were most averse, and which, by any reasonable sacrifice, they would doubtless have willingly avoided. Had they vigorously resisted the French encroachments at the outset, and despatched a force sufficient to check them and to inspire the enemy with apprehensions of still more signal retribution, a peace might, perhaps, have been concluded, which would have retained America for a while longer under the divided empire of France and England. But they hesitated to act, and delayed to act with vigor, till the quarrel, signalized by victories and triumphs of the French and disgraces and disasters of the English, acquired in the eyes of both nations an importance far beyond what it had originally possessed, and conducted England, in particular, to a point at which her dignity and reputation seemed to be staked on the issue of a decisive contest for the sole dominion of North America. Early in the spring of this year, and before the expedition from Virginia to the Great Meadows, the British ministers signified to the provincial gov- ernments the desire of the king that they should oppose the French en- croachments by force of arms ; together with a recommendation from his Majesty that they should send delegates to a general convention at Albany, both in order to form a league with the Six Nations, and to concert among themselves a plan of united operations and defence against the common enemy. Seven of the colonies, consisting of Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and the New England States, agreed to comply with this recommendation ;* and the assembly of Massachusetts at the same time [April 10, 1754] pre- sented an address to Governor Shirley, desiring him "to pray his Majesty ' Smollett. ~ " " * Virginia and New Jersey, though specially named in the royal invitation, sent no dele- gates to the convention. Connecticut, Rhode Island, the Carolmas, and Georgia received no direct invitation from the crown. The other colonies were instructed to demand the co- operation of these States ; but their application prevailed only with Connecticut and Rhode Island. 232 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. that affairs which relate to the Six Nations and their aUies may be put under such general direction as his Majesty shall judge proper ; and that the sev- eral governments may be obliged to bear their proportions of defending his Majesty's territories against the encroachments of the French and the rav- ages and incursions of the Indians." Shirley, sensible probably of the jeal- ousy which any measure founded on this suggestion would provoke among the colonists in general, unless it originated with themselves, proposed to the governors of the several colonies, that the delegates elected to the con- vention should be authorized by their constituents to deliberate on a plan of united operation of all the States for their common safety and defence. In- structions to this effect w^ere accordingly communicated to the delegates, who, assembling at Albany in the month of June, were met by a numerous deputation from the tribes of the Six Nations. After an explanatory and pacific treaty with the Indians, who very willingly accepted the presents that were tendered to them, but yet plainly betrayed by their negligent de- meanour the success with which the French had intrigued to weaken their regards for the English, — the convention undertook the more important subject which was committed to its deliberations ; and it was unanimously resolved that a union of the colonies was essential to the general safety, and ought to be forthwith accomplished. But here the unanimity of the dele- gates ended. Probably all the inhabitants of all the colonies would have united in approving the foregoing resolution. The difficulty, or rather the impossibihty, was to devise a plan for carrying it into execution, which would be satisfactory at once to the colonists and the parent state. Among various individuals considerable for their talents and reputation who were assembled in this convention,^ the most popular and remarkable person was Benjamin Franklin, one of the delegates from Pennsylvania. This great man, who now sustained a conspicuous part in the most impor- tant national council that had ever been convoked in North America, has already been introduced (in the two preceding chapters) to our attention, first, as a provincial patriot and philosopher, and afterwards as an enterpris- ing and successful votary of science. In the year 1736, which was the thirtieth year of his age, a matter nowise extraordinary in its nature gave occasion to the earliest display of his genius and capacity as a politician. He had previously established a club or society in Philadelphia, of which the associates were limited in number to twelve, and of which the main object was to promote the exercise and efficacy of patriotic, philosophic, and republican virtue. By a fundamental rule of this institution, which re- ceived the name of The Junto, its existence and transactions were kept se- cret from the public, in order to prevent apphcations for admission from persons whose character and sentiments might render them unmeet associ- ates, and whose influence and connections might at the same time make it painful and inconvenient to reject them. Some of the members having pro- posed to render the society more numerous by introducing their friends into it, — "I was one of those," says Franklin, " who were against any addition to our number ; and instead of it, I made in writing a proposal that every member separately should endeavour to form a subordinate club with the same rules, but without any hint or information of its connection with the Junto. The advantages proposed were the improvement of so many more ' One of the delegates from Massachusetts was Thomas Hutchinson, afterwards the gov- ernor and historian of this province. From Connecticut were sent William Pitkin, Roger Wolcott, and Elisha Williams. CHAP. Ill] THE ALBANY PLAN OF UNION. 233 young citizens by the use of our institutions ; our better acquaintance with the general sentiments of the inhabitants on any occasion, as the Junto mem- ber might propose what queries we should desire, and was to report to the Junto what passed m his separate club ; the promotion of our particular in- terests in business by more extensive recommendation ; and the increase of our influence in public affairs, and our power of doing good, by spreading through the several clubs the sentiments of the Junto. Five or six clubs were thus completed, which were called by different names, as the Vine, the Union, the Band, &c. : they were useful to themselves, and afforded us a good deal of amusement, information, and instruction, besides answer- ing, in a considerable degree, our views of influencing the public on partic- ular occasions." Here we behold the theory and primitive model of that engine of party purpose and power which was afterwards employed with tremendous efficacy by the Jacobin Club of Paris during the earlier stages of the French Rev- olution. In the year 1753, Franklin, who for some time had held a subor- dinate appointment in the post-office, was promoted to the function of post- master-general of America, — a situation which he retained till about twenty years after, when he was displaced by the British court. Of humble par- entage and narrow fortune, in a young and dependent commonwealth, un- friended by the gale of patronage, the captivation of brilliant qualities, or the opportunities afforded by revolutionary change, self-educated and self-aided, this man achieved at once the highest civic preeminence and the most splen- did and imperishable renown. At the period at which we have now arrived, he had already distinguished himself by grand discoveries in science and by useful projects in economics, and had been for a number of years a member of the assembly of Pennsylvania, where he spoke rarely, but sententiously, concisely, and with convincing force and propriety, when the occasion was at length presented of exhibiting his genius on a wider theatre. It was now that he proposed to his fellow-delegates in the Albany convention that mem- orable scheme of a federal league between the American colonies, which has received the name of The Albany Plan of Union, and which, though little more than the transcript of a design suggested by another pohtician about thirteen years before,^ has been celebrated with far higher praise than his more ingenious and original idea of a ramification of clubs in Pennsylvania has attracted. This was the purport of the plan which he suggested. Ap- plication was to be made for an act of parhament to establish in the colo- nies a general government, to be administered by a president appointed by the crown, and by a grand council, consisting of members chosen by the several provincial assemblies, the number of representatives from each prov- ince being directly proportioned to the amount of its contributions to the general treasury, — with this restriction, however, that no colony should have more than seven, or fewer than two representatives.^ The whole executive authority of the general government was committed to the presi- dent. The power of legislation was lodged jointly in the grand council and ' See account of Dr. Coxe's project, ante^ Chap. II. * It was proposed that the assemblies should choose members for the grand council in the following proportion : — Massachusetts ... 7 New Hampshire ... 2 Connecticut .... 5 Rhode Island .... 2 New York .... 4 New Jersey .... 3 Pennsylvania .... 6 Maryland 4 Virginia 7 North Carolina ... 4 South Carolina ... 4 48 VOL. II. 30 T * 234 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. president ; the consent of the latter functionary being requisite to the ad- vancement of bills into laws. The functions and prerogatives of the general government were, to declare war and make peace ; to conclude treaties with the Indian nations ; to regulate trade with them, and to make purchase of vacant lands from them, either in the name of the crown or of the Union ; 10 settle new colonies, and to exercise legislative authority over them until jhey should be erected into separate provincial governments ; and to raise troops, build forts, fit out armed vessels, and pursue all other measures requi- site for the general defence. To defray the expenses of this establishment and its various operations, the president and grand council were empowered to frame laws enacting such duties, imposts, and taxes, as they might deem at once necessary and least burdensome to the people. These legislative ordinances were to be transmitted to England for the approbation of the king ; and unless disallowed within three years after their enactment, they were to remain in force. All officers in the naval and military service of the United Colonies were to be nominated by the president, and approved by the council ; civil officers were to be nominated by the council, and approved by the president. This plan, though recommended to the approbation of a majority of the convention, both by its own merits and by the reputation, talent, and ad- dress of the author,^ was opposed with warm and inflexible determination by the delegates of Connecticut, who objected to the authority conferred on the president, and to the power of general taxation [July 4, 1754]; and insisted that a government of this description would prove dangerous in the highest degree to the liberties of the colonists, and utterly unfit to conduct with vigor or economy a defensive war along their extended frontier. Of all the members of the convention, these delegates alone had the satisfac- tion to find that their sentiments were in unison with those of their constit- uents. No sooner was the plan communicated to the various provincial as- semblies, than it was condemned and rejected by every one of them ; ^ and resolutions were formed to oppose the expected attempts of the British court to obtain an act of parliament for carrying it into efl^ect. But the apprehensions of the colonists on this score Were groundless ; for, by a sin- gular coincidence, the plan proved as unacceptable to the ministers of the crown as to themselves. In America it was accounted too favorable to the royal prerogative ; in England it was, contrariwise, censured as savoring too strongly of depiocracy, and conceding too much power to the repre- sentatives of the people. Although thus rejected by all parties, the project of Franklin was attended with important consequences in America. The discussion of it served to familiarize the idea of a federal league, a general government, an American army ; and prepared the minds of the people for the very form of confederacy w^hich was afterwards resorted to in their rev- olutionary contest with Britain.^ A plan of a diiFerent complexion from Franklin's was conceived by the British cabinet, and communicated, among others, to Governor Shirley of Massachusetts, who, though a popular mag- ' Though the plan was confessedly and solel}r the composition of Franklin, a committee of the convention had been appointed to digest it. This co;nmittee consisted of Hutchinson, of Massachusetts ; Atkinson, of New Hampshire ; Hopkins, of Rhode Island ; Pitkin, of Connecticut ; Smith, of New York ; Franklin, of Pennsylvania ; and Tasker, of Maryland. 2 "Not one of the assemblies, from Georgia to New Hampshire, when the report was made by their delegates, inclined to part with so great a share of power as was to be given to this general government." Hutchinson. 3 See Note XIII., at the end of the volume. ■- ,- \ ^ CHAP. III.] FRANKLIN AND SHIRLEY'S CORRESPONDENCE. 23$ istrate, was inclined to favor the prerogative of the crown, to which be was indebted for his own advancement. According to this plan (somewhat akin to the ministerial projects which we have remarked a few years before), the general defence of the colonies was to be intrusted to an assembly con- sisting of all the governors and a certain number of the provincial counsel- lors, who were to draw bills of exchange on the English treasury for the sums of money which might be required to carry their measures into effect, and of which the reimbursement was to be derived from taxes imposed on the colonies by act of parhament. The aversion which the Americans expressed for a far more liberal scheme deterred Shirley from wantonly risking his popularity by openly announcing and advocatmg this proposition ; but he privately imparted it to Franklin, and an interesting discussion of its merits and chances of success ensued between them. Franklin affirmed that any attempt to carry into effect the project of the British ministry would excite the strongest dissatisfaction in America ; and with great force of argument demonstrated the injustice of the measure, and the injurious consequences which the Americans might reasonably apprehend from it. They could have no confidence, he declared, in a convention consisting of governors and counsellors, of whom the far greater number were the creatures of the crown, whose interest would prompt them to enlarge the expenditure committed to their administration, and multiply the posts and appointments included within their patronage. The people might expect that a tax imposed by their own representatives would be diminished and repealed, whenever a change of circumstances permitted such alleviation ; but a tax imposed by parliament, in conformity with the representations and private interests of a board of royal officers in America, would most probably obtain perpetual duration. He maintained that it was unjust that the subjects of the British crown resident in the colonies should be loaded with direct taxes except by their own repre- sentatives, of whom they had none in parliament ; and that the parliamentary restrictions on the commerce of the colonies were secondary taxes, which the colonists, on the one hand, submitted to, though they had no share in imposing or adjusting them, and which Britain, on the other, ought to ac- cept as an equivalent for the exemption of the colonists from direct parlia- mentary taxation. Yet was he disposed to recommend a more intimate union of the colonies with Britain, by the admission of representatives from America into the British parliament ; and he beheved that this union would be acceptable to the colonists, provided a reasonable number of representa- tives were allowed to them, and all the old statutes restraining the trade or cramping the manufactures of the colonies were repealed, till the new- par- liament, representing the whole empire, might think fit, for the general inter- est, to reenact some or all of them. Not that he imagined that the colonies would obtain so many representatives as to possess any considerable numeri- cal force in parhament ; but he expected that the reasoning and influence of the American members might be sufficient to cause the trade laws to be more impartially considered, and framed with more regard to equity, and might prevail so far as to withstand the private interest of a single corpora- tion or class of merchants or artificers in England. He characterized the colonies as so many counties gained to Great Britain, and all included within the pale of British constitutional law and rights, no less than of the British empire ; and he held it alike indifferent to the general interest, whether a 2$Q HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. merchant, a smith, or a hatter grew rich in Old or in New England, as wheth- er an English manufacturer of iron pursued his business at Birmingham or Sheffield ; since, in either place, they were still within the bounds of the commonwealth, and their persons and property were subject to its juris- diction. In this correspondence between Franklin and Shirley, which was con- ducted with great privacy,^ we behold a partial rehearsal of the contro- versy that broke out not many years after between America and Britain, and issued in the American Revolution. Franklin, in the interval, found cause to alter some of his political notions ; and at the latter period, depart- ing from the views which we have now seen him unfold, he declared his conviction that the legislatures of Britain and America were and ought to be distinct from each other, and that the relation between the two countries was precisely analogous to that which subsisted between England and Scotland before their union. When we consider how notably Franklin (mistaking his own view of men's interests for an acquaintance with their desires and opinions) misapprehended the sentiments of his countrymen in proposing a plan at Albany which they almost unanimously rejected, we may be justified in supposing that some degree of kindred error mingled with his notion of their willingness to submit to direct taxation by the parent state, on condition of being allowed to send representatives to the British House of Commons. He seems to have entirely neglected the consid- eration, that, unless an order of nobility were estabhshed in America, and the members of it admitted to participate in the privileges of the British peerage, there would still be no channel through which the interests of his countrymen could penetrate into the House of Lords ; and this branch of the supreme legislature would remain exclusively British in its conpposition. Shirley, convinced, not less by the issue of Franklin's own plan than by the force of his arguments, of the hopelessness of the project which was com- municated to him by the British ministers, refrained from any pubhc ex- pression of his opinion on the subject of pohtical union for the general de- fence ; and the royal cabinet, after persisting a little longer in a feeble and irresolute attempt to induce the colonies to raise a common revenue which the officers of the crown were to administer, either abandoned, forgot, or suspended their purpose ; ^ and finally embraced the determination, or at least pursued the course, of carrying on hostihties in America with British troops aided by such auxiliary forces as the colonial assemblies might vol- untarily furnish.*"* Though these assemblies were but imperfectly acquainted with the inclinations of the court, their jealousy supplied, and perhaps more than suppHed, the defectiveness of their information ; and nothing could exceed the stubborn and determined purpose evinced by them to resist the * It was first published in the London Magazine for February, 1766. ' Yet, so late as the month of May, 1755, we find Shirley writing thus to Wentworth, the governor of New Hampshire : — "1 may assure your Excellency, from every letter I have of late received from Sir Thomas Robinson, I have reason to think that his Majesty hath a dependence upon a common fund's being raised in all his colonies upon this continent; and that such an one must, in the end, be either voluntarily raised, or else assessed in some other way." A few months after, the assembly of Massachusetts, in the instructions they communi- cated to their agent at London, thus admonished him : — "It is more especially expected that you oppose every thing that shall have the remotest tendency to raise a revenue in the planta- tions for any public uses or services of government." ^ "The ministry," says Belknap, "determined to employ their own troops to fight their battles in America, rather than let the colonists feel their own strength and be directed by their own counsels. Some aid was to be exacted from them; but the. weight of tlie enterprise and honor of the victory were to belong to British troops, conimaaded by British officers. ' CHAP. HI.] PROVINCIAL DISSENSIONS. 237 establishment of a general American revenue, which the representatives of America were not to impose and administer.^ While the king and his ministers, though desirous that the military force of America should be more fully developed, were still more desirous to avoid any proportional development of the spirit of American liberty, and were bent on establishing in the colonies only such a system of united agency as might be subservient to British ascendency and royal preroga- tive ; and while the Americans, on the other hand, were determined to cultivate their military resources only in correspondence with- the interests of their domestic liberty, and to oppose the establishment of any new juris- diction over their country in which they themselves were not to possess a commanding share, — it was impossible that any plan of general govern- ment or even of combined operation of the colonies could be introduced, except by force on the part of Britain, or by revolt on the part of Amer- ica. Additional impediments to such a measure were occasioned at the present period by dissensions between two of the American provinces, by the struggles of domestic factions in a third, and by an unusual degree of discontent and impatience kindled in several of them by certain recent pro- ceedings of the British government and its officers. A quarrel had arisen between Virginia and New York, in consequence of the failure of the ex- pedition to the Great Meadows ; the Virginians reproaching the other colony with having caused this disaster by neglecting to furnish an adequate contin- gent of troops. Pennsylvania was distracted by the continual disputes be- tween her assemblies and the provincial proprietaries and governors. The assembly of Virginia at first cooperated zealously with Dinwiddie, the gov- ernor of this province, in the prosecution of hostilities with the French. But shortly after the expedition to the Great Meadows, they manifested a very different spirit, and, refusing to sanction or support measures which he by his office was entitled to conduct, they plainly declared that they entertained more jealousy and apprehension of him than of the foreign enemy. Dinwid- die, who was a man of arbitrary principles, insolent temper, and rapacious disposition, attempted to introduce the practice, which, though established in New York, was a novelty in Virginia, of exacting a fee or perquisite to the governor for every patent of land which he was required to grant. The assembly declared that this exaction was illegal, arbitrary, and oppressive ; they protested that every planter who complied with it ought to be deemed an enemy of his country ; and despatched an agent to London to soHcit an order of (he privy council for its discontinuance. In North Carolina, the conduct of Arthur Dobbs, who succeeded John- stone in the office of governor, proclaimed the instructions which he had re- ceived to enlarge the bounds of the royal prerogative, and provoked the most determined spirit of resistance from the assembly. But it was at New York that the strongest manifestation of public discontent was elicited by an accidental discovery of the strain in which the instructions from the crown to its governors were actually couched. We have already remarked the practice of the British court to express, in its commissions to the governors of New York, the delegation of a very large and indeed unwarrantable ex- tent of authority. In addition to their commissions, these officers, !:ke all the governors who were appointed by the crown, were furnished with written * Franklin's Memoirs. Trumbull. Hutchinson. Belknap. Minot. Gordon. Holmes. Wynne. 238 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X: instructions for the direction of their political conduct, which were not com- municated to the public. But in the present year, Sir Danvers Osborne, -a new governor of this province, having died immediately after his arrival at New York, his instructions somehow fell into the hands of persons who hastened to expose their contents to the public eye. * The preamble of this document sharply inveighed against the provincial assembly, which was stig- matized as an undutiful, disloyal, and factious body, which had repeatedly violated the royal prerogative by usurping a control over the expenditure of the publi« money. Osborne was directed to insist on the reformation of all such abuses, and particularly to require the establishment of a certain and definite revenue for the service of the government, as well as for the appropriation of a fixed salary to his own office. Moreover, his Majesty, in these instructions, signified his will that all money raised for the use and support of government should be disposed of by warrant from the governor, with the consent of the council, and no otherwise ; that, nevertheless, the assembly should be permitted, from time to time, to see the accounts of the expenditure of money levied by the authority of laws which they enacted ; that, if any member of the council, or officer holding a place of trust or profit in the government, should in any manner whatever encourage, advise, or unite with the assembly in passing any act or vote, whereby the royal pre- rogative might be Hmited or impaired, or any money be raised or expended for the pubHc service, otherwise than by the method prescribed by these instructions, the functionary so offending should forthwith be degraded from his office by the governor.^ These were peremptory injunctions, and plain- ly proved that the British ministry regarded the province with displeasure, and were determined to invigorate the royal prerogative within it ; nor is it surprising that the publication of them excited at New York a lively in- dignation and jealousy against the government of the parent state. The mutual distrust and ill-humor which thus contributed to perplex the councils and enfeeble the operations of England and her colonies was pro- portionably favorable to the views and policy of France, which continued vigorously to extend her encroachments, reinforce her garrisons, and strength- en her position in America. In aid of her designs, she endeavoured, with the utmost assiduity of hostile intrigue, to muhiply the enemies of England, and particularly to involve this country in a quarrel with Spain. In this instance, indeed, she was for the present disappointed ; for Wall, the minis- ter of the king of Spain, succeeded in convincing his master that peace with England was essential to the real interests of the Spanish monarchy. In America the French intrigues w^eremore successful ; and by the influence of the governor of Canada and his Indian allies, a tribe of Indians with whom New England had no previous quarrel were induced to invade and ravage the frontiers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Massachusetts had of late been the scene of violent altercations, provoked by the introduction of an excise law, which, however, in spite of the threats of its opponents and the fears of its supporters, was peaceably carried into execution. In the course of the present year, the assembly of this province caused some new forts to be erected, renewed a pacific treaty with the Eastern Indians, and ascertained that the tidings which had been formerly communicated to them of a French settlement on the Kennebec were destitute of foundation.^ The British ministers, on receiving intelligence of the defeat of Washing- ' ' Smollett. Williamsoil. Burk. Wynne * Minot. Pmollett. BelkHap. ". CHAP. III.] PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. 23ff ton, and of the establishment of French posts on the Ohio, perceived plainly that a war between France and England had begun. Even with a view to the speedy restoration of peace, it was expedient that they should exert more vigor and promptitude of hostility, and demonstrate more active and determined concern for the dignity of the British empire and the safety of its colonial adjuncts or dependencies. Finding that their complaints to the court of Versailles were answered only by a repetition of former evasions, and learning that the French were making active preparation for the enlargement of their naval and military force in America, they determined to send a de- tachment of the standing army maintained in England to the defence of the British possessions and pretensions in the same quarter. In conformity with this determination, and early in the following year [January, 1755], General Braddock was despatched from Ireland with two regiments of infantry com- manded by Halket and Dunbar, which were destined to the service of Amer- ica, and especially to the protection of the Virginian frontier. On the arrival of this armament at its destination, the provinces seemed to forget alike their disputes with each other and their jealousies of the parent state, and a vigor- ous offensive campaign against the French was projected. A convention of the provincial governors, at the request of the British commander, assembled at Annapolis, in Maryland, to settle the plan of military operations, and re- solved that three simultaneous expeditions should be undertaken. The first, directed against Fort Duquesne, was to be conducted by Braddock with his British troops ; the second, which was to attempt the reduction of the French fort at Niagara, was committed to the American regulars and Indians, com- manded by Governor Shirley, who now received the rank of a British gen- eral from the king ; and the third, an expedition against Crown Point, was to be undertaken by mihtia drawn from the northern colonies. The French court, apprized of Braddock's departure for America, now made one more attempt to prolong the inactivity of the British government, by reiterating assurances of its pacific purposes and earnest desire of accom- modation. But when the Marquis de Mirepoix, the ambassador of France at London, a truly honorable man, tendered these assurances, in full rehance on their truth, to the British ministers, they exhibited to him such incontesta- ble proofs of the insincerity of his court, that he was struck with astonishment and mortification, and, repairing to Versailles, upbraided the ministers of Louis the Fifteenth with the indignity to which they had exposed him as the tool of their dissimulation. By them he was referred to the king, who com- manded him to return to London with fresh protestations of his royal inten- tion to preserve peace ; but the conduct of this monarch corresponded so ill with his professions, that his ambassador had scarcely obtained an audience to communicate them, when indubitable assurance was received that a pow- erful squadron was ready to sail for America from Brest and Rochefort. In effect, it sailed soon after, and transported a great quantity of military stores, and four thousand regular troops, commanded by the^ Baron Dieskau. Roused by this intelligence, the British government despatched a small fleet, under the command of Admiral Boscawen, and afterwards, on learning the superior strength of the enemy, a few more vessels under Admiral Hol- borne, to watch the motions of the French squadron. But no additional land forces were sent by Britain to America ; nor yet did she think fit to declare war against France. The French monarch was still more bent on avoiding or at least postponing this extremity ; and although a part of the 240 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [ BOOK X. fleet which he had despatched to America was attacked off Newfoundland and captured by Admiral Boscawen, he still refrained from any nearer ap- proach to a declaration of war than the recall of his ambassador from Eng- land. [April 25, 1755.] The British king, in his speech to parliament, as- serted the sincerity of his wishes and endeavours, and still expressed a hope of his ability, to preserve peace ; but withal declared that he would not purchase even this blessing at the expense of submitting to encroachments upon his dominions. An act of parliament was passed, extending the provis- ions of the British Mutiny Act to North America ; ^ and declaring that all troops, raised by any of the colonial governors or assembhes, should, when- ever they acted in conjunction with the British soldiers, be subject to the same system of martial law and discipline which obtained in the British army. A communication, addressed some time before to the provincial governments, signified the king's commands, that officers commissioned by his Majesty, or by his commander-in-chief in North America, should take precedence of all those whose commissions were derived from the provincial governors or assemblies ; " and that the general and field officers of the provincial troops should have no rank, when serving with the general and field officers com- missioned by the crown." This regulation proved exceedingly unpalatable to the Americans. Washington, in particular, resenting it as injurious to the merit of his countrymen and calculated to depress their spirit and character, resigned his commission. Happily, however, for his own fame and his country's interest, he was persuaded to accept the appointment of aid-de- camp to General Braddock.^ CHAPTER IV. Hostilities in Nova Scotia — Expulsion of the French Neutrals. — Braddock's Expedition — and Defeat. — Battle of Lake George. — Transactions in South Carolina. — Dissensions in Pennsylvania — Resignation of Political Power by the Quakers — Quaker Proceedings re- specting Negro Slavery. — War declared between France and Britain. — Success of the French at Oswego, While preparations were making for the prosecution of the military schemes devised in the convention at Annapolis, an expedition, which the New England States had previously agreed to undertake on condition of being reimbursed of the expense of it by the British government, was de- ' Much disgust and jealousy was excited by this measure in America. It had been strongly* but ineffectually, opposed by Bollan, the agent at London for Massachusetts, who, in a petition to parliament, represented, " that his Majesty's American subjects were generally freeholders and persons of some property, and enlisted, not for a livelihood, but with intent to return to their farms or trades as soon as the particular services for which they might enlist should ter- minate ; that the officeVs were persons in similar though better circumstances ; and that all of them — being chiefly influenced to take up arms by a regard to the honor of the king, the de- fence of their country, and the preservation of their religion and liberties — had but little pre- paratory exercise for war, and were, therefore, unsuitable subjects for the operation of the rigorous code of discipline adapted to the government of his Majesty's standing forces." Minot. In communicating the parliamentary measure to his constituents, Bollan, a sagacious and impartial man, apprized them that he possessed the best evidence of the purposes of the British court " to govern America like Ireland, by keeping up a body of standing forces with a military chest, under some act similar to the famous Poyning's law." Walsh's Appeal, * Cj»mpbeII. Burk. Smollett. Wynne. Minot. Williamson. Marshall. CHAP. IV.] THE FRENCH NEUTRALS OF NOVA SCOTIA. £41* spatched against the forts and settlements recently established by the French in Nova Scotia. The main body of the forces thus employed consisted of about three thousand men, raised in New England, principally in Massa- chusetts, and conducted by Colonel Winslow, one of the most popular and considerable inhabitants of this province, and the representative of one of the old Puritan families which were the pride of New England and had gathered the respect of successive generations. Arriving at the British set- tlement in Nova Scotia .[May 25, 1755] , the New England forces were joined by three hundred regular troops and a small train of artillery ; and the com- mand of the whole was assumed by Colonel Monckton, an English officer of respectable talents and experience. This enterprise was pursued with skill and vigor, and crowned with entire success. Beau Sejour, the princi- pal fort which the French possessed at Chignecto, after a hot siege of a few days, was compelled to surrender, and received from the victors the new name of Fort Cumberland. [June 16, 1755.] The garrison were al- lowed to march out with the honors of war, and, having engaged not to bear arms for six months, were transported to Louisburg. The other fortresses of the French in this quarter surrendered shortly after, on the same terms. But although the whole of Nova Scotia was thus reduced to the dominion of Britain, it was impossible not to perceive that the possession of it was still rendered precarious by the existing relations between the British gov- ernment and the French inhabitants of the country. This race of colonists, interesting both by their character and their misfortunes, amounted in num- ber, probably,' to about seven or eight thousand. They were distinguished by the mildness of their manners, their frugal, industrious habits, and the warmth and sincerity of their attachment to the Roman Cathohc faith. The vanity, licentiousness, and restless ambition, which we have remarked in the character of the Canadian colonists, were unknown to this little commu- nity, which exhibited a happy scene of primitive harmony and benevolence, virtuous simplicity, moderation of desire, and equality of condition. Mar- riage was contracted at an early age, and celibacy was exemplified only by the priests ; nor had one instance of illicit intercourse of the sexes been known to occur among the people since their first establishment in America. Whenever a youth born in this region came to man's estate, a house was built for him by a general contribution of his neighbours, a portion of land was cleared and sown for his use, and he was supplied with all the necessa- ries of life for a twelvemonth. His marriage was contemporary with this establishment ; and a flock of cattle constituted the portion of his wife. But, unhappily, the people, though mildly treated by Britain, and exempted from all taxes, even for the support of the institutions of government in Nova Scotia, never ceased to regret their political separation from France, and were more estranged from the British colonists by difference of religious faith, than attached to them by similarity of manners and moral character. Their priests, supplied by France, were devoted to the interests of her church and monarchy, maintained a close correspondence with the French authorities in Canada, and cherished in their people a conviction of the in- dissoluble nature of their original relation to the crown of France, and a rooted aversion to the sway and the faith of that nation to which their terri- tory was ceded by the treaty of Utrecht. Thoug;h they had desired, upon * The accounts of the actual numbers of this race, transmitted by the historians of America, are surprisingly inconsistent and contradictory. VOL. n. 31 - . U 242 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. this event, and by a singular arrangement were permitted, to assume the title and character of a neutral race in all controversies between their old and new masters, the same sentiments which thus qualified their subjection to Britain prevented them from strictly sustaining the neutrality which they professed between her and France. They repeatedly afforded to the Cana- dian colonists and their Indian allies intelligence, quarters, provisions, and even still more active cooperation in their hostilities against the British government and its subjects ; and upon the present occasion, in particular, three hundred of these professed neutrals were actually found in arms at Fort Beau Sejour. It was manifest that the interest of Britain demanded, and that her just authority entitled her to require, some additional pledge of the submission, or safeguard against the hostility, of a people inhabitmg a portion of her do- minions ; and an intimation was now conveyed by Lawrence, the deputy- governor of Nova Scotia, to all of the French colonists who had not made open demonstration of hostility, that they would be allowed to continue in possession of their lands, if they would take the oath of allegiance to the British king without any qualification. As they unanimously refused to give this pledge, Lawrence, and the English admiral, Boscawen, who was then at Halifax, embraced the resolution of transporting them without farther delay beyond the confines of Nova Scotia. To have permitted them to choose the place of their exile would have been to recruit Canada,^ in the very beginning of a war, with men who would have instantly returned in arms upon the British frontiers. It was therefore determined to remove and disperse this whole people among the British colonies, where they could not unite in any hostile purpose or attempt, and where they might be expected gradually to mingle with the rest of the population. Notice having been given to the governors of the several colonies to prepare for their recep- tion, the French, who had latterly been amused with the hope that only their former pledge of neutrality would be required of them, were assembled at various places by a stratagem less honorable in its character than humane in its purpose ; and having been surrounded by troops, were abruptly ac- quainted with their fate, and hurried on board a fleet of vessels which was collected to transport them from their native land. A party of them had been collected in a church, which was thus profaned by violence and breach of faith ; and some having escaped from their cap- tors, and others, from negligence or suspicion, having avoided the snare, their houses and plantations were ravaged in order to deprive them of shelter and compel them to surrender. Winslow and the New England troops were compelled to take a share in this disagreeable duty, the severity of which they endeavoured to alleviate to the unhappy victims by the exercise of a tenderness and humanity very remote from the stern instructions which were communicated by Lawrence. Yet, in the hurry of the embarkation, a great deal of superfluous misery was unintentionally inflicted ; husbands were separated from their wives, and parents were conveyed to settlements far distant from those to which their children were transported. " It was the hardest case," said one of the sufl^erers, " which had happened since our Saviour was on earth." About a thousand of them were consigned to the territory of Massachusetts, where their wretchedness excited much * Raynal affirms, that these French colonists, apprehending that their religion was endan- gered by the English settlement at Halifax, and instigated by their priests, were, at this very time, actually preparing to emigrate to Canada. CHAP. IV.] BRADDOCK'S EXPEDITION, r 24S compassion ; but they were debarred, by the provincial laws, from the public exercise of their religious worship. The people of Massachusetts were in- capable of the inhuman absurdity of executing, in such circumstances, their severe law against Cathohc priests discovered within the province, but they would not consent to tolerate the celebration of the mass. These involuntary emigrants occasioned a heavy expense to all the colonies ; for, partly from anguish of spirit, and partly from the fond hope that the king of France would never make peace till he had procured their reestablish- ment in Nova Scotia, they refused to mingle with or pursue any business among the English, and declined to weaken their claims on their own sove- reign by soliciting compensation for their losses from the British govern- ment. Their pride would not permit them to accept for themselves or their offspring the benefit of any of the provincial establishments for dis- pensing charity to paupers, or for the maintenance and education of desti- tute children. In the sequel, a number of them embarked for France, and others contrived to make their way to Canada and to other settlements of the French and the Spaniards ; but the greater number died in the British colonies in an indigent, though not a starving condition, and mainly the vic- tims of sorrow and disappointment.^ The forces by which the conquest of Nova Scotia was thus completed incurred no greater loss, during the whole expedition, than that of twenty- men killed and about as many wounded. Winslow and his troops, on their return to New England, expressed much disgust at the distinctions which were studiously enforced during the campaign between them and the British regulars, and which the disproportion between the British and the provincial contingents to the combined army rendered peculiarly striking and offensive. But the success of the enterprise, occurring in this early stage of the war, diffused a general animation through the colonies, and was hailed as the omen of farther triumph. There needed not this influence, indeed, to exalt the confident expectation that prevailed of a victorious issue of the greater enterprise which Braddock was to conduct against the French settlements on the Ohio. It was known that the garrison of Fort Duquesne did not exceed two hundred men ; and the British regulars, united with a body of Virginian rangers and a troop of friendly Indians, seemed more than a match for any additional force that the French could assemble in this quarter. Braddock might have entered upon action early in the spring, had he not been delayed by the inability of the Virginian contractors to fulfil their en- gagements to furnish a sufficient quantity of provisions and carriages for his army. That this accident, which might easily have been foreseen, was not prevented by the British government implies the most culpable igno- rance or disregard on their part of the actual condition of the American provinces. The Virginians, engrossed with the culture of tobacco, did not raise corn enough for their own subsistence ; and being amply provided with the accommodation of water conveyance, they employed but few wheel-carriages or beasts of burden ; whereas Pennsylvania, which abound- ed in corn and all other sorts of provisions, enjoyed but little water- carriage, especially in its western settlements, where the inhabitants pos- sessed great numbers of carts, wagons, and horses. The British troops should therefore have been landed in Pennsylvania, and their supplies con- tracted for with the planters there, who could have easily performed their * Raynal. Smollett. Minot. Hutchinson. T^mbull. Holmes. fcnii \ji 244 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. engagements ; and if their commander had pitched his camp near Franks- town, or elsewhere upon the southwest borders of this province, he would have had less than eighty miles to march from thence to Fort Duquesne, instead of one hundred and thirty miles which he had to traverse from Will's Creek, on the frontiers of Virginia, where his encampment was ac- tually formed. The road to Fort Duquesne from the one place was not better or more practicable than from the other. When Braddock and his officers discovered the incompetence of the Virginians to fulfil the contract which only an injudicious preference had obtained for them, they exclaimed against the blundering ignorance of the British ministers in selecting a scene so unsuitable to their operations, and declared that the enterprise was rendered impracticable. It was, indeed, retarded for many weeks, and must have been deferred till the following summer, if a supply of carriages and provisions had not been seasonably procured from Pennsylvania by the influence and exertions of Dr. Frank- lin and some other popular and public-spirited inhabitants of this province. Notwithstanding the blunder by which the progress of the expedition was thus delayed, it would still, in all probability, have been attended with com- plete success, if a more fatal error had not been committed in the choice of its commander. Braddock was a man of courageous and determined spirit, and expert in the tactics and evolutions of European regiments and regular warfare. But, destitute of real genius, and pedantically devoted to the formalities of military science, he was fitter to review than to com- mand an army ; and scrupled not to express his contempt for any troops, however efficient in other respects, whose exercise on a parade did not dis- play the same regularity and dexterity which he had been accustomed to witness, and unfortunately to overvalue, in a regiment of English guards in Hyde Park. Rigid in enforcing the nicest punctilios and in inflicting the harshest severities of military discipline, haughty, obstinate, presumptuous, and difficult of access, he was unpopular among his own troops, and excited the disgust both of the Americans and the Indians. There are two sorts of vulgarity of mind ; to the one of which it is congenial timidly to overrate, and to the other presumptuously to underrate, the importance of scenes and circumstances remote from the routine of its ordinary experience. The latter of these qualities had too much place in the character of Braddock, who, though totally unconversant with American warfare, and strongly warned by the Duke of Cumberland that ambush and surprise were the dangers which he had chiefly to apprehend in such scenes, scorned to so- licit counsel adapted to the novelty of his situation from the only persons who were competent to afford it. Despising the credulity that accepted all that was reported of the dangers of Indian warfare, he refused, with fatal skepticism, to believe any part of it. It seemed to him degrading to the British army to suppose that it needed the directions of provincial officers, or could be endangered by the hostility of Indian foes. Filled with that pride which goes before destruction, Braddock com- menced his march from Will's Creek, on the 10th of June, at the head of about two thousand two hundred men. The advance of the army, una- voidably retarded by the natural impediments of the region it had to traverse, was additionally and unnecessarily obstructed by the stubborn adherence of Braddock, amidst the boundless woods and tangled thickets of America, to the system of military movements adapted to the open and extensive CHAP. TV.] ^ BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. • 245 plains of Europe.' He was roused at length to greater vigor and activity by the intelligence that the French at Fort Duquesne expected a reinforce- ment of five hundred regular troops ; whereupon, at the head of twelve hundred men whom he selected from the different corps, and with ten pieces of cannon and the necessary ammunition and provisions, he resolved to press forward to the point of destination, — leaving the residue of the army, under the command of Colonel Dunbar, to follow, with all the heavy bag- gage, by easy and leisurely marches. After a laborious progress, which was still unnecessarily retarded, and yet unaccompanied by the precaution of reconnoitring the woods, Braddock arrived at the Monongahela on the eighth of July, and encamped within ten miles of Fort Duquesne. Though Dunbar was now forty miles behind him, and the proximity of the enemy increased the danger of instantaneous attack, he prepared to advance the next day in his usual style of march, and expected to invest the French fortress without opposition. Sir Peter Halket and others of his officers now vainly entreated him to proceed with greater caution, to convert the column of march into an order of battle, and to employ the friendly In- dians, who attended him, as an advanced guard, to explore and anticipate the probabilities of ambuscade. Not less vainly did Washington represent that the profound silence and apparent solitude of the gloomy scenes around them afforded no security in American warfare against deadly and immi- nent danger, and offer with the provincial troops to scour and occupy the woods in the front and on the flanks of the main body. Braddock treated with equal contempt the idea of aid and of hostility from Indian savages ; and disdainfully rejecting the proposition of Washington, ordered the pro- vincials to form the rearguard of the British force. On the following day, this infatuated commander resumed his march [July 9, 1755], without having made the slightest attempt to gain intelligence of the situation or dispositions of the enemy. Three hundred British regulars, conducted by Colonel Gage, composed his van ; and Braddock himself followed at some distance with the artillery and main body of the army divided into small columns. Thus incautiously advancing, and having ar- rived about noon within seven miles of Fort Duquesne, — in an open wood undergrown thickly with high grass, his troops were suddenly startled by the appalling sound of the Indian war-cry ; and in the same moment a rattling shower of musketry was poured on their front and left flank from an enemy so artfully concealed that not a man of them could be descried. The vanguard, staggered and daunted, fell back upon the main body ; and the firing being repeated with redoubled fury and without yet disclosing either the numbers or the position of the assailants, terror and confusion began to spread among the British troops ; and many of them sought safety in flight, notwithstanding all the efforts of their officers, some of whom behaved very gallantly, to recall and rally them. Braddock himself, if he ever possessed any of the higher qualities of a soldier, was in this emergence deserted of them all, and exhibited only an obstinate and unavailing bravery. Instead of raking the thickets and bushes whence the fire was poured with grape-shot from the ten pieces of cannon which he had with him, or push- ing forward flanking parties of his Indians against the enemy, he confined ' " I find," said Washington, in a letter to his brother, " that, instead of pushing on with vigor, without regarding a little rough road, they are halting to level every mole-hill, and to erect bridges over every brook." In his character and fortune, Braddock seems to have re semblted the Roman general, Varui. U # 246 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. his attention exclusively to the regular infantry. To them the only command which he should have addressed was either an instant retreat, or a rapid charge without regard to methodical order and regularity. He adopted neither of these expedients ; but, remaining on the ground where he was first attacked, under an incessant and galling fire, he directed the brave offi- cers and men who continued with him to form in regular line and advance. Meanwhile his troops fell fast beneath the iron tempest that hissed around them, and almost all his officers were singled out one after another and killed or wounded ;i for the Indians, who always take deliberate and particu- lar aim when they fire, and aim preferably at the officers, easily distinguished them by their dress. After an action of three hours, Braddock, under whom three horses were killed, and whose obstinacy seemed to increase with the danger, received a shot through the right arm and the lungs, and was carried off the field by Colonel Gage. All the officers on horseback, except Colonel Washington, were now killed or wounded, and the residue of the troops by whom the conflict had been maintained abandoned it in dismay and dis- order. The provincials, who were among the last to leave the field, were rallied after the action by the skill and presence of mind of Washington, and covered the retreat of the regulars.^ The defeat was complete. About seven hundred of the British were killed or wounded, including a considerable proportion of the Virginian troops, and* sixty-four out of eighty- five officers. Sir Peter Halket fell by the first fire at the head of his regi- ment ; and the general's secretary, son to Governor Shirley, was killed soon after. The artillery, ammunition, and baggage were abandoned to the enemy ; and the defeated army fled precipitately to the camp of Dun- bar, where Braddock expired of his wounds.^ Although no pursuit was at- tempted by the French, who afterwards gave out that their numbers, includ- ing Indian auxiliaries, had amounted only to four hundred men,'* and, with greater probability, that their loss in the action was perfectly insignificant, Dunbar, struck with astonishment and alarm, and finding that his troops were infected with the panic and disarray of the fugitives, hastily recon- ducted them to Will's Creek. Here letters were brought to him from the governors of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, beseeching him to as- sist in defending the frontiers of these provinces, while they would endeav- our to raise from the inhabitants reinforcements that might enable him yet to resume the enterprise against Fort Duquesne. But, diffident of his safety, he declined to accede to their desire ; and abandoning his position at Will's Creek, pursued a hasty retreat to Philadelphia. Since their ar- rival in America, and especially during this retreat, the conduct of the British soldiers towards the American colonists was marked by hcentious ^ Among the few British officers who escaped with life and untarnished reputation, though severely wounded in this engagement, was Horatio Gates, who afterwards settled in America, and achieved a high rank and brilliant renown in the service of his adopted country during the Revolutionary War. ** In a sermon, occasioned by this expedition, and preached soon after it, Dr. Davies, a Virginian clergyman, thus prophetically expressed himself: — " As a remarkable instance of patriotism, I may point out to the public that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some impor- tant service to his country." Rogers. 3 This unfortunate commander seems never to have surmounted the astonishment created by his defeat. " Who would have thought it ? We shall know better how to deal with them another time," were his last words. Washington read the funeral service over his re- mains by the light of a torch. ♦ According to more credible accounts, the total number of the French and Indians was nine hundred. CHAP. IV.] RAVAGES ON THE VIRGINIA FRONTIER. 247 rapine and insolence ; and it was generally declared of them that they were much more formidable to the people whom they had been commis- sioned to defend, than to the enemy whom they had undertaken to conquer. The issue of this expedition, and the different circumstances and result of the prior campaign in Nova Scotia, could not fail to awaken in the minds of the colonists impressions no less flattering to American genius and valor than unfavorable to British ascendency. Nothing, indeed, could be m.ore injurious to the dignity and influence of Britain, than that, at the very time when she first offended and mortified the colonists by the superiority which she arrogated to her own soldiers, these soldiers, commanded by a British general, should have incurred a disgraceful defeat by neglecting the advice, of the provincial officers, and should have been saved from total destruction only by the firmness and valor of the provincial troops.^ But the Virginians at present had little leisure for such considerations, amidst the calamitous consequences which immediately resulted from the defeat on the Ohio. Their frontiers were now exposed to the hostilities of a foe roused by a formidable attack, inflamed by a surprising victory, and additionally incited by the timidity displayed by Dunbar and his troops. A large addition to the militia of the province was decreed by the assembly ; and the com- mand of this force was bestow£d on Colonel Washington, with the unusual privilege of appointing his own field-oflicers. But whether from a misdi- rected economy, or from the jealousy w^hich they entertained of Governor Dinwiddie, the measures of the Virginian assembly were quite inadequate to the purpose of effectual defence. The skilful and indefatigable exertions of Washington, seconded by his militia with an admirable bravery and warmth of patriotic zeal,"^ proved unavailing to stem the furious and deso- lating incursions of the French and Indians, who, dividing themselves into small parties and actively pursuing a system of predatory hostility, rendered the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania a scene of carnage, terror, and desolation. In the scenes of this desultory warfare, unattended with glory, but replete with action, danger, and enterprise, did Washington qualify him- self to sustain the greater and more arduous part which his destiny reserved for him.^ The defeat sustained on the Ohio produced a very unpropitious effect on the enterprise which had been projected against Niagara, under the conduct of Shirley, whom Braddock's death advanced to the chief command of the British forces in North America. The troops destined both for this ex- pedition and for the attack of Crown Point were ordered to assemble at Albany. Those whom Shirley was personally to lead consisted of cer- tain regiments of regulars furnished by New England, New York, and New Jersey, and of a band of Indian auxiliaries. Various causes conspired to * " This whole transaction gave us Americans the first suspicions that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regular troops had not been well founded." Franklin. ' A party of these miiitia having been conducted to the frontiers of Virginia during the win- ter, " the men, who were indifferentlv clothed, without tents, and exposed to the rigor and inclemency of the weather, discovered great aversion to the service, and were anxious, and even clamorous, to return to their families ; when William Winston, a lieutenant in one of the companies, mounting the stump of a tree, addressed them with such keenness of invective, and declaimed with such force of eloquence on liberty and patriotism, that, when he con- cluded, the general cry was, ' T^t us march on ! lead us against the enemy ! ' And they were now willing, nay, anxious, to encounter all those difficulties and dangers, which, but a few moments before, had almost produced a mutiny." Wirt's Life of Henry. * Franklin's Memoirs. Marshall's Life of Washington. Smollett. Burk. Trumbull. Rogers. Holmes. McGuire's Religious Opinions and Character of Washington., 248 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [ BOOK X. retard the commencement of his march ; and while he was advancing to Oswego, the tidings of Braddock's defeat overtook him and spread con- sternation through his army. Many of the boatmen and sledgemen who were hired to transport the stores and provisions now began to desert ; and the Indians discovered such backwardness to follow him, or even to adh'^re longer to the declining fortunes of England, that prudence induced him to consume a great deal of time in efforts but partially successful to re- store their confidence and regain their good-will. On his arrival at Oswego [August 21, 1755], his forces were so much reduced by desertion, and the fidelity of the Indians appeared so precarious, that farther delay was rendered inevitable ; and though he finally attempted to press forward with vigor to Niagara, he was compelled to abandon this design by a succession of heavy rains, the sickness of his troops, and the dispersion of the few In- dians whose constancy endured somewhat longer than that of the rest of their countrymen. Leaving Colonel Mercer at Oswego, with a garrison of seven hundred men, and instructions to build two additional forts for the security of the place, Shirley reconducted his unsuccessful army to Albany. The forces which were to proceed from Albany against Crown Point consisted of militia regiments, amounting to between five and six thousand men, supplied by the New England States and New York. By the ad- vice of Shirley, the command of this expedition was intrusted to William Johnson, a native of Ireland, who had emigrated to New York, and was now a member of the council of this province. Johnson was distinguished by uncommon strength of body, and possessed a hardy, coarse, and vigorous mind, united with an ambitious and enterprising temper. He began life as a common soldier, and in the parent state could hardly have emerged above the level of this condition ; but in the colonies his genius and good fortune advanced him to wealth, title, and fame. For several years he had resided on the banks of the Mohawk River ; and, studiously cultivating the. friendship of the Six Nations, had acquired a more powerful ascendant over them than any of his countrymen ever before enjoyed. In conformity with the expectation to which he owed his appointment, he prevailed with. Hen- drick, one of the chiefs of that confederacy, to join the expedition against Crown Point at the head of three hundred warriors of his tribe. Johnson, who received separate commissions from every American province which contributed to the enterprise, had never before witnessed a military cam- paign ; and his troops, except a few of the New Englanders who had shared in the reduction of Louisburg, were equally inexperienced. While Johnson was collecting his artillery and military stores. General Lyman, the second in command, advanced with the troops to the carrying-place between Hudson's River and Lake George, about sixty miles from Albany, and began to build a fortress, which received the name of Fort Edward, on the east side of the Hudson. Having joined his army, Johnson left a part of it as a garrison to Fort Edward, and towards the end of August pro- ceeded with the main body to the southern extremity of Lake George. Here he learned from his Indian scouts that a party of French and Indians had established a fort at Ticonderoga, which is situated on the isthmus between the north end of Lake George and the southern shore of Lake Champlain, about fifteen miles from Crown Point- As the fortifications at Ticonderoga were reported to be incomplete, Johnson, deeming that the conquest of the place would be attended with little difficulty, and regarding CHAP. IV.] EXPEDITION AGAINST CROWN POINT. - 249 h as a key to the main object of his enterprise, was preparing to advance against it, when he was suddenly reduced to act on the defensive by the mo- tions of the enemy, and the unexpected tidings that reached him of the force wiiich they possessed. Baron Dieskau, an able and experienced officer, had now arrived in Canada with a strong reinforcement of troops from France ; and having collected a considerable army both of French and Indians, was advancing against the British settlements with the purpose of striking an important blow. Johnson hastened to transmit this alarming intelligence to the prov- inces whose troops he commanded, and especially to the government of Massachusetts, — together with an urgent request for further assistance, which he reckoned indispensable to the success of his enterprise and even to the safety of his army. The issue of this application affords another instance of that unconquerable spirit which distinguished the people of New Eng- land. Massachusetts had suppHed the greatest part of the force which John- son already commanded, and by her various military exertions incurred an expense disproportioned to her resources, and of which she anxiously so- licited a reimbursement from the parent state. The reputation of Dieskau. and the advantage which he possessed in commanding disciplined troops, contrasted with the inexperience of Johnson and the American militia, gave rise to apprehensions, which, combining with the depression occasioned by Braddock's defeat, produced a general despair of the success of the expedition against Crown Point. But this was a favorite enterprise with the people of New England, and they were determined to persist in it as long as possible, and to support to the utmost of their power the brave men who were engaged in conducting it. A large subsidiary force was raised in Massachusetts, and despatched with the hope of at least extricating Johnson and his army from the danger of being compelled to surrender to the superior power of the enemy. But the danger was over before this re- inforcement reached the scene of action. Dieskau had been ordered to di- rect his first effort to the reduction of the British post at Oswego, of the importance of which the French government was fully aware ; and he had already commenced his march for this purpose, when the tidings of John- son's expedition induced him to reserve his force for the defence of Crown Point. Finding that Johnson's army, which was inferior both in number and experience, did not venture to approach, he determined to advance against it ; and expecting an easy victory and the consequent fall of Fort Edward, proposed, as an ulterior measure, to invade Albany, to ravage the neighbouring settlements, and deprive the British of all communication with Oswego. His purpose would have succeeded, if the fate of the two armies had depended on the comparative skill of their commanders. But victory, though commonly, is not indefeasibly, the prize of either the skilful or the strong. Johnson was apprized of Dieskau's approach, but ignorant both of his position and of his force ; for the Indians, who were his scouts, had no words or signs for expressing any large number, and customarily pointed to the hair of their heads, or to the stars in the firmament, when they meant to denote any quantity which exceeded their reckoning. It was im- possible to collect from their reports whether the French fell short of a thousand, or exceeded ten thousand in number. Yet, notwithstanding this uncertainty, Johnson, who had fortified his camp at Lake George, commit- voL. II. 32 250 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. ted tlie rashness of detaching a thousand men, under the command of a brave officer, Colonel Ephraim Williams, together with Hendrick and the Indian auxiliaries, to attack the enemy. [September 6, 1755.] This de- tachment had hardly advanced three miles beyond the camp, when it found itself almost entirely surrounded by the French army, and, after a gallant but hopeless conflict, was defeated with some loss and put to flight. Wil- liams fell in this encounter ; and Hendrick,^ with several of his Indians, who fought with heroic bravery, were also among the slain. The French, whose loss was not inferior, pursued the fugitives to their camp, and, had they made an instantaneous attack, they would probably have carried it ; but, fortunately for its defenders, a pause took place, which, though short, gave time for their panic and confusion to subside. Dieskau had learned a few days before that Johnson had no cannon at his camp ; and he waS not aware, that, in the interim, a number of these engines had been seasonably transported to it from Fort Edward. Dismayed by the unexpected fire of this artillery, the Canadian mihtia and their Indian auxiliaries fled into the Woods, whence the discharges of their musketry against a fortified camp produced little effect. The French regulars, however, maintained their ground, and with them, Dieskali, in an engagement which was prolonged for several hours, conducted a vigorous assault upon Johnson's position. John- ison displayed a firm and intrepid spirit during his brief participation in the commencement of the action ; but having soon received a painful wound, he was compelled to retire to his tent and abandon the command to Lyman. Under the conduct of this American officer, his countrymen defended their camp with such resolution and success, that the French were finally re- pulsed with the loss of nearly a thousand men. Dieskau Was mortally tvounded and taken prisoner ; and his discomfited forces, assembling at some distance and preparing to refresh themselves with food, were Suddenly at- tacked by a small party of New York and New Hampshire militia com- iiianded by Captains Folsom and M'Ginnes, and, flying in confusion, left the tvhole of their baggage and ammunition a prey to the victors. In the vari- ous conflicts by which this important day was signalized, there were killed or mortally wounded about a hundred and thirty of the British provincials, and among others Captain M'Ginnes, by whom the success was corhpleted, knd Colonel Titcomb of Massachusetts, who had previously gained the praise of distinguished bravery at the siege of Louisburg. Now was the time for the British to improve the advantage they had Won, and reap the full fruit of their victory by a vigorous pursuit of the flying enemy and by investing Crown Point, which, from the smallness of its garrison, and the impression produced by the defeat of Dieskau, would have probably afforded them an easy conquest. But Johnson was less desirous of extending the public advantage than of reaping and securing his own personal share in it ; and sensible of the claim he had acquired on royal favor, he was averse to expose it, while yet unrewarded, to the hazard of diminution. He directed his troops to strengthen the fortifications of his camp, in utter disregard of the spirited counsel of Shirley, who pressed him to resume active operations, and at least to dislodge the French from Ticon- deroga before they had time to fortify this post and recover from their sur- prise and consternation. Whether from negligence or from a politic defer- ence to the sentiments of the British court, he maintained scarcely any com- » ge6 Note XTV., at the end of the volume. CHAP. IV.] ABANDONMENT OF THE EXPEDITION. 25t raunication with the New England governments, and sent the French general and the other prisoners to New York, — although Massachusetts had claimed the distinction of receiving them, as due to the preponderance of her inter- est in the army by which they were taken. With the additional troops late- ly raised in this province, and which were now united to Johnson's original and victorious army, it was not doubted that he would still attempt some farther enterprise before the close of the year. But he suffered the oppor- tunity to pass by, and consumed the time in lingering and irresolute dehb- eration, till, by the advice of a council of war, the attack of Crown Point, and all other active operations, were abandoned for the present season. [October, 1755.] His army was then disbanded, with the exception of six hundred men, who were appointed to garrison Fort Edward, and another strong fort which was erected at the southern extremity of Lake George and received the name of Fort WiUiam Henry. The French, taking advantage of Johnson's remissness, exerted them- selves to strengthen Ticonderoga ; while their Indian allies, provoked by the conflict at Lake George, and encouraged by the seeming timidity or inca- pacity of the victor, indulged their revenge and animosity in furious and destructive ravages on the frontiers of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The British colonists, though at first highly elated with the victory over Dieskau, perceived with chagrin and disappointment that the advantages of it were entirely thrown away, and that the issue of an enterprise which began with a signal defeat of the enemy had been to render the chief object of it more difficult of attainment than it was before. Nor was their dissat- isfaction abated by perceiving that Johnson alone derived any substantial benefit from the victory, and that to him exclusively was the gratitude of Britain expressed for the first battle in which the honor of her arrps had been vindicated since the coirimencement of hostilities with France. In Johnson's reports of the action at Lake George he assumed the whole merit of it to himself ; and while the superior claims of Lyman and other native Americans were unknown, or at least unnoticed, in England, John- son received from the king the dignity of a baronet, together with the office of royal superintendent of Indian affairs, and from the parliament a grant of five thousand pounds, which was in fact paid by the colonies, as it was de- ducted from the sum of one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds voted this year by the House of Commons to New England, New York, and New Jersey, in consideration of the burdens entailed upon them by the war.^ While the British colonies were thus balked of the fruits which might have been reaped from the victory at Lake George, the French, with politic and assiduous exertion, were cultivating the advantage they obtained at Fort Duquesne. They were particularly successful in improving the favorable impression of their genius and good fortune which the defeat of Braddock produced on the Indian tribes inhabiting the territory adjacent to the river Ohio ; and in the course of this year, some of their emissaries, united with envoys deputed by these tribes, made their first attempt to seduce the Cher- okees, who had been hitherto the firmest Indian allies of Britain. This na- tion differed in some respects from all the other branches of the Indian race,^ and especially from those roving tribes who possessed no fixed or » Smollett. TrumbuTT Minot. Hutchinson" Belknap. Dwight's Travels. The sum awarded to the colonies was a very inadequate compensation. • " They are seldom intemperate in drinking, but when they can be so on free cost. Other- wise, love of driak yields to covetousness j ,^ wic© pQfgweLy.Jo b© f^i^ in any Indian b#t.)i Cherokee." JoJ^ Wesley's «/in^«^. 252 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. constant habitations. From time immemorial they had occupied the territory which they still inhabited ; and in speaking of their forefathers, customarily affirmed that '' they sprung from that ground," or that '^ they descended from the clouds upon those hills." They termed the Europeans .ATs^/iin^s, and themselves the beloved people. Hitherto they had regarded the French with especial aversion, and contemptuously remarked of them, that they were light as a feather, fickle as the wind, and deceitful as serpents ; and valuing themselves on the grave and stately decorum of their own manners, they re- sented the sprightly levity of French deportment as an unpardonable insult. But now the chief warrior of the Cherokees sent in haste a message to Glen, the governor of South Carolina, acquainting him with the intrigues of the French and their Indian partisans, and advising him to hold a general con- ference with the Cherokee tribes, and to renew the former treaties of his countrymen with them. Glen, sensible of the importance of securing the favor of these powerful tribes, who at this time could bring about three thou- sand warriors into the field, willingly acceded to the proposition of a con- ference, and met the chiefs of the Cherokees in their own country, at a place two hundred miles distant from Charleston. The conference that en- sued lasted about a week, and terminated in the renovation of a friendly league, and in an arrangement, by which, to the satisfaction of both parties^ a large section of their territory was ceded by the Indians to the king of Great Britain. This acquisition, which was defined by deeds of conveyance executed by the chiefs of the Cherokees in the name of their people, oc- casioned the removal of the Indians to a greater distance from the English, and enabled the inhabitants of Carolina to extend their settlements into the interior of the country in proportion to the increase of their numbers. Soon after the cession took place. Governor Glen built a fort, which was named Prince George, at a spot on Savannah River about three hundred miles from Charleston, and within gunshot of an Indian town called Keowee. It con- tained barracks for a hundred men, and was designed for the security of the western frontiers of CaroHna.^ To the tumult and agitation of war in North America there was now added the terror inspired by an earthquake, of which the shock was more violent than any that had ever before been experienced in this quarter of the world. [November 18, 1755.] It continued at least four minutes ; and, shaping its course from northwest to southeast, caused the earth and its warring inhabitants to tremble throughout an extent of nineteen hundred miles. The most remarkable effect of this convulsion of nature was the dif- fusion of an increased warmth and solemnity of rehgious sentiment among the people of New England, who, in all seasons of danger and alarm, still, like their excellent forefathers, elevated their view from secondary causes to that Being without whose permission and appointment no evil can assault and no danger menace. The impression thus produced on their minds was additionally heightened by the tidings that arrived, shortly after, of the dread- ful catastrophe which in the same month attended the great earthquake at Lisbon. In the fate of the Portuguese the pious New Englanders recog- nized, with emotions of awe and admiration, the extremity of their own danger and the magnitude of their deliverance ; and the government of Massachusetts, in particular, solemnized the general alarm by appointing a day of humiliation and prayer, " in acknowledgment of the distinguishing mercy of God, and in submission to his righteous j udgments." ^ »~Hewit. ~ ^ s» S. Smith. Minot. ' CHAP. IV.] MORRIS AND THE PENNSYLVANIA ASSEMBLY. 253 In the close of this year [December 12, 1755], Shirley, prompted by his enterprising temper, and entided by his supreme command of the British forces in America to take the lead in all measures and deliberations for the general defence, convoked a council of war at New York, which was attended by the governors of this province and of Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Here a plan of operations for the next campaign was concerted on a very extensive scale ; but in order to the definitive adoption of this or any other general plan, it was necessary that it should be canvassed and approved by the assemblies of all the provinces which were to participate in its execution ; and this preliminary arrangement was always embarrassed by difficulties and obstructions. Shirley had found and still continued to find it no easy matter to persuade the assembly of Massachusetts to embark as deeply as he wished in military enterprise ; and his urgency with them, co- operating with the jealousy awakened by his appointment to the chief command of the forces in America, provoked an opposition against him, which only his prudence and conciliatory address prevented from becoming formidable to his authority. A rivalship, which arose out of the expedition against Crown Point, between New York and Massachusetts, proved favor- able to Shirley's popularity in his own province, though it obstructed the concert and harmony between the legislatures of those States.^ We have already had occasion to advert to the causes by w^hich disunion and distrust were promoted between the governors and assemblies of several of the other North American provinces. The conduct of public affairs was more embarrassed by political dis- sension in Pennsylvania than in any of the other colonies. Hamilton, the governor of this province, a worthy and honorable man, impatient of the continual disputes with the assembly to which he was exposed by his fidehty to the instructions of the proprietaries, resigned his office in 1754, and was succeeded by Robert Hunter Morris, son of Lewis Morris, governor of New Jersey. Morris, an ingenious man, but wrong-headed humorist, in- heriting the pecufiar taste and teniper of his father, delighted above measure in argument and controversy, and gladly embraced the prospect of such a scene of disputation as the presidency over the Quaker politicians of Penn- sylvania was likely to afford. But either he undervalued the controversial vigor and spleen which the provincial assembly was endowed with, or he overvalued his own power of retorting and enduring its hostiHty. A series of interminable disputes with this body, into which he plunged directly after his assumption of the government, soon degenerated into the most violent and even scurrilous altercations, wherein he found himself completely over- matched both in acrimony and perseverance of vituperation by his Quaker antagonists. " His administration," says Franklin, '' was a continual battle, in which he labored hard to blacken the assembly, who wiped off his col- oring as fast as he laid it on, and placed it in return thick upon his own face." With all his relish for disputation, and the advantage of a contin- ual flow of mirth and good-humor,^ it is surprising that Morris should have sustained, for two years, such a contest with a party supported by the ex- haustless resources of Quaker conceit and pertinacity, and supplied with the sharpest artillery of wit by the pen of Franklin, who, as clerk of the as- sembly, lent his aid in digesting the efl^usions of its spleen and ingenuity. At length, in defiance of his anticipations, this governor, like his predeces- ' Minot. ' See Note XV., at the end of the volume. * V 254 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X sor, became completely disgusted with his office, and, resigning it in 1756, was succeeded by William Penny, an Englishman, and a captain in the British army. These dissensions were chiefly occasioned by the meanness and avarice of the proprietaries, who prohibited their lieutenants or governors from con- senting to any tax upon provincial property, unless their own large reve- nues, derived from quitrents, and all the lands which they had acquired from the Indians, but had not yet cultivated nor farmed out to the colonists, were exempted from its operation. Engrossed with the interest of this dispute, and alarmed by the menacing aspect of public affairs, the Quaker majority in the Pennsylvanian assembly seemed of late to have waived or abated their repugnance to military operations. They passed bills for levying ten thousand pounds to purchase provisions for the troops appointed to march against Crown Point ; and fifty thousand pounds in aid of Braddock's ex- pedition against Fort Duquesne. But these bills produced only a repetition of disputes with the governor, who vainly offered to affirm them, on condi- tion of his being allowed to modify one of their clauses by the alteration of a single word. The clause to which he referred enacted, " that all es- tates, real and personal, were to be taxed ; those of the proprietaries not excepted " ; and his proposition was, that the word not should be can- celled, and the word only substituted in its place. The disaster at Fort Duquesne occasioned a temporary suspension of this controversy, and gave rise to measures which produced a remarkable change in the political state of Pennsylvania. When the tidings of that disgraceful defeat arrived in England, the partisans of the provincial assembly found it easy to direct the public irritation against the proprietary family. The English willingly vented their impatience and mortification in clamorous reproach of the self- ishness and injustice of the policy pursued by the proprietaries ; and some persons went so far as to maintain, that, by obstructing the defence of the province, they had forfeited their right to administer its government. In- timidated by this expression of public feeling in England, the proprietaries commanded their receiver-general to add five thousand pounds of their money to whatever sum might be levied by the assembly for the common defence. This overture, being reported to the assembly, was accepted in lieu of a direct contingent to a general tax ; and a new bill, imposing an assessment of sixty thousand pounds on the province for the purpose of military defence, with an exemption of the proprietary estates, was accord- ingly passed into a law. Contemporary with this law, and the fruit partly of Frankhn's address, and partly of the general alarm that prevailed, was a bill, which, though it encountered some Quaker opposition, w^as yet ratified by a majority of the assembly, for embodying and training a regiment of provincial mihtia to be raised by voluntary enlistment. It was provided, with special and unnecessary precaution, that no member of the Quaker society should be required to serve in the regiment that was thus directed to be raised. This superfluous clause, which, if it had really conveyed any additional advantage or security, should have also included the Moravian settlers, was probably intended as an empty compliment to the still extant out dechning political preponderance of the Quakers in Pennsylvania. So strong and general at this time was the military spirit that had been aroused in this province, that some even of the Moravian societies declared their CHAP. IV.] RESIGNATION OF CIVIL POWER BY THE QUAKERS. 255 approbation of defensive war, and, fortifying their settlements, prepared to repel hostile aggression.^ The Pennsylvanian Quakers now began to perceive the impossibility of reconciling the preservation of their sectarian principles with the admin- istration of political power in the colony which their fathers had planted. It was chiefly with the hope of cultivating those principles, and exhibiting them to the world in a high degree of practical perfection, ^ that they originally incurred the lot of exiles and undertook the cares of government. But, step by step, they had been led on to pursue a career, as colonists and poli- ticians, on which, as votaries of Quakerism, it was impossible for them to deflect with satisfaction. The first signal dereliction of their principles was the appropriation of negro slaves, — an evil, which, of late years, had spread with rank and baleful increase among them. Professing unbounded meek- ness and patience, they distinguished themselves in their provincial assembly by extreme contentiousness and susceptibility of provocation, and by the promptitude and inveteracy with which they resented and retorted every in- jury and affront. They were at an early period seduced into a covert sanction of war, and now permitted a militia law to pass in an assembly of which they possessed the command. But there always existed a party among the Quakers by whom these evils were deplored ; and now the soci- ety in general began to open their eyes to the inconsistency of which they were guilty, and to the inevitable fruits of its farther continuance. They perceived that it was vain to pretend any longer to control by Quaker prin- ciple the proceedings of an assembly in which they had assented to a militia law ; they foresaw that the British government would (as it actually did) forthwith endeavour to obtain a farther participation in military meas- ures from the assembly ; and justly concluded that they themselves must now either renounce entirely their political capacity, or consent to merge entirely the Quaker in the politician. They chose, though with reluctance, the alternative most creditable to their sectarian sincerity and personal disin- terestedness ; and, with a rare virtue, adhered to their religious principles and resigned the political authority which they had enjoyed since the foun- dation of the colony. Their administration of power was characterized by nothing so becoming and praiseworthy as the grace with which it was thus surrendered ; and yet, with all their failings and infirmities, they had rendered it instrumental in no mean degree to the welfare and happiness of the commu- nity over which they presided. So frugal was their system of government, that the produce of the custom-house and a small excise had proved suffi- cient to defray the ordinary public expenditure. The remarkable proceed- ing which we have commemorated was not all at once carried into general effect ; but a number of Quakers now seceded from the assembly, and de- clined to accept the offices of government under a political system by which a military establishment was sanctioned ; and their example was gradually ' The first Moravian colony in North Carolina also fortified their settlement. Williamson. The Quakers in New Jersey, it would seem, did not at this period enjoy an exemption from military service. A distinguished member of their society relates, that, in the year 1757, a number of Quakers were summoned to join the New Jersey militia, and march against the French and Indians ; and that several consented to obey the requisition. He reproaches many professors of Quakerism with evincing no other fruits of their pretended principles, ex- cept aversion to the danger and fatigues of war ; and represents a great majority of the society as consenting to pay war taxes ; adding, " that a carnal mind is gaining upon us, I believe, will not be denied." John Woolman's Journal. * See Note XXIX., at the end of Volume I. , 256 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. followed by others of their fellow-sectaries, till, first, the Quaker majority- was extinguished in the assembly, and, at length, few or no Quakers at all remained in this body.^ This policy proved no less favorable to the personal happiness and virtue of the Pennsylvanian Quakers than advantageous to their sectarian fame. Dedicating henceforward to philanthropic labors the talents that political de- bate had absorbed and perverted, they caused the genuine principles of Quaker equity and benevolence to shine forth with a strength and lustre that gradually purged off all or nearly all the peculiar stains and specks that Quakerism had contracted in America. By a remarkable, and surely not an accidental coincidence, the secession of the Quakers from political office, which now began to take place, was contemporary with their first decisive effort as a religious society to arrest the progress of negro slavery. We have seen ^ that the Quaker society of Pennsylvania, so early as the year 1688, condemned the conduct that was pursued by many of its own members, by issuing a declaration of the unlawfulness of negro slavery. Although this declaration served merely to guard the purity of Quaker theory in America, without visibly affecting the general Quaker practice, there were not wanting individual members of this sect who practically recognized its validity, and labored with zealous benevolence to propagate their own su- perior virtue among their countrymen. Buriing, a Quaker inhabitant of Long Island, pubhshed a tract against slavery in the year 1718. Sandiford, a Quaker merchant in Philadelphia, published a work on the same subject, under the title of The Mystery of Iniquity, in 1729. Similar compositions, reinforced by the personal example of their authors, were given to the world by three remarkable Quakers, — Benjamin Lay, of Pennsylvania, a benevolent enthusiast, but whimsical and eccentric in his general behaviour, and occasionally disordered in his understanding ; John Woolman, of New Jersey, whose admirable and unwearied exertions to elevate the morality of his countrymen and the condition of the Africans may, perhaps, entitle him to be regarded as the Clarkson of America ; and Anthony Benezet, a na- tive of Picardy, who had emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1731, and who united a fine genius and all the accomplishments of an elegant scholar to a heart that was the seat of every humane virtue and rehgious sentiment. De- voting himself to the education of youth, Benezet inculcated upon all his pupils an abhorrence of slavery, and reared a generation of Quakers the de- termined and uncompromising adversaries of this injustice.^ We have learned from the testimony of Kalm, the traveller, and other authorities, that, about the middle of the eighteenth century, various individual Quakers illustrated their justice, and the consistency of their conduct with their principles, by emancipating their slaves. Yet the number of slaves possessed by the Qua- ^ Proud. Franklms Memoirs. BrissoVs Travels. See Note XVI., at the end of the volume. « Ante, Book VII., Chap. II. ^ Benezet was the first person in North America who conceived and conducted the benev- olent enterprises of educating the deaf and dumb and of restoVing to life persons apparently drowned. His exertions in behalf of the negroes commenced in the year 17.50. The cele- brated Patrick Henry, of Virginia (in a letter preserved in Vaux's Life of Benezet), declares that Benezet's writings had opened his eyes to the iniquity of negro slavery, condemns him- self for his possession of slaves, — and, protesting that he yields to the strong current of gen- eral practice, expresses his hope of the future emancipation of the negro race, and recommends meanwhile to all slave-owners the exercise of gentleness and kindness towards their sable de- pendents, and every practicable means of ameliorating their unhappy lot. Perhaps the most signal and admirable effect of the writings of Benezet was the impression they produced on the mind of Clarkson. . . CHAP. IV.] WAR DECLARED BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 257 kers in general had continued to increase ; ^ a fact which was noticed and deplored in a circular letter addressed, in the year 1754, by the Quaker society of Pennsylvania to its members. In this letter the society content- ed itself with exhorting the Quaker inhabitants of Pennsylvania and New Jersey to desist from purchasing and importing any more slaves, and to treat the negroes already in their possession with a tender consideration. But in the present year it advanced a step farther, and embraced a resolu- tion by which its ecclesiastical officers, termed elders or overseers^ were directed to report the conduct of every Quaker within its jurisdiction, who should purchase or import addiuonal slaves ; and offenders in this respect, though not visited with the extreme penalty of excommunication, were ex- cluded from the more select meetings of the society, and from the privilege of contributing to support its pecuniary funds ; — a penal infliction, it must be confessed, more creditable to its authors than formidable to the persons who were likely to be its objects. Whether the penalty was inflicted or not, it is certain that the measure, in its immediate operation, produced YiXr tie, if any, visible good ; many Quakers persisted in purchasing slaves ; and some continued even engaged in the slave-trade. This, however, was the first step in a line of policy, which, pursued with steady virtue and in- creasing determination, conducted the American Quakers, about twenty years after, to that magnanimous proceeding by which a great majority of their society emancipated all their slaves, and excommunicated every mem- ber who declined to incur the same sacrifice. ^ From the agreeable contemplation of the revival and practical illustratiori of Quaker virtue, we must now return to trace the progress of national enmity and strife. Although a war between the French and English had been openly on foot for more than two years in America, it had not yet been formally proclaimed. The British government, conscious of the moderation (not to say the timidity) of its own views, obstinately clung to the hope that peace might yet be established by an amicable arrangement and upon solid foundations ; and the French court, transported by inamod^ erate ambition, and yet more misled by reliance on ignoble cunning and iur trigue, studiously encouraged that hope, with the view of relaxing the vigoy of British hostility. But at length, all prospect of accommodation having ceased, a formal declaration of war was published by Great Britain [May 17, 1756], and followed soon after by a counter proclamation from France, whose cabinet apparently cherished the hope that an atta(?k upon the Eng- lish monarch's German possessions, to which from birth and education he was notoriously much more attached than to England, might alarm him into a modification of his pretensions in America.^ A reinforcement of troops 'It appears also, from the testimony of John Woolman, that, although some Quakers used their slaves kindly, and endeavoured to communicate instruction to them, their conduct in these respects was neither imitated nor approved by the majority of their fellow-sectaries. In Woolman's interesting journal a curious account is preserved of a discussion between himself and some other Quakers, who had adopted the apologetic theory, that negroes are the offspring of Ham, and as such divinely doomed to a life of hardship and bondage. • Clarkson's History of the Molition of the Slave-trade. Vaux's Life of Benezet. Woolman's Journal. And communications (received in 1824) from an aged and intelligent Pennsylvanian Quaker. Woolman remarks, that the first proposition to the Quaker society to punish farther im- portations and purchases of negroes originated with Quakers who themselves possessed slaves whom they declined to emancipate. 3 London Annual Register for 1758. Smollett. Raynal. "The hostilities hitherto waged," says Raynal, " had been rather countenanced than openly avowed by the respective parent states. This clandestine mode of carrying on the war was perfectly agreeable to the mmistry VOL. II. 33 V* 258 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. had been despatched to America two months before this event, under Gen- eral Abercrombie, who was appointed to supersede Shirley in the chief command of the British forces. An act of parliament ^ was passed for enabling the king to grant the rank and pay of military officers to a limited number of foreign Protestants residing and naturalized in the colonies. This act, which was not passed without a strong opposition in England, excited great discontent and apprehension in America.^ Another contemporary statute^ empowered the king's officers to recruit their regiments by enlist- ing the indented servants of the colonists, with the consent of their masters. The plan of operations for this year's campaign was concerted in the council of provincial governors at New York. It was proposed to raise ten thousand men for an expedition against Crown Point ; six thousand for an attempt upon Niagara ; and three thousand for the attack of Fort Duquesne. In addition to this large force, and in aid of its operations, it was resolved that two thousand men should proceed up the river Kenne- bec, destroy the French settlements on the river Chaudiere, and, advancing to its mouth, within three miles of Quebec, distract the attention of the en- emy and spread alarm through all the adjacent quarter of Canada. To fa- ciHtate the reduction of Crown Point, it was proposed to take advantage of the season when the lakes should be frozen in order to seize Ticonde- roga ; but this measure was rendered impracticable by the unusual mild- ness of the winter. The command of the expedition against Crown Point w^as intrusted to General Winslow, who, on reviewing the provincial troops destined for this service, found their number to amount only to about seven thousand ; a force, which, after deducting from it the garrisons required at various places, appeared inadequate to the enterprise. The arrival of the British troops un- der Abercrombie, while it suppHed the deficiency, created a new difficulty, which for a while suspended the expedition. Much disgust was excited in America by the regulations of the crown respecting military rank ; and Winslow, when consulted on this dehcate point by Abercrombie, avowed his apprehension, that, if the result of a junction of the British and provincial troops should be to place the provincials under British officers, it would pro- voke general discontent, and probably occasion extensive desertion. To avoid so serious an evil, it was finally arranged, that the provincials, taking the lead, should jdvance against the enemy, and that at the forts and other posts which they were progressively to quit, the regulars should succeed to their stations and perform the duty of garrisons. This matter was hardly feettled, when the discussion of it was again renewed by the Earl of Loudoun, who now arrived in America to succeed Abercrombie as commander-in- chief of the British forces, and with the additional appointment of governor of Virginia. [July, 1756.] An unusual extent of authority was delegated to Lord Loudoun by his commission ; and from some parts of the subsequent conduct of this nobleman, it would seem that he was prompted either by his instructions, or by his own disposition, to render his power at least as formi- dable to the British colonists as to the enemy. He gravely demanded of the officers of the New England regiments, if they and their troops w^ere at Versailles, as it afforded an opportunity of recovering by degrees, and without exposing their weakness, what they had lost by treaties, at a time when the enemy had imposed their own terms. But repeated checks at last opened the eyes of Great Britain, and disclosed the political system of her rival." > 29 George II., Cap. 5. « See Note XVII., at the end of the volume. 3 29 George II., Cap. 35. ClIAP. IV.] FRENCH SUCCESS AT OSWEGO. 259 willing to act in conjunction with the British regulars, and to obey the king's commander-in-chief, as his Majesty had directed. To this the provincial officers unanimously replied, that they cheerfully submitted themselves in all dutiful obedience to Lord Loudoun, and were ready and willing to act in conjunction with the royal forces ; but that, as the New England troops had been enlisted this year on particular terms, and had proceeded thus far ac- cording to their original compact and organization, they entreated as a favor that Lord Loudoun would permit them to act -separately, so far as might be consistent with the interests of his Majesty's service. His Lordship hav- ing acceded to their desire, this point of honor seemed at length to be satis- factorily adjusted ; when suddenly the plan of the British campaign was disconcerted by the alarming intelligence of an important advantage obtained by the French. The Marquis de Montcalm, an officer of high reputation for vigor and ability, who succeeded Baron Dieskau in the chief command of the French forces in Canada, conducting an army of five thousand regulars, Canadian militia, and Indians, by a rapid march, to Oswego, invested one of the two forts which the British possessed there ; and having promptly made the necessary dispositions, opened his trenches at midnight with thirty-two pieces of cannon, besides several brass mortars and howitzers. [August 12, 1756.] The scanty stock of ammunition with which the garrison had been supplied was soon exhausted ; and Colonel Mercer, the commander, there- upon spiked his guns, and, evacuating the place, carried his troops without the loss of a single man into the other fort. Upon this stronghold a heavy fire was speedily poured by the enemy from the deserted post, of which they assumed possession ; and Mercer having been killed by a cannon-ball, the garrison, dismayed by his loss and disappointed in an attempt to pro- cure aid from Fort George, situated about four miles and a half up the river, where Colonel Schuyler was posted, demanded a capitulation and surren- dered as prisoners of war. The garrison consisted of the regiments of Shirley and Pepperell, and amounted to one thousand four hundred men. The conditions of surrender were that the prisoners should be exempted from plunder, conducted to Montreal, and treated with humanity. But these conditions were violated in a manner disgraceful to the warfare of the French. It was the duty of Montcalm to guard his engagements from the danger of infringement by his savage allies ; and yet he instantly delivered up twenty of his prisoners to the Indians who accompanied him, as victims to their vengeance for an equal number of their own race who perished in the siege. Nor was the remainder of the captive garrison protected from the cruelty and indignity with which these savages customarily embittered the fate of the vanquished. Almost all of them were plundered ; many were scalped ; and some were assassinated. In the two forts, the victors obtained possession of one hundred and twenty-one pieces of artillery, fourteen mor- tars, and a great quantity of military stores and provisions.^ A number of sloops and boats at the same time fell into their hands. No sooner was Montcalm in possession of the forts, than, with judicious policy, he demol- ished them both in presence of the Indians of the Six Nations, within whose territory they were erected, and whose jealousy they had not a little awakened. * " Such an important magazine deposited in a place altogether indefensible, and without the reach of immediate succour, was a flf^ant proof of egregious foUy, temerity, and misconduct." Smollett. ^gO" HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. In consequence of this disastrous event, all the plans of oiFensive op- eration that had been concerted on the part of the British were abandoned. Winslow was commanded by Lord Loudoun not to proceed on his in- tended expedition against Ticonderoga and Crown Point, but to fortify his camp ; while General Webb, with fourteen hundred British regulars, and Sir WiUiam Johnson, with a thousand militia, were stationed at positions fitted to support Winslow and repel the farther attacks which were antici- pated from the French. The projected expedition up the Kennebec, to destroy the settlements on the Chaudiere, terminated in a mere scouting- party which explored the country. The enterprise proposed against Fort Duquesne was not carrred into effect. Virginia declined to participate farther in the general warfare than by defensive operations ; and even these were conducted on a scale inadequate to the protection of her own people. Pennsylvania raised fifteen hundred men, but with no other view than to guard her frontier settlements ; and Maryland, whose frontier was covered by the adjoining provinces, remained completely inactive. In South Caro- lina the slaves were so much more numerous than the white inhabitants, that it was judged unsafe to detach any troops from this province. A fort was now built on Tennessee River, about five hundred miles from Charles- ton, and called Fort Loudoun ; and this, together with Fort Prince George and Fort Moore on the Savannah River, and the forts of Frederica and Augusta, was garrisoned by the king's independent companies of infantry embodied for the protection of Carolina and Georgia. Lord Loudoun, whether perplexed by the inferiority of his capacity to the difficulties of his situation, or justly accounting that the season was too far advanced to ad- mit of any enterprise against the enemy, confined his attention to the prep- aration of an early campaign in the ensuing spring, and to the immediate security of the frontiers of the British colonies. Fort Edward and Fort William Henry were put in a posture of defence, and secured each with a competent garrison ; and the remainder of the British forces were placed in winter-quarters at Albany, where barracks were built for their reception. The French, meanwhile, sacked a small fort and settlement called Gren- ville, on the confines of Pennsylvania, and, in conjunction with their Indian allies, carried ravage and desolation into many of the frontier settlements of the British provinces. But these losses were in some measure balanced by the advantage resulting from a treaty of peace which the governor of Pennsylvania concluded with the Delaware Indians, — a powerful tribe that dwelt on the river Susquehannah, and formed as it were a line or belt along the southern skirts of this province. At the same time, the government of Virginia secured the friendship and alliance of the tribes of the Cherokees and Catawbas. Notwithstanding some appearances of an opposite import, it was expected that a vigorous effort would be made by the British in the ensuing campaign to retrieve their recent disasters and humble the insolence of the enemy, — the more especially, as in the close of this year a fresh reinforcement of troops, with a large supply of warhke stores, was despatched in fourteen transports, and under convoy of two British ships of war, from Cork to North America. Much discontent and impatience had been latterly excited in England by the events of the war, which was conducted still more unhappily in other parts of the world than in the American provinces. The nation, exasperated by the triumphs of France, was eager to shift from itself the scandal of oc- CHAP. IV] ' RECALL OF SHIRLEY. ''i 261 currences so humiliating to its pride and glory ; and attempts the most impu- dent and absurd were made to load the Americans with the blame both of Braddock's defeat and of every other calamity and disappomtment which they had partaken with the British forces. Among other individuals who were now sacrificed by the British court, as victims partly to its own morti- fication and partly to popular displeasure, was Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, who was recalled^ this year to England, and appointed soon after to the government of the Bahama Islands. Shirley at a subsequent period returned to Massachusetts, where he died in a private station ; and though he had held some of the most lucrative offices within the gift of the crown in America, he bequeathed to his posterity little else but a reputation rather honorable than illustrious, and in which merit and virtue were ac- knowledged to preponderate over imperfection and infirmity. More san- guine and eager than deliberate and collected, he studied always with greater diligence to extend his fame than to guard and adorn the distinction which he had already acquired. Prompted by the ardor of his disposition and by the pride of success, he had latterly courted and accepted an extent of command to which his capacity was inadequate ; and which he was be- sides unfitted to administer satisfactorily both to the parent state and to the colonies, by the concurrence of his conscientious or interested zeal for royal prerogative with his generous or politic respect for American hberty. With- out either stiffly asserting or expressly waiving the pretensions of the crown to have a fixed salary attached to the office he enjoyed in Massachusetts, he contrived, with the approbation of the colonists, and without censure from the parent state, to accept the periodical allotments of salary which the provincial assembly was willing to bestow upon him. His connection with the glory of New England, his conciliating manners, and his steady re- gard for the privileges and sentiments of the people moderated the opposi- tion of his political adversaries in the colony. His recent inability to com- mand success, and his devotion to the crown, induced the British ministers to displace without ruining him. It was more than a year after his departure before a successor was appointed to his office, which, in the interval, was administered by Spencer Phips, a prudent and honorable man, nephew of Sir William Phips, the first royal governor of Massachusetts after the British Revolution. The vacated dignity of Shirley was then conferred on Thomas Pownall, an Englishman, formerly lieutenant-governor of New Jersey, and related to persons holding high official situations in the parent state. The policy of this officer was the very reverse of that which Shirley had pursued, and led him to devote himself unreservedly to the views and wishes of the popular party in Massachusetts.^ ' Perhaps, also, the intrigues of Sir William Johnson, who, with ungrateful jealousy, en- deavoured to prejudice the British court against Shirley, contributed in part to his recall. ^ Smollett. Minot. Hutchinson. Trumbull. Belknap. Eliot's JVew England Biographical Dictionary. Burk. Hewit. 262 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. CHAPTERV. Incapacity of the British Commander in America. — Loss of Fort William Henry. — Dis- pute between Massachusetts and the British Commander. — State of Parties in New England. — Change of the British Ministry and Measures. — Affairs of Pennsylvania. — Political Ex- ertions of Franklin in England. — Conquest of Cape Breton. — Repulse at Ticonderoga. — Reduction of Fort Frontignac — and Fort Duquesne. — Effect of the British Successes upon the Indians. — Plan of the Campaign of 1759. — Reduction of Ticonderoga — and Crown Point. — Battle of Niagara — and Capture of Fort Niagara. — Siege of Quebec. — Battle of the Heights of Abraham — and Surrender of Quebec. The expectations which had been formed both in Britain and America of a vigorous and successful campaign were completely disappointed. If it had been the wish or intention of the British ministers to render the guar- dian care of the parent state ridiculous and its supremacy odious to the col- onists, they could hardly have selected a fitter instrument for the achieve- ment of this sinister purpose than Lord Loudoun. Devoid of genius, either civil or military ; in carriage at once imperious and undignified ; al- ways hurried, and hurrying others, yet making little progress in the despatch of business ; quick, abrupt, and forward to project and threaten, but in- firm, remiss, and mutable in pursuit and execution ; neghgent of even the semblance of public virtue ; impotent against the enemy whom he was sent to destroy ; formidable only to the spirit and hberty of the people whom he was commissioned to defend, — he provoked alternately the disgust, the jeal- ousy, and the contemptuous amazement of the colonists of America.^ In the commencement of the present year [January, 1757] he repaired to Bos- ton, where he was met by a council composed of the governors of Nova Scotia and of the States of New England. To this council he addressed a speech, in which, with equal insolence and absurdity, he ascribed the public safety to the efforts of the Enghsh soldiers, and all the recent successes of the French to the misconduct of the American troops or the provincial governments. It is unlikely, notwithstanding the arrogance of his disposition and the narrowness of his capacity, that he could have expected to stimulate the Americans to a higher strain of exertion by depreciating their past services, and exalting above their gallant and successful warriors the defeated troops and disgraced commanders of England. Nor, indeed, did he seek to com- pass any such chimerical purpose. He required that the governments of New England should contribute only four thousand men, which should be despatched to New York, there to unite with the quotas to be furnished by that province and New Jersey, and thereafter to be conducted by him to an enterprise, which he declared that the interests of the British service forbade him at present to disclose, but which, the council might be assured, would not be uncongenial to the views and sentiments of the people of New England. This moderate requisition, far inferior to the exaction which had * " He is like St. George upon a sign-post," said a Philadelphian to Dr. Franklin, — " al- ways on horseback, but never advancing.' When Franklin pressed for reimbursement of cer- tain supplies which he had been employed to procure for the army. Lord Loudoun told him ;hat he could afford to wait, as his employment had doubtless given him ample opportunity of filling his own pockets. Franklin endeavoured to repel this insinuation ; but the integrity to which he pretended was treated by Lord Loudoun as something utterly incredible. " On the whole, ' says Franklin, " I wondered much how such a man came to be intrusted with so important a business as the conduct of a great army ; but having since seen more of the great world, and the means of obtaining and motives for giving places and employments, my Wonder is dimihished." Fraaklin's Memoirs. CHAP, v.] LOUDOUN'S FRUITLESS SCHEMES. ^6S been anticipated, served at least to silence the murmurs, though it could not appease the discontent and indignation, created by Lord Loudoun's prelim- inary remarks ; and the levies he demanded, having been speedily raised, hastened to unite with the contingents drawn from the other provinces at New York, where, early in the spring, the British commander found him- self at the head of more than six thousand American troops. It was expected by the States of New England, and perhaps was the original purpose of Lord Loudoun himself, that the force thus assembled should be applied to the reduction of Ticonderoga and Crown Point ; but he was induced to depart from this plan, if, indeed, he ever entertained it, by the tidings of an additional armament having been despatched from Britain, to Nova Scotia. This armament, consisting of eleven ships of the line, besides transports and bomb-ketches, under the command of Admiral Hol- borne and Commodore Holmes, and containing six thousand disciplined sol- diers, conducted by George, Viscount Howe, arrived accordingly at Halifax [July, 1757], whither Lord Loudoun shortly after repaired, along with the forces he had collected at New York. He now proclaimed his intention of declining for the present all active operations against Crown Point or Ticon- deroga, and of uniting his whole disposable force in an expedition to Cape Breton, for the conquest of Louisburg. This abandonment of the enter- prise on which they had confidently relied was a severe disappointment to the States of New England ; nor was their concern abated by the issue of the design which Lord Loudoun preferably embraced ; for it now appeared that he was totally unacquainted with the condition of the fortress he pro- posed to subdue ; and his attack upon it was first suspended by the necessity of gaining this preliminary information, and ultimately relinquished in conse- quence of the result of his inquiries, and of the accession of force the place received while these inquiries were pursued. It was found that Louisburg was garrisoned by six thousand regular troops, besides militia, and farther defended by seventeen line-of-battle ships moored in the harbour, and which arrived while the British troops lingered inactively at Halifax. Lord Lou- doun, accounting the armament he commanded unequal to cope with this force, announced that the enterprise must be deferred till the following year ; and having dismissed the provincial troops, he returned in the end of August to New York, there to learn the disaster which his conduct had occa- sioned in another quarter, and which crowned the disgrace of this inglorious campaign.^ Montcalm, the French commander, availing himself of the unskilful movement by which Lord Loudoun withdrew so large a portion of the British force from New York to Halifax, advanced with an army of nine thousand men and laid siege to Fort William Henry, which was garrisoned by nearly three thousand troops, partly English and partly American, com- manded by a brave English officer. Colonel Monroe. The security of this important post was supposed to be still farther promoted by the proximity of Fort Edward, which was scarcely fourteen miles from it, and where the English general, Webb, was stationed with a force of four thousand men. Had Webb done his duty, the besiegers might have been repulsed, and Fort William Henry preserved ; but though he received timely notice of the approach of the enemy, yet, with strange indolence or timidity, he neither ' The recent fate of Admiral Byng, whom the British court meanly sacrificed to popular rage for unsuccessful operation at sea, was supposed to have paralyzed the energy ot min»y British officers at this juncture. 264 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. summoned the American governments to aid the place with their militia, nor despatched a single company of his own soldiers to its succour. Nay, whether or not he desired, so far was he from hoping to avert, its capture, that the only communication he made to Monroe, during the siege, was a letter conveying the faint-hearted counsel to surrender without delay. [Au- gust 9, 1757.] Montcalm, on the other hand, who was endowed with a high degree of military spirit and genius, pressed the assault on Fort William Henry with the utmost vigor and skill. He had inspired his own daring ardor into the French soldiers, and roused the fury and enthusiasm of his Indian auxil- iaries by promising revenge proportioned to their losses, and unrestricted plunder as the reward of their conquest.^ After a sharp resistance, which, however, endured only for six days, Monroe, finding that his ammunition was exhausted, and that hopes of relief were desperate, was compelled to surrender the place by a capitulation, of which the terms were far more honorable to the vanquished than the fulfilment of them was to the victors. It was conditioned that the garrison should not serve against the French for eighteen months ; that they should march out with the honors of war ; and, retaining their private baggage, be escorted to Fort Edward by French troops, as a security against the lawless ferocity of the Indians. But these savages were incensed at the terms which Montcalm (whether swayed by generous respect for a gallant foe, or apprehensive that Webb might be roused at length from his supine indifference) conceded to the garrison ; and seeing no reason why the French general should postpone the interest of his allies to that of his enemies, were determined, that, if he broke his word with either party, it should not be with them. Of the scene of cru- elty and bloodshed which ensued the accounts which have been transmitted are not less uniform and authentic than horrid and disgusting. The only point wrapped in obscurity is how far the French general and his troops were voluntarily or unavoidably spectators of the violation of the treaty they stood pledged to fulfil. According to some accounts, no escort whatever was furnished to the British garrison. According to others, the escort was a mere mockery, both in respect of the numbers of the French guards, and of their willingness to defend their civilized enemies against their savage friends.^ It is certain that the escort, if there was any, proved totally inef- fectual ; and this acknowledged circumstance, taken in conjunction with the prior occurrences at Oswego, is sufficient to load the character of Mont- calm with an imputation of treachery and dishonor, which, as it has never yet been satisfactorily repelled, seems likely to prove as lasting as his name. No sooner had the garrison marched out, and surrendered their arms, in reliance upon the pledge of the French general, than a furious and irresistible attack was made upon them by the Indians, who stripped them both of their baggage and their clothes, and murdered or made prisoners of all who at- tempted resistance. About fifteen hundred persons were thus slaughtered or carried into captivity. Such was the lot of eighty men belonging to a ' " On the very day he invested the place, he sent a letter to Colonel Monroe, telling him he thought himself obliged in humanity to desire he would surrender the fort, and not pro- voke the great number of savages in the French army by a vain resistance. .4 detachment of your garrison^ he said, has lately experienced their cruelty. I have it yet in my power to constrain them, and oblige them to observe a capitulation^ as none of them hitherto are killed." Smollett. ' It is not uncommon for the historians of remote events to suppose that passionate con- temporary statements must be erroneous. Yet, surely, it is absurd to expect that scenes of atrocious cruelty and injustice should be dispassionately described either by the victims or by Vbeir friends CHAP, v.] SUCCESSES OF THE FRENCH. 265 New Hampshire regiment, of which the complement was no more than two hundred. A number of Indian allies of the English, and who had formed part of the garrison, fared still more miserably. They were seized without scruple by tiieir savage enemies, and perished in lingering and barbarous torture. Of the garrison of Fort William Henry scarcely a half were enabled to gain the shelter of Fort Edward in a straggling and wretched condition. The British colonists were struck with the most painful surprise and alarm by the tidings of this disaster. Many persons were induced to question the Odelity of General Webb, whose conduct, indeed, though not justly obnox- ious to this charge, yet merited the sharpest and most contemptuous cen- sure ; and all were inflamed with the highest indignation by the atrocious breach of Montcalm's treaty with the garrison of Fort William Henry. Webb, roused, at length, from his lethargy by the personal fear that fell on him, hastily invoked the succour of the States of New England. The call was promptly obeyed ; and a portion of the militia of Massachusetts and Connecticut was despatched to check the victorious progress of the French, who, it was feared, would not only make an easy conquest of Fort Edward, but penetrate to Albany. So zealously was this service under- taken by Massachusetts, that a large extent of her own frontier was strip- ped of its defenders and left for a time in a very precarious situation. But Montcalm, whether daunted by this vigorous demonstration, or satisfied with the blow he had struck, and engrossed with the care of improving its pro- pitious influence on the minds of the Indians, refrained from even investing Fort Edward, and made no farther attempt at present to extend the range of his conquests. The only additional operation of the French, during the season, was a predatory enterprise in concert with their Indian allies against the flourishing British settlements at German Flats, in the province of New York, and along the Mohawk River, which they utterly wasted with fire and sword. At sea, from a fleet of twenty-one British merchant- vessels, home- ward bound from Carolina, they succeeded in making prizes of nineteen, which were loaded with valuable cargoes.^ Thus ended a campaign which covered Britain and her cabinet and commanders with disgrace, filled her colonies with the most gloomy apprehension and discontent, and showed conquest blazing with full beams on France. By an act of parhament passed this year, the permission formerly granted of importing bar-iron, duty-free, from North America, into the port of London, was extended to every port in Great Britain.^ Lord Loudoun concluded, as he had commenced, the year, with a pro- ceeding that gave much offence to the Americans, and showed him capable of exerting, in a dispute with their provincial governments, a greater degree of promptitude and energy than he had displayed against the common enemy. Governor Pownall, having been apprized that a British regiment was to be stationed at Boston, communicated this information to the General Court of Massachusetts, which ordered accommodations to be provided for one thousand men at Castle William, a fortified place on a small island facing the town, in terms which plainly expressed their imderstanding that this was not a measure of necessary obedience, but a voluntary disbursement on the ^ Trumbull. Minot. Belknap. Franklin's Memoirs. Carver's Travels in .America. Smollett. Dwight's Travels. * See Note XvIH., at the end of the volume. VOL. II. 34 W 2QQ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. national account. Soon afterwards, a number of officers, who repaired to Boston from Nova Scotia for the purpose of recruiting their regiments, finding that this service was impeded by their residence in barracks at the castle, required the justices of the peace to quarter and billet them upon the citizens, in conformity with the practice in the parent state, and the pro- visions of the act of parHament by which that practice was commanded. The justices, however, refused to comply with this requisition, as they con- sidered that the act of parliament did not extend to America, and that they had no authority to grant billets without the sanction of the legislative as- sembly of the province. The officers, thereupon, complained to Lord Loudoun, who signified in peremptory terms his commands that the justices should grant the accommodation required from them ; declaring, that, in his opinion, the act of parliament did extend to America, and to every part of his Majesty's dominions where the public exigencies might oblige him to send troops either for the defence of his territories or the security of his people. His arguments failing to produce any impression on the magistra- cy or legislature of the province, he was provoked to assume a still higher tone [November 15, 1757] ; and at length acquainted Governor Pownall that the patience and gentleness which he had hitherto employed were ex- hausted ; that he had no leisure for farther parley, but, having already suffi- ciently confuted the reasoning of the provincials, he was prepared to adopt more vigorous measures for obtaining their obedience, and preventing the whole continent from being thrown into confusion by their factious obstinacy. The justices, he said, might yet avert this extremity by immediately per- forming their duty, to which no act of assembly could lend additional sanc- tion ; and accordingly he had instructed his messenger to remain forty-eight hours in Boston, to ascertain and report if they improved or neglected the opportunity. If the messenger, on his return, should report that the pro- vincial authorities were still refractory, he protested that he would instantly give orders to three battalions of British troops, which he had in New York, Long Island, and Connecticut, to march upon and occupy Boston ; and if more were wanting, he had two other battalions in New Jersey, besides a body of troops in Pennsylvania, at hand to support them. The provincial authorities, though alarmed by this communication, and anxious to avoid the collision with which it menaced them, were averse to yield to force what they had refused to argument. Hoping at once to satis- fy Lord Loudoun and preserve their privileges, the assembly passed a law [December 6] , of which the provisions were somewhat, though by no means entirely, similar to the act of parhament in question. Their conduct served rather to incense than to appease the British commander, who immediately signified his displeasure to Pownall ; observing that the assembly had no proper concern with the dispute, and that " in time of war, the rules and customs of war must govern " ; and acquainting him that the troops had received their orders and were already advancing upon Boston. A rash demonstration ; not more odious to the colonists than humiliating to the arms of Britain, whose troops, driven from their outposts, and defeated by the enemy, were now exhibited in the act of a retrograde movement against the people whom they were sent to protect, and whose militia had in reahty protected them. The assembly of Massachusetts, undaunted by this emer- gency, voted an address to the governor, which breathed the genuine spirit of their forefathers. They again affirmed that the act of parliament to which the CHAP, v.] LOUDOUN'S DISPUTE WITH MASSACHUSETTS. 287 controversy had reference did not extend to the British colonies and planta- tions ; and added, that they had, therefore, enlarged the barracks at the castle, in order that the British troops might not be devoid of suitable ac- commodation, and had also framed a law for the convenience of the recruit- ing service, with as close conformity to the act of parliament as the nature and condition of the country and its inhabitants would admit. They main- tained that the law which they had enacted was requisite to enable the pro- vincial magistrates to execute the powers which it conferred upon them, and declared that they were always willing to adopt such regulations when the troops to be quartered or recruited were necessary for their protection and defence. They protested that they were entitled to all the rights and liberties of Englishmen ; that by the provincial charter there was committed to them every power and privilege correspondent to a free and unrestricted administration of their own domestic government ; and that as they were supported under all difficulties and animated to resist an invading enemy to their last breath by the consciousness of enjoying these advantages, so they would be proportionally dispirited and enfeebled by the loss or diminution of them. In conclusion, they declared that it would doubtless be a great misfortune to them, if their adherence to these rights and privileges should deprive them of the esteem of Lord Loudoun ; but that they would still have the satisfaction of reflecting that both in their words and actions they had been governed by a sense of duty to his Majesty, and of fidelity to the trust reposed in them by their countrymen. This language, at once so spirited, temperate, and judicious, probably saved the province from a scene fraught with mischief and peril to its lib- erties. Expressions of fear or humiliation would have tempted Lord Lou- doun to persevere ; while demonstrations of resistance would have deprived him of any decent pretext for receding. The address of the assembly was forwarded to him by Governor Pownall, who farther tendered his own per- sonal assurance that the colonists had hoilestly endeavoured to give to the recruiting service every facility which was compatible with the peculiar cir- cumstances of the country. This assurance, unless interpreted with very considerable latitude, was hardly correct ; for, doubtless, with the Ameri- cans, the quartering of British regiments in their towns, and the attempts to recruit them from the colonial population, were generally unpopular. In every part of America, the superiority arrogated by the British troops over the provincial forces created disgust ; and the Puritan and republican sen- timents of the New Englanders in particular were offended by the loose manners of the English officers, and the conversion of their own fellow- citizens into the disciplined stipendiaries of monarchical authority. Lord Loudoun, nevertheless, though perfectly aware that no alteration of cir- cumstances had occurred since he commanded the troops to march, thought proper to lay hold of the overture for reconciliation which was thus afforded ; and accordingly hastened to signify, in a despatch to Pownall [De- cember 6J , that, as he could now " depend on the assembly making the point of quarters easy in all time coming," he had countermanded his previous or- ders for the military occupation of Boston. He condescended at the same time to make some courteous remarks on the zeal which the province dis- played for his Majesty's service ; but withal, he complained that the assem- bly seemed willing to enter into a dispute upon tlu necessity of a provincial law to enforce a British act of parliament. 26g HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X, • The communication of Lord Loudoun's despatch to the General Court of Massachusetts produced from this body a remarkable message to the governor, which at a later period attracted a good deal of controversial crit- icism ; very different meanings being attached to it by the friends of Amer- ican liberty, and by the individual, and the political partisans of the indi- vidual, who composed it. In this message, which was the composition of Thomas Hutchinson, — a gentleman of consideration, who had filled high official situations in Massachusetts for several yearsy and has already been introduced to our notice, which he will farther engage in circumstances more interesting, — the two houses (the assembly and council) composing the General Court, after thanking the governor for his good offices in their be- half, denied the justice of Lord Loudoun's complaint ; and protested that their legislative ordinance was intended not to give force to an act of par- liament, but to regulate a case to which no act of parliament was applicable. "We are willing," they declared, "by a due exercise of the powers of civil government (and we have the pleasure of seeing your Excellency con- cur with us) to remove, as much as may be, all pretence of the necessity of military government. Such measures, we are sure, will never be disap- proved by the parliament of Great Britain, our dependence upon which we never had a desire or thought of lessening,''^ " The authority of all acts of parliament," they affirmed, " which concern the colonies and extend to them, is ever acknowledged in all the courts of law, and made the rule of all judicial proceedings in the province. There is not a member of the General Court, and we know no inhabitant within the bounds of the gov- ernment, that ever questioned this authority. To prevent any ill conse- quences which may arise from an opinion of our holding such principles, we now utterly disavow them, as we should readily have done at any time past, if there had been occasion for it ; and we pray that his Lordship may be acquainted therewith, that we may appear in a true hght, and that no impressions may remain to our disadvantage." This document, composed by a man of considerable ability, who had not yet made or at least declared his election between the interests of British prerogative and American lib- erty, was afterwards, in consequence of the rupture between the parent state and her colonies, subjected to much ingenious but disproportioned com- ment and observation ; each of two political parties affecting to regard it as, in some measure, a compact, or rather a solemn exposition of the politi- cal relation between Britain and America, and each seeking to twist every sentence of it into a deliberate recognition or disclamation, on the part of America, of the supremacy claimed by the British parliament. It will lose much of the significance which these reasoners have imputed to it, if we consider what was and what must have been the state of political parties and party feeling in New England at the present period. From the first establishment of British colonies in this quarter of Ameri- ca, a contest had prevailed between provincial liberty and the imperial power of Britain. Even before the British Revolution, two parties sprung up, of which the one counted among its numerous votaries the jealous, the uncompromising, and the headstrong, — while the other was reputed to number in its smaller phalanx the more prudent, cautious, and timorous friends of American liberty. This distinction of parties was not terminated by the Revolution, though it was interrupted for a short time by Lord Bellamont's administration. Various causes had since contributed to per- CHAP. V.j STATE OF PARTIES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 269 petuate and even to inflame its violence and alter its character. The conduct of Shirley was so popular, even while his language proclaimed his attachment to royal prerogative, that of late years the progress of po- litical dissension in Massachusetts was less noted than it deserved. Pownall, attaching himself to the opponents of Shirley, and throwing himself upon them for support, incited at once this party and their adversaries to make a fuller and more unguarded declaration of their sentiments than either had previously ventured to express. The one party was unwilling to believe that its principles tended to promote American slavery ; the other (except- ing, perhaps, a few bold enthusiasts) durst not believe that its opinions conducted, at least directly or immediately, to American independence. j\ll parties were constrained, in theory, to admit the sovereignty of Britain and its legislature over America ; and even those of the Americans, who were most forward to claim for themselves the rights of Englishmen^ recog- nized in this expression the dependence upon Britain incident to a compo- nent part and member of the British empire. But the politicians belonging to what was now called the popular party in America cherished sentiments very discordant with this theory ; they regarded their provincial institutions with jealous attachment, and the power and pretensions of Britain with jealous apprehension. Fear cannot long prevail without begetting anger and hatred ; and the policy of Britain inspired well grounded fears in the breast of every friend of American freedom. Both in Britain and in Amer- ica, it was felt, rather than avowed, that the increasing numbers and strength of the colonists demanded some change in the relations that had hitherto subsisted between them and the parent state ; and the opposite view^s on this subject, which each party, more or less justly, imputed to the other, served to exasperate the mutual jealousy of the partisans of British pre- rogative and provincial liberty. The circumstances and events of the war with France contributed also to strengthen this opposition of sentiment. While one party regarded with alternate alarm, impatience, and contempt the formidable discipline and equipment of the British troops, their arro- gant assumption of superiority, and their signal inefficiency against the com- mon enemy, — the other was struck with awe and admiration by the display of British pomp, profusion, and power ; and of these last, if some were additionally impressed with the prudence of moderating every demonstra- tion of American patriotism that might be offensive to Britain, others, doubtless, were inspired with the hope of participating in the dignities and emoluments which they saw lavished by that great empire on her servants, and which the prospect of a change in the institutions of America rendered more likely to be attainable by provincial functionaries. In seasons of passion and agitation, the popular party, who formed a great majority of the inhabitants, were apt to proclaim the political sentiments which they cher- ished with an energy unguarded by the limits of the political theory which they confessed ; but in seasons of more calmness and deliberation, they could not refuse to avow their subjection to British sovereignty, and to re- pudiate any sentiments inconsistent with this principle. The agitation oc- casioned by Lord Loudoun's hostile menaces having subsided, it was im- possible for the Massachusetts assembly to decline that recognition of their obedience to the parent state which Hutchinson introduced into the message which he composed for them ; and they were the more ready to disclaim the imputations of Lord Loudoun, and to avoid the displeasure of the w * 270 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. British government at this moment, on account of the heavy expenses en- tailed on them by tlie war, and of which they had at some future day to so- hcit reimbursement from the justice or liberahty of parliament. Yet with all these motives to induce their acquiescence in a demonstration of loyalty and submission to Britain, it was necessary to recommend the message to their adoption by the introduction of a strong protest that their previous conduct was entirely free from blame. If Lord Loudoun supposed, from the issue of this affair, that he had sub- dued the spirit of the colonists, or even facihtated the exercise of his own authority among them, he was speedily undeceived. Early in the following year [February, 1758], he summoned a convention of the governors of New England and New York to meet him at Hartford, in Connecticut ; but finding, after some conference, that they could not undertake any measure that had not received the sanction of their respective assemblies, he repaired to Boston, where his reception gave him plainly to understand that America no longer reposed the slightest confidence in him. Neither Pownall nor the assembly showed any disposition to second his views ; and before they would consent to place the most trifling force at his disposal, the assembly required him to specify all the particulars of the service in which he pro- posed to employ it. Provoked and perplexed by this demand, he was de- liberating in what manner to answer it, when an express arrived with intelli- gence that he was superseded by the king, and that the command of the royal forces was delegated to General Abercrombie.^ The progress of the war in America had been hitherto signalized by the discomfiture of the English and the triumph of the French, — a result that was beheld with increasing resentment and impatience in England. It was a circumstance additionally irritating and mortifying to this people, that the few advantages which had been gained over the French were exclusively due to the colonial troops, — while unredeemed disaster and disgrace had attended all the efforts of the British forces. The events of the last two campaigns were remarkably unpropitious to Britain, and induced or at least manifestly betokened the decisive preponderance of the power of France i» America. By the acquisition of Fort William Henry, the French obtained entire possession of the lakes Champlain and George ; and by the destruc- tion of Oswego, they acquired the dominion of the other lakes which con- nect the St. Lawrence with the waters of the Mississippi. The first af- forded the easiest intercourse between the northern colonies and Canada ; the last united Canada to Louisiana. By the continued possession of Fort Duquesne, they extended their influence over the Indians, and held undis- turbed possession of all the country westward of the Alleghany Mountains. The superior strength of Britain, unskilfully exerted, was visibly yielding, in this quarter of the world, to the superior vigor and dexterity of her rival, who, with victorious strides, was rapidly gaining a position, which, if it did not infer the entire conquest of the British settlements, at least enabled her to intercept their farther growth, to cramp their commerce, and continually to overawe them, and attack them with advantage. The spirit of the Eng- lish nation, which had been kindling for some time, was in this emergency provoked to a pitch that could brook no longer the languid and inefficient conduct of the operations in America. William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, the most able and accomplished statesman and senator that Great ^ Gordon. Minot. Hutchinson. Memoirs of an Jimerican Lady. CHAP, v.] PITT APPOINTED PRIME MINISTER. 271 Britain had yet produced, and who had long combated with his powerful rhetoric and majestic eloquence the policy of directing the chief military efforts of England to the continent of Europe, was now, in opposition to the wishes of the king, but in compliance with the irresistible will of the na- tion, placed at the head of the British ministry. He had received this ap- pointment in the spring of the preceding year ; and again, in the autumn, after a short expulsion from office, was reinstated in it more firmly than before. The strenuous vigor and enlarged capacity of this extraordinary man, whose faculties were equally fitted to rouse the spirit and to wield the strength of a great nation, produced a dawn of hope and joy throughout the whole British empire. His elevation was hailed with enthusiasm, as the pledge of retributive triumph to his country; and in effect it speedily checked the fortune of the enemy and occasioned a signal revolution in the relative power and predicament of France and England. Lord Loudoun, whether from his general slackness and indistinctness in the conduct of business, or from personal or political dislike to the minister, conducted his correspond- ence with him in a very negligent manner ; and Pitt is reported to have as- signed as the reason for superseding this commander, that he could never ascertain what Lord Loudoun was doing. The same express which brought the tidings of Loudoun's recall con- veyed a circular letter from Pitt to the provincial governors, acquainting them with the resolution of the British cabinet to send a powerful arma- ment to operate by sea and land against the French in America, and in- viting them to raise as numerous levies of auxiliary troops as the popula- tion of their respective provinces could afford. Arms, ammunition, tents, provisions, and boats, it was announced, would be furnished by the crown ; and the provincial governors, meanwhile, were desired to levy, clothe, and pay their troops, and appoint the officers of their various regiments. They w^ere assured that it was the king's determination, by the most vigorous and expensive efforts, to repair the losses and disappointments of the last inac- tive and unhappy campaign, and to repel, by the blessing of God upon his arms, the dangers impending over his people and possessions in North America ; that, for this purpose, the war, which had been hitherto defensive on the part of the British, was now to be carried into the heart of the enemy's territory ; and that, to encourage the colonists to cooperate in this great and important design, his Majesty would recommend to his parliament to grant to the several provinces such compensation for the expenses they might incur, as their vigor and activity should appear justly to merit. At this intelligence, the Americans, and especially the people of New England, were aroused to a generous emulation with the awakened spirit of the parent state ; mutual jealousy and distrust were swallowed up, for a season, in com- mon ardor for the honor of Britain and the safety of America ; and, with the most cheerful confidence and alacrity, all the States of New England vied in exertions i to strengthen by their cooperation the promised British armament. In Massachusetts there were raised seven thousand men ; in Connecticut, five thousand ; and in New Hampshire, nine hundred. The numbers of the Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey levies have not been specified. These troops were ready to take the field early in May, — previously to which time. Admiral Boscawen arrived at Halifax with a con- * In aid of the public funds appropriated by the assembly of Massachusetts, a voluntary sub- scription for the encouragement of recruits was opened at Boston, where, in one day, twenty thousand pounds were subscribed. • 272 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. siderable fleet, and twelve thousand British troops, conducted by General Amherst, an officer of distinguished skill and ability, and under whom a subordinate command was exercised by General Wolfe, one of the most heroic and magnanimous spirits of the age.^ Abercrombie, on whom the chief command of the entire forces employed in this quarter of the world devolved, was now at the head of the most powerful army that had ever been assembled in America, consisting of fifty thousand men, of whom twenty-two thousand were regular troops.^ He was a person of slender abilities, and utterly devoid of energy and resolution ; and Pitt too late re- gretted the error he committed in intrusting a command of such importance to one so little known to him, and who proved so unfit to sustain it. The increased interest in the affairs of America which the British people began to exhibit, and the purpose which the nation and the ministry now cherished, of vigorous and extensive warfare in that quarter, were not a lit- tle promoted by circumstances of which we must seek for the springs in the particular history of Pennsylvania. Captain Denny, whose appointment to the government of this province we have already noticed, possessed none of that taste for disputation which characterized his predecessor. Governor Morris. He was exceedingly desirous to enjoy an easy, quiet administra- tion ; but, unfortunately, the attainment of this object was incompatible with his adherence to the instructions communicated to him by the proprietaries. As a substitute for popular measures, he was directed by his constituents to cultivate the friendship, and, if possible, secure the services of popular men, and particularly of Dr. Frankhn, the most respected and distinguished inhabitant of Pennsylvania ; but Franklin firmly rejected the ensnaring offers which Denny addressed to him, and declared that he would accept no favors from the proprietaries, as he was determined to give them no farther support than their measures should justly merit. An administration which commenced in this manner was not likely to be attended with a satis- factory issue. The old dispute respecting the liabihty of the proprietary possessions to taxation was revived with more violence than ever ; and a bill having passed the assembly, granting for the service of the king sixty thousand pounds, of which ten thousand were to be placed at the command of Lord Loudoun, was disallowed by the governor, because the estates of the proprietaries were not exempted from the assessment it imposed. Lord Loudoun endeavoured to mediate between the disputants, whose respective pleas were discussed before him by the governor for himself and his con- stituents, and by Franklin on the part of the assembly. Denny declared that the proprietaries held his bond by which he was engaged under a high penalty to conform to all their instructions ; yet he was prepared to incur the hazard of opposing their will in this instance, if Lord Loudoun would advise him to pass the bill. This, however, Loudoun declined to do ; and preferably chose to recommend that the assembly should yield to the wishes of the proprietaries. As the money was urgently wanted for the defence of the Pennsylvanian frontier against the incursions of the French and their Indian allies, Franklin prevailed with the assembly to pass the bill in the terms required by Denny and recommended by Lord Loudoun, after voting, * The Americans compared Amherst to Fabius, and Wolfe to the Scipios. " Wolfe, where'er he fought, Put so much of his heart into his act, That his example had a magnet's force." — Cowper. ■ Trumbull. Minot. Hutchinson. Smollett. Belknap. Holmes. CHAP, v.] FRANKLINS MISSION TO ENGLAND. 273 however, a preliminary resolution that they meant not to relinquish the pre- tensions they had asserted, but were driven by force to suspend the ex- ercise of them on the present occasion. For the more effectual vindication of these pretensions, the assembly forth- with composed a petition to the king, in which they represented the injury which accrued both to his Majesty's service in general, and to the province in particular, from the conduct of the proprietaries ; and Franklin was de- spatched to England, as the agent of the province, in order to present and sup- port this application. On his arrival at London [July, 1757], he found the success of his mission obstructed by various obstacles, some of which were created by the art and industry of the parties who had an interest in preju- dicing the public mind against the cause which he supported. To this end, the English newspapers were continually supplied with paragraphs bearing the title of Intelligence from Pennsylvania, but in reality fabricated in London, and conveying the most injurious reflections on the inhabitants and assembly of the province, who were represented as actuated by selfish nio- tives and a mutinous and refractory spirit, because they persisted in with- standing the claim of the proprietaries to an exemption from that taxation which was necessary to the defence of the proprietary estates. It was pretended that the Quakers still retained the command of the assembly, and that, from a real or affected regard to their sectarian principles, they obstructed every preparation even for defensive war, and suffered the fron^- tiers of the province to be desolated by Indian rage and cruelty ; and all the inhabitants of the colony, but the Quakers in an especial degree, were charged with the blackest ingratitude to the founder of Pennsylvania and his descendants. If William Penn could have foreseen this, he would, per- haps, have regretted, not indeed his exertions to colonize Pennsylvania, but that, in making those exertions, he had ever proposed to himself and his family any other reward except the consciousness of beneficence and the glory of the enterprise. The disadvantage arising from this preoccupation of the public mind was increased by the strong interest still prevailing among the politicians of Eng- land in the progress of the war in Germany, which rendered it a task of no ordinary difiiculty to remove the impressions already produced by interested individuals against the equitable claims of the inhabitants of a colonial settle- ment in a distant part of the world. Franklin's ardor, nevertheless, was ani- mated rather than depressed by the prospect of difficulties which it was in the power of genius and intelligence to overcome ; and, accepting the defence of his country's interest, he pursued it with equal zeal, abihty, and success. He inserted replies in the public prints to the representations conveyed by the proprietaries, in which he demonstrated with brief and perspicuous statement and reasoning, united with the hveliest wit and keen but elegant satire, the unjust and sordid policy of the proprietaries, the wrongs of Penn- sylvania, and the utter groundlessness of the present charges against the Quakers, who actually formed but a small proportion of the total population of the province, who no longer retained their ancient ascendant in the pro- vincial assembly, and of whom, indeed, very few were now members of that body. While the graces of his style attracted general attention to these publications, the force of his reasoning and the spirit of his pleading pro- duced as general conviction and sympathy. An indignant concern was awakened in the public mind for the inhabitants of a British provin6t> VOL. II. 30 274 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. ^ [BOOK X. whose exertions to defend themselves against the common enemy, and to cooperate with the general service of the empire, were obstructed by the insolence and selfishness of a single wealthy family. Whether from unwil- lingness to render the proprietaries irreconcilably hostile to himself, or be- cause he judged such compositions unsuitable to his character of agent for the province, Franklin declined avowing the authorship of them, and caused them to be published either anonymously, or in the name of William Frank- lin, his illegitimate son. To prevent the necessity of again recurring to this controversy, we shall anticipate a httle the pace of time, and here record its issue. While It was still in progress. Governor Denny, foreseeing the defeat of his con- stituents, ventured to assent to a bill framed in conformity with the senti- ments of the assembly ; but as the proprietaries still refused to make any general concession on this subject, and still persisted in calumniating that pro- vincial body, and not only the present, but every, generation of the inhabit- ants of Pennsylvania, — calling the reputation of their illustrious ancestor to their aid, and hoping, by its dazzling glare, to cast a deeper shade on the objects of their malevolence, — Franklin determined to make one decisive effort to disabuse the British public, and applied himself to the composition of a treatise, which was not published till the beginning of the year 1759, when it appeared under the title of A Historical Review of the Constitution of Pennsylvania. This admirable work, which combines all the felicities of Franklin's genius, and is, perhaps, the most masterly production of his pen, appearing anonymously, was long ascribed to James Ralph, one of the most celebrated political writers of that period. It was read with the live- liest interest in England, and not only rendered the existing proprietaries generally odious and contemptible to their countrymen, but dissipated con- siderably the illusion that had prevailed with regard to the unmixed virtue and disinterestedness of the founder of Pennsylvania. i Franklin judged that now was the time to present the petition of the provincial assembly, and to have their cause discussed before the privy council ; where, in spite of the art and interest exerted in behalf of the proprietaries, a judgment was about to have been pronounced against them, when they deemed it expe- dient to avert this disgrace by proposing a compromise. With simulated moderation and palpable subterfuge, they offered tor consent to the subjec- tion of their estates to the provincial taxes, provided Franklin would engage for his constituents that these estates should not be assessed beyond their due proportion of liability. The point in dispute was thus entirely conceded by the stipulation of a condition which never had been nor could be re- fused ; and by the address and abihty of Franklin, a victory of the highest importance was achieved for his countrymen. The controversy had excited much interest throughout America ; and the conduct and issue of it recom- mended Franklin so highly to the confidence and esteem of the American colonists, that he was, shortly after, appointed agent for the colonies of * Mr. Clarkson, in his Life of William Penn, has taken some notice of this production of t'ranklin ; on which occasion he has been betrayed into a very strange mistake by erroneous information and too partial^egard for the Quaker patriarch. He states that the object of the publication was to obtain a change of the provincial government from proprietary to royal, and that the failure of this design "laid the foundation of his (Franklin's) animosity to Great Brit- ain, which was so conspicuous afterwards." This is an entire misrepresentation, into which nothing but defective materials and the jealousy of Mr. Clarkson's aifection for Penn could have betrayed him. Franklin's design was perfectly different, and, instead of failing, was crowned with complete success. P«?^ Note XlX., at the end of the volume. ',.;.. , CHAP, v.] POLITICAL VIEWS OF PITT AND FRANKLIN. 275 Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia, and on his return to Pennsylvania, in 1762, was rewarded with five thousand pounds for his services in Eng- land. It was a circumstance additionally gratifying to the Pennsylvanians, that Denny was removed, in the year 1759, from the government of their province, and replaced by James Hamilton, whom we have seen once be- fore in the possession of this office. But a consequence, earlier and more important than that which we have now considered, though collateral to the proper object of Franklin's mission from America, resulted from his residence in England at this period. Ap- proximated to each other, and inhabiting the same metropolis, were now, at an interesting crisis of British and American history, the most illustrious statesman and minister in England, and the most distinguished philosopher and politician of America. It might naturally be supposed that a close and intimate intercourse must have arisen between these remarkable men, and that, from their united genius and deliberation, the wisest and most mas- terly scheme of British policy must have been engendered. Pitt was strong- ly opposed to the system which had hitherto staked so much of the blood and treasure of England on the issue of German hostilities,^ sometimes dis- graceful, always barren of real advantage and glory to England ; and Frank- lin, whether from the efficacy of Pitt's eloquence, or from his own unassisted meditation, had espoused the same opinion. Both were united in thinking that more energetic hostilities should be pursued in America ; but the pre- cise point to which hostilities in this quarter should actually be pushed, in order to vindicate the honor without compromising the interest of Britain, was a question on which these men might be expected to entertain differ- ent opinions. From the extent and precision of political information for which Pitt was so highly renowned, it is difficult to suppose him unac- quainted with the doubts which had been openly expressed, both in Britain and America, of the expediency of attempting the entire conquest of the French settlements in the New World ; and it is equally incredible that Franklin was ignorant of the conviction that prevailed with many Ameri- can politicians, that this conquest would destroy the firmest pledge which Britain possessed of the obedience of her transatlantic colonies.^ Pitt, un- doubtedly, would never have consented to embrace any measure, of which the result, however flattering in immediate appearance, seemed to him prob- ably to threaten or even materially to facilitate the dismemberment of the British empire ; and Franklin, we may with almost equal certainty affirm, was at this time, and long after, strongly opposed to the idea, that either Britain or America could derive advantage from a political separation. He used to compare the British empire to a grand porcelain vase, of which, were it broken, the fractional parts, however equally or unequally distributed, could never possess the same magnificent value which belonged to their incorpo- ration and combined existence. But Pitt, wielding all the resources of Britain, was liable to be seduced by views of immediate glory ; and Frank- lin, however guihless he may have been of projecting, at this period, the independence of America, cannot be supposed to have contemplated, as cautiously and jealously as a native EngHshman would have done, events, > Some time after Pitt became minister, the views which he entertained (or at least express- ed) of the interest of Britain in German wars underwent a very signal modification. Able, ac- tive, eloquent, haughty, and violent, this eminent statesman was little regardful of honest con sistency. V • .4n<«, Chap. II. ^ , ^' ■ . ':^. ^:~^^^..^:.:riir- - .. ....;.:;.:,;•,.■ :.:^J^ ■^^'^ -r;-^; 276 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. which, by strengthening America, must necessarily render her independ- ence more easily attainable. Pitt was incited by principle, inclination, and interest to prosecute the war in America more actively than his official pre- decessors. Still, it would seem that he doubted the wisdom, and perhaps hesitated between the wisdom and the glory, of an entire subjugation of the French empire in America. Franklin, on the contrary, was conducted by his own reasoning, or enticed by patriotic zeal and passion, to the conclusion, that the interests both of Britain and America would be promoted by such conquest ; and yet it is certain that his views were materially affected by the consideration, more or less just, which he entertained of the probable effect of this enterprise on the minds of the British colonists towards their own parent state. It was, he declared, his opinion, that the independence of the British colonies, however reasonable or probable, was a contingency too dis- tant to be permitted to influence present calculations ; that discontent and disaffection were maintained in British America by the vicinity, the power, and the encroachments of the French ; and that loyalty to the parent state would be promoted by the removal of this cause of apprehension and anxiety. Pitt, who was, doubtless, aware of Franklin's eminence in America as a politician, and of his celebrity in the world as a philosopher, appears to have regarded him with sincere, but cold and condescending esteem ; while Franklin, as yet a novice in great and brilliant scenes, biased, partly by the influence of artificial distinctions to which he was unaccustomed, and partly by an excess of admiration incident to real genius, contemplated Pitt with enthusiastic estimate and unbounded reverence. Yet while Frank- lin, in all the native dignity and generous confidence of a superior though unpractised soul, entertained an ardent desire to see and converse with the British minister, — Pitt, governed by the aristocratical prejudices which he cherished at least as fondly as he did the principles of liberty, regarded an American postmaster and provincial agent as a person with whom he could not directly associate without derogation from his own dignity. All the efforts of Franklin to obtain an interview with Pitt proved unsuccessful ; and he was obliged to content himself with the complimentary intelhgence, that this minister considered him a respectable person^ and with the more solid" advantage of communicating with him through the medium of two of his under-secretaries. Pitt, at this time, though too haughty and supercil- ious to converse personally with Franklin, was too wise to permit the op- portunity of consulting so able a politician to pass wholly unimproved. Per- haps, if he had freely and directly admitted Franklin's conversation, the strain and tenor he imparted to the policy of Britain had been different ; his natural sagacity, aided by the advantage of close and immediate intercourse with a mind as enlarged as his own, might have enabled him to detect some fallacy in the reasoning by which the conquest of Canada was recommended. But the zealous, undoubting conviction of an arguer disguises to ordinary capacities the logical unsoundness which it sometimes explains and accounts for to firmer and more comprehensive minds ; and Pitt, communicating with this acute and ingenious, though doubtless passionate American, only through the medium of his own subordinate officers, was, perhaps too readily, im- pressed with the idea that that acquisition would conduce to the general benefit of the British empifts. An immediate conquest of the settlements of the French seemed to be requisite to the vindication of British honor. How far such conquest, if achieved, ought, in policy, to be preserved, CHAP, v.] SIEGE OF L0UISBUR6. '^''' fff was a more perplexing question ; and on the whole, the British minister was rather animated to prosecute hostilities, than fixed in decisive purpose with regard to their ultimate issue, by his correspondence with Franklin.^ Quitting the cabinet for the field, we now resume the progress of the war in America. The conquest of Canada was the object to which the most ardent wishes of the British colonists were directed ; but they quickly perceived that the gratification of this hope, if ever realized, must be defer- red at least till the succeeding year ; as the cabinet of England had deter- mined, for the protection of the English commerce against the cruisers and privateers of France, to employ a considerable part of the assembled forces in an attack upon Louisburg, and to commence its new system of operations by the reduction of that place. Three expeditions were proposed for the present year [1753] : the first, against Louisburg ; the second, against Ticon- deroga and Crown Point ; and the third, against Fort Duquesne. In prose- cution of the first of these enterprises. Admiral Boscawen, sailing from Hali- fax [May 28] with a fleet of twenty ships of the line and eighteen frigates, conveying an army of fourteen thousand men conducted by Amherst, of which but a small proportion were provincial troops, arrived before Louisburg on the second of June. The garrison of this place, commanded by the Chevalier de Drucourt, an intrepid and experienced officer, was composed of two thousand five hundred regulars, aided by six hundred militia. The condition of the harbour, secured by five ships of the line, one fifty-gun ship, and five frigates, three of which were sunk across the mouth of the basin, rendered it necessary for the invaders to land at some distance from the town. From the defensive precautions which the enemy had adopted, this operation was attended with considerable difficulty ; but, by the heroic res- olution and resistless intrepidity of General Wolfe, it was accomplished with success and little loss ; and the troops having been landed at the creek of Cormoran [June 8] , and the artillery stores brought on shore, Wolfe was detached with two thousand men to seize a post which was occupied by the enemy at the Lighthouse Point, and was calculated to affiard advantage to the besiegers by enabling them to annoy the ships in the harbour and the for- tifications of the town. On the appearance of Wolfe, the post was aban- doned ; and there the British soon erected a formidable battery. [June 12.] Approaches were also made on the opposite side of the town ; and the siege was pressed with a resolute activity characteristic of the English command- ers, and yet with a severe and guarded caution, inspired by the strength of the place and the reputation of its governor and garrison, who fully supported the high idea that was entertained of them, by the skilful and obstinate valor they exerted in its defence. In all the operations of the siege, the dauntless courage and indefatigable energy of Wolfe were signally preeminent. A heavy cannonade having been maintained against the town and harbour, a bomb, exploding, set fire to one of the large ships, which soon blew up ; and the flames were communicated to two others, which shared the same fate. The English admiral, in consequence of this success, despatched boats manned with six hundred men into the harbour to make an attempt during the night on the two ships of the line which still remained to the enemy. In spite of a tremendous fire of cannon and musketry, the assailants success- fully performed this perilous feat ; and one of the ships, which happened to be aground, was destroyed, while the other was towed off in tri 'Proud. Smollett. Fran>.lin 's .Vcmcir*.' " X 278 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. umph.i By this gallant exploit the English gained complete possession of the harbour ; and already more than one practicable breach in the works was produced by their batteries. The governor now judged the place no longer defensible, and offered to capitulate ; but his propositions were re- fused ; and it was required that the garrison should surrender at discretion, or abide the issue of an assault by sea and land. These severe terms, though at first rejected, were finally embraced ; and in accordance with them, Louisburg, with all its artillery, provisions, and military stores, together with Isle Royale, St. John's, and their dependencies, was surrendered on the 26th of July to the English, who without farther difficulty took entire pos- session of the island of Cape Breton. Four hundred of the besiegers and fifteen hundred of the garrison were killed or wounded during the siege ; and the town of Louisburg was reduced to nearly a heap of ruins. In this town the conquerors found two hundred and twenty-one pieces of cannon, eighteen mortars, and a vast quantity of stores and ammunition. The in- habitants of Cape Breton were transported to France in English ships ; but the French garrison and their naval auxiliaries were carried prisoners of war to England, where the unwonted tidings of victory and conquest were hailed with demonstrations of the liveliest triumph and joy. The French colors taken at Louisburg were carried in grand possession from Kensington Palace to the Cathedral of St. Paul's ; and a form of thanksgiving was ap- pointed to be used on the occasion in all the churches of England. The sentiments of the parent state were reechoed in America ; where the peo- ple of New England, more especially, partook of the warmth of an exulta- tion that revived the glory of their own previous achievement in the first conquest of Cape Breton.^ Before this conquest was completed, the expedition against Ticonderoga and Crown Point occurred to checker the new and victorious career of the British arms in America. This enterprise was conducted by General Abercrombie, who on the 5th of July embarked his troops on Lake George in a hundred and twenty-five whaleboats and nine hundred batteaux. His army consisted of sixteen thousand effective men, of whom nine thousand were provincials, and was attended by a formidable train of artillery. Among other oflScers, he was accompanied by Lord Howe, a young Eng- lish nobleman,^ who exhibited the most promising military talents, and whose valor, virtue, courtesy, and good-sense had greatly endeared him both to the English and the provincial troops. The mass of mankind are always prone to regard with veneration those titular distinctions, which, having no real substance, afford unbounded scope to the exercise of fancy ; and al- most universal suffrage is won, when the possessor of such lofty, though unsolid, pretensions appears to justify them by merit and mitigate them by * The renowned Captain Cook, then serving as a petty officer on board of a British ship of war, cooperated in this exploit, and wrote an account of it to a friend in England. That he honorably distinguished himself may be inferred from his promotion to the rank of lieutenant in the royal navy, which followed soon after. The Marquis de Gouttes, who commanded the French squadron at Louisburg, was con- demned in France to be degraded from his rank of nobility, to have his patent burned by the common hangman, and to be imprisoned for twenty-one years. 2 Minot. Trumbull. Smollett. Annual Register for 1758. Holmes. Nothing can be more entertaining, and at the same time more instructive, than Dr. Johnson's fanciful con- trast between a British and a French account of the second capture of Louisburg. See /d/er, No. 20. ' He was grandson of George the First ; his mother being the natural daughter of that mon- arcn and his mistress, Lady Darlington. Stuart's Three Years in North America. - - "—- CHAP, v.] REPULSE AT TICONDEROGA. 279^^ generosity, instead of arrogating them with stern insolence or reposing on them with indolent pride. Lord Howe seemed to regard his titular dis- tinction less as a proof of noble nature than an incentive to noble action, and as facilitating the indulgence of an amiable politeness by exempting him from all suspicion of mean, obsequious servility. From the day of his arri- val in America, he conformed himself, and caused his regiment to conform, to the style of service which the country required. He was the first to encounter the danger to which he conducted others, and to set the example of every sacrifice he required them to incur. While the strict discipline he maintained commanded respect, the kind and graceful benevolence of his manners conciliated affection. He was the idol and soul of the army. The first operations of Abercrombie were directed against Ticonderoga. Having disembarked at the landing-place in a cove on the western side of the lake, the troops were formed into four colunms, of which the centre was occupied by the British, and the flanks by the provincials. In this order they marched against the advanced guard of the French, which, consisting of one battalion only, destroyed its encampment and made a precipitate retreat. Proceeding from the abandoned post against Ticon- deroga, the British columns, bewildered by tangled thickets, and misled by unskilful guides, were thrown into confusion and commingled in a disor- derly manner. At this juncture. Lord Howe, advancing at the head of the right centre column, unexpectedly encountered the fugitive battalion of the French, who had lost their way in the woods, and now stumbled upon the enemy from whom they were endeavouring to escape. They consisted of regulars and a few Indians ; and, notwithstanding their surprise and inferi- ority of numbers, displayed a promptitude of action and courage that had nearly reproduced the catastrophe of Braddock. With audacious temerity, which in war is easily mistaken for deliberate confidence, and frequently prevails over superior strength, they attacked their pursuers ; and at the first fire Lord Howe with a number of his soldiers fell. [July 6.] The sud- denness of the assault, the terror inspired by the Indian yell, and the grief and astonishment created by the death of Lord Howe, excited a general panic among the British regulars ; but the provincials, who flanked them, and who were better acquainted with the mode of fighting practised by the enemy, stood their ground and soon defeated their opponents, with a slaugh- ter, compared to which, the loss of the British in point of numbers was inconsiderable. But the death of Lord Howe had depressed the spirit and enfeebled the councils of the army ; and to this circumstance its subsequent misfortunes were mainly ascribed. The loss of that brave and accom- plished officer was generally deplored in America ; and the assembly of Massachusetts, not long after, caused a monument to be erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. The British forces, without farther opposition, took possession of a post situated within two miles of Ticonderoga [July 7], previously occupied by an advanced guard commanded by Colonel Bradstreet, a provincial officer distinguished by his valor, intelligence, and activity. The general, under- standing that the garrison at Ticonderoga consisted of about six thousand men (French, Canadians, and Indians), and that a reinforcement of three thousand more was daily expected, resolved on an immediate assault of the place. He directed his engineer to reconnoitre the position and intrench- raents of the enemy ; and, trusting to a hasty survey and a rash report of their 280 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. weakness, embraced the dangerous purpose of forcing them without the as- sistance of cannon. The troops, having received orders to march up briskly, to rush upon the enemy's fire, and to reserve their own until they had passed a breastwork which was represented as easily superable, advanced to the attack with the highest intrepidity. [July 8.] But unlooked-for im- pediments resisted their progress. The breastwork proved much more for- midable than had been reported, and in front of it, to a considerable distance, trees were felled with their branches protruding outward and sharpened to a point ; by which obstruction the assailants were not only retarded in their advance, but, becoming entangled among the boughs, were exposed in help- less embarrassment and disorder to a galling and destructive fire. The pro- vincials, who were posted behind the regulars, inflamed with impatience, and not sufficiently restrained by discipline, could not be prevented from firing ; and, notwithstanding their expertness as marksmen, their fire was supposed to have proved more fatal to their friends than their enemies. This sanguinary conflict was protracted during four hours. Of the assail- ants there were killed and wounded about two thousand men, including four hundred of the provincials. One half of a Highland regiment com- manded by Lord John Murray, with twenty-five of its officers, were either killed or desperately wounded. The loss of the enemy, covered as they were from danger, was comparatively trifling. At length Abercrombie gave the signal to desist from the desperate enterprise ; and to an ill- concerted assault succeeded a retreat no less precipitate and injudicious. The British army, still amounting to nearly fourteen thousand men, greatly outnumbered the enemy ; and, if the artillery had been brought up to their assistance, might have overpowered with little difficulty the French forces and their defences at Ticonderoga. But Abercrombie, dismayed by his disastrous repulse, and heedless of the remonstrances of the provincial offi- cers, carried the army back by a hasty march to the southern extremity of Lake George. Next to the defeat of Braddock, this was the most dis- graceful catastrophe that had befallen the arms of Britain in America. As Abercrombie showed himself destitute of the vigor that was requisite to repair his misfortune. Colonel Bradstreet conceived the idea of at least counterbalancing it by an effiart in a different quarter, and, with this view, suggested to the general a substitutional expedition which he offered to con- duct against Fort Frontignac. Approving the proposal, and willingly re- linquishing his designs against Ticonderoga and Cro^n Point, Abercrombie despatched Bradstreet at the head of three thousand men, of whom all but the trifling handful of a hundred and fifty-five were provincials, together with eight pieces of cannon and three mortars, to attempt the reduction of Fort Frontignac. Bradstreet marched to Oswego, embarked on Lake Ontario, and, on the evening of the 25th of August, landed within a mile of the fort. Before the lapse of two days, his batteries were opened at so short a distance, that almost every shot took effect ; and the French com- mandant, finding his force overpowered, was compelled to surrender at dis- cretion. [August 27.] The Indian auxiliaries of the French having previ- ously deserted, the prisoners were but a hundred and ten. But the captors found in the fort sixty pieces of cannon, sixteen small mortars, together with a prodigious collection of military stores, provisions, and merchandise. Nine armed vessels also fell into their hands. Bradstreet, after destroying the fort and vessels, and such stores as he could not carry away, returned to exhilarate the main army with this ray of success. CHAP, v.] RPDUCTiON OF FORT DtaUESNE. ggj The reduction of Fort Frontignac facilitated the enterprise against Fort Duquesne, of which the garrison awaited, from the post thus unexpectedly subdued, a large reinforcement of stores and ammunition. General Forbes, to whom the expedition against Fort Duquesne was intrusted, marched with his troops early in July from Philadelphia ; but his progress was so much retarded by various obstructions, that it was not until two months after, that the Virginian forces, commanded by Washington, were sum-r moned to join the British army at Raystown. Among other provincial troops which participated in this expedition was a detachment of the militia of North Carolina, conducted by Major Waddell, a brave and active officer and highly respected inhabitant of that State, and accompanied by a body of Indian auxiliaries. Before the combined army advanced from Rays- town, Major Grant, an English officer, was detached with eight hundred men, partly British and partly provincials, to reconnoitre the condition of Fort Duquesne and of the adjacent coimtry. Rashly inviting «n attack from the French garrison, this detachment was surrounded by the enemy, and, after a gallant but ineffectual defence, in which three hundred men were killed and wounded. Major Grant and nineteen other officers were taken prisoners. It was with the utmost difficulty that the French were able to rescue these officers from the sanguinary ferocity of their own In- dian auxiliaries, who butchered the greatest part of the wounded and the prisoners. The whole residue of the detachment would have shared the same fate, if Captain Bullet, a provincial officer, with tlje aid of a small troop of Virginians, had not, partly by stratagem, and partly by the most desperate efforts of valor, checked the advance of the pursuing Indians, and finally conducted the fugitives to the main army, by e skiJful, but pro- tracted and laborious retreat. General Forbes, with this army, amounting to at least eight thousand men, at length advanced against Fort Duquesne ; but, in spite of the most strenuous exertions, was not able to reach it till near the close of November. Enfeebled by th^ir toilsonae inarch, the Brit- ish now approached the scene of Braddock's defeat, and beheld the field on which the mouldering corpses of Grant's troops still lay unburied. Anx- ious to know the condition of the fort and the po&ition of the enemy's troops, Forbes offered a reward of forty pounds to any man who would make prisoner of a hostile Indian. This service was performed by a serv geant in the North Carolina militia ; when the intelligence that was ob- tained from the captive showed Forbes that his labors were already crowned with unexpected success. The approach of the British force, which was attended with all those precautions of which the neglect proved so fatal to Braddock, had struck the Indians with such terror, that they withdrew from the assistance of the garrison of Fort Duquesne, declaring that the Great Spirit had evidently withdrawn his favor from the French and his protection from their fortress ; and the French themselves, infected with the fears and weakened by the desertion of their allies, as well as disap- pointed of the stores which they had expected to obtain from Fort Frontig- nac, judged their post untenable, and, abandoning it on the evening before the arrival of Forbes's army, made their escape in boats down the Ohio. The British now took unresisted possession of this important fortress [No- vember 25] , which had been the immediate occasion of the existing war ; and, in compliment to the great statesman whose administration had already given a new complexion to the fortune of their country and brought back VOL. II. 36 X* 232 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. departed victory to her side, they bestowed upon it the name of Pittsburg. No sooner was the British flag hoisted on its walls, than deputations arrived from the numerous tribes of the Ohio Indians, tendering their adherence and submission to the victors. With the assistance of some of these In- dians, a party of British soldiers were sent to explore the thickets where Braddock was attacked, and to bestow the rites of sepulture on the bones of their countrymen which yet strewed the ground.^ *Forbes, having con- cluded treaties of friendship with the Indians, left a garrison of provincials in the fort, and was reconducting his troops to Philadelphia, when he died, worn out by the ceaseless and overwhelming fatigues he had undergone. The French, in concert with some of their Indian allies, made an at- tempt in the autumn to subdue a frontier fort and ravage a frontier set- tlement of New England. Their design, to which they were invited by the absence of the provincial forces, engaged in the distant operations of the campaign, was defeated by the vigorous and spirited exertions of Gov- ernor Pownall, who, for his conduct on this occasion, received from Pitt a letter expressive of the king's approbation. The campaign which thus terminated was, in the main, highly honorable and propitious to Britain, notwithstanding the disgraceful defeat sustained at Ticonderoga. In consequence of this last event, Abercrombie, as he ex- pected, was deprived of a command he no longer desired to retain ; and Amherst was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in America.^ If France, whose American policy was the offspring of a vaulting, unmeas- ured ambition, had been capable of profiting by the lessons she had latterly received, perhaps the repulse of the British at Ticonderoga was an unfor- tunate circumstance for her. It was certainly unfortunate, if it deluded her with the hope of pursuing with advantage the contest she had provok- ed ; and not less so in its influence on a powerful and indignant foe, in the first moments of vindictive exertion. It inspired the rulers of Britain with the same persuasion which prevailed among the Americans, that more must yet be done to redeem the honor of the British empire ; and it stimulated the particular appetite which the English people had now contracted for trophies and conquests in America. Meanwhile the increased vigor and success with which the arms of Britain were exerted in other parts of the world rendered it the more difficult for France to afford succour to her American possessions. Among other advantages which the British reaped from the late cam- paign was the influence it exercised on the sentiments of a great number of the Indian tribes, who began to suspect, that, by the civilities and vaunt- ing representations of the French, they had been induced to espouse a cause which fortune was likely to forsake. Many of these savages had hastily concluded, from the polite, obliging manners of the French in peace, and their promptitude and celerity in war, that, of the two European races, they were the more eligible friends and the more formidable enemies ; but their opinion began to waver, from a longer experience of the justice of British traffic and the steadiness of British valor. In the close of this year, a grand assembly of Indian nations was held at Easton, about sixty miles from Philadelphia, and a formal treaty of friendship was concluded between Great Britain and fifteen Indian tribes inhabiting the vast territory » See Note XX., at the end of the volume. : ' Burk. Wynne. Trumbull. Hutchinson. Smollett. Minot.. Williamson. Campbell. CHAP, v.] SALT MANUFACTURE; — BANKRUPT LAW. 283 extending from the Appalachian Mountains to the lakes. The confer- ences were managed, on the part of Britain, by Denny, the governor of Pennsylvania, and Francis Bernard (successor of Belcher, who died in 1757), the governor of New Jersey, together with Sir William Johnson, the royal superintendent of Indian affairs, a number of the members of council and assembly of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and a great many citizens of Philadelphia, chiefly of the Quaker persuasion. Much time was spent by the British commissioners in accommodating various feuds and disputes that had recently arisen or been exasperated between the tribes with which they contracted. The Indians also demonstrated a surprising tenacity and precision of memory, in enumerating every past and unsatisfied cause of offence which had been afforded to any of their race by the English; and a feudal nicety and exactitude in defining the pecuniary composition appropriate to every one of their relative claims. At length, after confer- ences which endured for eighteen days, all the disputes between the two races were satisfactorily compounded ; and the treaty of friendship which ensued gave so much contentment to all parties, that the Indians promised to use their utmost endeavours to extend its influence still more widely among their race. There was purchased by the British a tract of about three thousand acres of land, which received the name of Brother ton, and was vested in the persons of the New Jersey commissioners and their suc- cessors, in trust for the use of the Indian natives of New Jersey, southward of the river Raritan.^ In the course of this year, a petition was presented to the British House of Commons by Robert Hunter Morris, formerly governor of Pennsylva- nia, who represented, that, as no salt was made in the British colonies in America, they were reduced to depend on a precarious supply of that com- modity from foreigners ; and that he was now willing to undertake the man- ufacture of marine salt, at a moderate price, in one of those colonies, at his own hazard and charge, on condition of obtaining a monopoly of this manufacture for such a term of years as the house might deem a proper and adequate compensation for the risk attending so large an adventure. This petition was referred to a committee, which never made any report : — ''A circumstance," says an ingenious English historian, *'not easily ac- counted for, unless we suppose the House of Commons were of opinion that such an enterprise might contribute towards rendering our colonies too independent of their mother country. ^^ But though royal and parliamentary patronage of schemes for the improvement of the condition of the Amer- ican colonists was denied, a liberal encouragement was afforded by British affluence and generosity, exerted through humbler, and, perhaps, more proper organs, to the development of American genius and enterprise. A society, which was formed at London some years before, for the promotion of arts and manufactures in Britain, now extended its notice and premi- ums to the colonial possessions of the parent state in America.^ A statute analogous to the bankrupt law of England was enacted this year by the assembly of Massachusetts, where a great many merchants were plunged into a state of insolvency by the war ; but it was disallowed by the king, as unsuitable to the circumstances of a community where a great ma- jority of the debts ordinarily contracted by the people were due, not to their own fellow-ci tizens, but to creditors resident in Europe.^ • ' S. Smith. Wynne. ~~ » Smollett. See Note XXL, at the eqd of the volume. '. * Minot. See Note XXIL, at the end of the volume. 234 HlSt^Itt 6f NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X, The British nation, first aroused by resentment, which was not yet sa- tiated, and now inflamed with success and ambition, regarded the recent American campaign as the pledge and harbinger of farther and more signal triumph in the same quarter. [1759.] Whatever hesitation to attempt the entire overthrow of the French colonial empire might yet linger in the minds of the ministers was overpowered by the force of the predicament in which they were placed, and the difficulty of pausing in a career of immediate con- quest and glory. The parliament addressed the throne in terms that de- noted the highest approbation of the measures and policy of the cabinet ; they applauded the recent conduct of the war, and pledged themselves zeal- ously and cheerfully to support its farther prosecution. In reply to a mes- sage from the king, recommending to their consideration the vigorous and spirited efforts which his faithful subjects in North America had exerted in defence of his rights and possessions, they voted two hundred thousand pounds for enabling his Majesty to give proper compensation to the several American provinces for their expenses in levying and maintaining troops for the public service. One sentiment of eagerness to advance the glory of England, and humble or destroy the American empire of France, per- vaded every part of the British dominions ; and the officers by whom the forces serving in America were now commanded were equally zealous and qualified to promote their country's wishes and enlarge her empire and re- liown. The eampargn which they had concerted, and now prepared to com- mence, embraced the great design of an entire and immediate conquest of Canada ; and the plan of operations by which this object was to be pur- sued was, that three powerful armies should enter Canada by different routes, and attack, at nearly the same time, all the strongholds of the French in that country. At the head of one division of the army, consisting princi- pally of English troops, and aided by an English fleet, General Wolfe, who had gained so much distinction at the recent siege of Louisburg, was to as- cend the river St. Lawrence, as soon as its navigation should cease to be obstructed by ice, and attempt the siege of Quebec, the capital of Canada. General Amherst, the commander-in-chief, was to march against Ticon- deroga and Crown Point, and, after reducing these places, and establishing a naval force on Lake Champlain, was to penetrate, by the way of Riche- lieu River and the St. Lawrence, to Quebec, in order to form a junction with the forces of Wolfe. The third army, conducted by General Pri- deaux, and consisting chiefly of provincials, reinforced by a strong body of friendly Indians, assembled by the influence and placed under the special command of Sir William Johnson, was to attack the French fort near the Falls of Niagara, Which commanded, in a manner, all the interior parts of North America, and was a key to the whole continent. As soon as this fort should be carried, Prideaux was to embark on Lake Ontario, descend the river St. Lawrence, make himself master of Montreal, and then unite his forces with those of Wolfe and Amherst. General Stanwix commanded a smaller detachment of troops, which was employed in reducing the French forts on the Ohio and scouring the banks of Lake Ontario. It was ex- pected, that, if Prideaux's operations, in addition to their ow^n immediate ob- ject, should not facilitate either of the two other capital undertakings, it would probably (as Niagara was the most important post which the enemy possessed in this quarter of America) induce the French to draw together all tb«ir troops which were Stationed on the borders of the lakes in order to aiAP. v.] PREPARATiaiVS TOR THE INVASION OF CANADA. 285 attempt it$ relief, which would leave the forts on these lakes exposed ; and this etfect was actually produced.^ : Kager as the Americans were to cooperate with the martial purposes of Britain, they found it difficult to keep pace with her profuse expenditure ; and some reluctance was expressed by the people of New England to the additional levies required from the provincial governments for the operations of the present campaign. They had been assured, in the commencement of the preceding year, that a single campaign would doubtless be sufficient to terminate the war. The same assurance, now repeated, was no longer able to produce the same effect. They were already laboring under the weight of heavy burdens occasioned by their former exertions ; the compen- sations decreed to them by the British parliament from time to time were greatly inferior to their actual expenses ; and much disgust and discourage- ment had been created by the delays, certainly impolitic, though perhaps not easily avoided, by which the public officers in England retarded the ap- portionment and payment of the parliamentary grants. It was unwise of the British government, while pursuing a course of which the policy required to be justified by the hope of promoting at once the advantage and the grate- ful loyalty of the Americans, to suffer any thing to be done which could diminish their sense of the obligation. Britain would, perhaps, have adopted a wiser and more magnanimous course, if she had arrogated to herself the whole conduct, expense, and honor of the war. By the course which she actually pursued, she trained many of the colonists to military exer- cises, and familiarized them with the idea of a contest with one of the most powerful empires in Europe ; she relieved them all from the dangers of a French vicinity ; and she disgusted them by the scanty and dilatory com- pensation by which she repaid their exertions. Connecticut, with some difficulty, was induced to refurnish her last year's contingent of five thou- sand men. In the records of this colony we find for the first time the name of Israel Putnam, one of the most heroic and determined patriots in Amer- ica, as the colonel of one of the Connecticut regiments. Massachusetts at first declined to raise more than five thousand men ; but at length, in compliance with the instances of General Amherst, who was much respected by the colonists, consented to furnish an additional force of fifteen hundred.^ New Hampshire, however, surpassed its exertions of. the preceding year, and raised a thousand men.' Early in the spring, Amherst transferred his head-quarters from New York to Albany, where his troops, amounting to twelve thousand men, * "By so many different attacks^" says Trumbull, "it was designed, as far as possible, to divide and distract the enemy, and to prevent their making an effectual defence at any place." — "A plan was pursued," says Minot, "to assail the French in America in every direction, and, by a connection of all the parts, to transfuse throughout the whole system the effect of the success which could not well fail to happen in some quarter." I pretend to no better judg- ment of the merit of military plans than a civilian may presume to form ; but have no hesita- tion in expressing my concurrence with the opinion of Smollett (a far superior judge in such matters), that the plan of this campaign was a great deal too arduous and multifarious. Though crowned in every part with partial success, it miscarried in some capital points ; and without the heroic efforts and astonishing success of Wolfe, the actual campaign wouM have been regarded as a failure. Polybius exhorts his readers to make allowance for the influence of " fortune and accident in all human affairs, and especially in those that relate to war.*' One of the most successful commanders in the world, with a grandeur of sentiment which showed that his genius was superior to his fortune, chose to be designated by the title of Sylla the Fortunate. " fn rebus hellicis^'* says Tacitus, " maxime dominatur foituna.*' * See Note XXIII., at the end of the volume. ^ Annual Register for nhQ. Smollett. Minot. Trumbull. Wynne. Belknap. . , , 286 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. were assembled in the end of May ; yet the summer was far advanced be- fore the state of his preparations enabled him to cross Lake George ; and it was not till the close of July, that he reached Ticonderoga. At first the enemy seemed determined to defend this fortress, and Colonel Townsend, a brave and accomplished English officer, who advanced to reconnoitre it, was killed by a cannon-ball. But perceiving the determined yet cautious resolution, and the overwhelming force, with which Amherst was preparing to undertake the siege, and having received strict orders to retreat from post to post towards the centre of operations at Quebec, rather than incur the risk of being made prisoners, the garrison, a few days after, dismantled a part of the fortifications, and, evacuating Ticonderoga during the night, retired to Crown Point. Amherst, directly occupying the important post thus abandoned, which effectually covered the frontiers of New York and secured himself a safe retreat, caused the works to be repaired and allotted a strong garrison for its defence. Thence advancing. to Crown Point, with a cautious and guarded circumspection which the event showed to have been unnecessary, but which he was induced to observe by remember- ing how fatal a confident security had proved to other British commanders in this quarter of the world, he took possession of this fortress with the same facility which attended his first acquisition, in consequence of a farther ret- rogression of the enemy, who retired from his approach and intrenched themselves in a fort at Isle-aux-Noix, on the northern extremity of Lake Champlain. At this place the French, as he was informed, had collected three thousand five hundred men, with a numerous train of artillery, and possessed the additional resource of four large armed vessels on the lake. Amherst exerted the utmost activity to create a naval force, without which it was impossible for him to attack the enemy's position ; and with a sloop and a radeau, which were built with great despatch, he succeeded in de- stroying two of their vessels, — an achievement, in which the bold, adven- turous spirit of Putnam was conspicuously displayed ; but a succession of storms and the advanced season of the year compelled him reluctantly to postpone the farther prosecution of his scheme of operations. He estab- lished his troops in winter quarters at Crown Point, in the end of October, and confined his attention to strengthening the works of this fortress and of Ticonderoga. Thus, the first of the three simultaneous expeditions em- braced in the plan of this year's campaign, though attended with successful and important consequences, failed to produce the full result which had been anticipated by its projectors. Amherst, so far from being able to penetrate into Canada and form a junction with Wolfe, was unable to maintain the slightest communication with him ; and only by a letter from Montcalm, in relation to an exchange of prisoners, obtained information that Wolfe was besieging Quebec. With the army which undertook the siege of Niagara, indeed, his communication was uninterrupted ; and intelligence of its success had reached him before he advanced from Ticonderoga against Crown Point. While Amherst's army was thus employed, General Prideaux, with his European, American, and Indian troops, embarking on Lake Ontario, ad- vanced without loss or opposition to the fortress at Niagara, which he reached about the middle of July, and promptly invested on all sides. He was conducting his approaches with great vigor, when, on the twentieth of the month, during a visit he made to the trenches, he lost his life by the unfor- tunate bursting of a cohorn. Amherst was no sooner informed of this acci- CHAP, v.] BATTLE OF NIAGARA. ' 287 dent, than he detached General Gage from Ticonderoga to assume the com- mand of Prideaux's army ; but it devolved, in the mean time, upon Sir William Johnson, who exercised it with a success that added a new laurel to the honors which already adorned his name. The enemy, alarmed with the apprehension of losing a post of such importance, resolved to make an effort for its relief. From their forts of Detroit, Venango, and Presque Isle, they drew together a force of twelve hundred men, which, with a troop of Indian auxiliaries, were detached under the command of an officer named D'Aubry, with the purpose of raising the siege or reinforcing the garrison of Niagara. Johnson, who had been pushing the siege even more vigor- ously than his predecessor, learning the design of the French to relieve the garrison, made instant preparation to intercept it. As they approached, he ordered his light infantry, supported by a body of grenadiers and other regulars, to occupy the road from Niagara Falls to the fortress, by which the enemy were advancing, and covered his flanks with numerous troops of his Indian allies. At the same time, he posted a Strong detachment of men in his trenches, to prevent any sally from the garrison during the ap- proaching engagement. About nine in the morning [July 24] , the two armies being in sight of each other, the Indians attached to the English, advanc- ing, proposed a conference with their countrymen who served under the French banners ; but the proposition was declined. The French Indians having raised the fierce, wild yell called the war-whoop, which by this time had lost its appalling effect on the British soldiers, the action began by an impetuous attack from the enemy ; and while the neighbouring cataract of Niagara pealed forth to inattentive ears its everlasting voice of many waters^ the roar of artillery, the shrieks of the Indians, and all the martial clang and dreadful revelry of a field of battle, mingled in wild chorus with the majestic music of nature. The French conducted their attack with the utmost courage and spirit, but were encountered with such firm, delib- erate valor in front by the British regulars and provincials, and so severely galled on their flanks by the Indians, that in less than an hour their army was completely routed, their general with all his officers taken prisoners, and the fugitives from the field pursued with great slaughter for many miles through the woods. This was the second victory gained in the course of the present war by Sir William Johnson, a man who had received no mili- tary education, and whose fitness for command was derived solely from nat- ural courage and sagacity.^ Both his victories were signaHzed by the capture of the enemy's commanders. On the morning after the battle, Johnson sent an officer to communicate the result of it to the commandant of the garrison at Fort Niagara, and recommend an immediate surrender before more blood was shed, and while it was yet in his power to restrain the barbarity of the Indians ; and the commandant, having ascertained the truth of the tidings, capitulated without farther delay. The garrison, con- sisting of between six and seven hundred effective men, marched out with the honors of war, and were conveyed prisoners to New York. They were * " The war in general was distinguished by the singular success of Sir William John- son and the celebrated Lord Clive, two self-taught generals, who, by a series of shining actions, have demonstrated that uninstructed genius can, by its own internal light and efficacy, rival, if not eclipse, the acquired advantages of discipline and experience." Smollett. In all the conflicts between the two rival European races, in America, the French displayed the livelier and more impetuous bravery ; the British the more sustained fortitude and deter- mination. "Speed," says Tacitus, "borders upon panic and timidity ; slow toovements are more akin to steady valor." 288 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK X. allowed to retain their baggage, and, by proper escort, were protected from the ferocity and rapacity of the Indians. Though eleven hundred of these savages (chiefly of the confederacy of the Six Nations) followed Johnson to Niagara, so effectually did he restrain them, that not an incident occurred to rival or retaliate the scenes at Oswego and FortWilham Henry. The women, of whom a considerable number were found at Fort Niagara, were sent, at their own request, with their children to Montreal ; and the sick and wounded, who could not sustain the fatigue of removal, were treated with humane attention. Although the army by which this success was achieved, whether from ignorance of the result of Wolfe's enterprise, or from some other cause more easily conjectured than ascertained, made no attempt to pursue the ulterior objects which had been assigned to its sphere of operation, and so far failed en • 4 Geo. III., Cap. 15. ^ " In this triumphant career of the minister, the voice of America was silenced by a rule of the House of Commons not to receive any petition against a money bill. This rule, found ed on the supposition that the people who are to pay the tax are present by their delegates in parliament, not less manifestly proved the absurdity and injustice of the existing case, in which the Americans, though the parties chiefly interested, were the only parties neither ac- tually nor virtually represented." Minot. It is sometimes necessary to take liberties with this author's language in order to render his meaning more easily intelligible. CHAP. I] PROJECT OF A DOMESTIC TAX. 37 1> Hutchinson, the American historian and politician, whose vipws in general betray a strong bias in favor of the system pursued by the parent state, expresses the most unqualified reprobation of the impolicy of some of the provisions of this act, and ascribes the patience and submission with which the colonists endured its pressure to the practical relaxation which it re- ceived from the connivance or indulgence of the custom-house officers.^ But the submissive deportment, which, in spite of their discontent, the colonists maintained for a while under this sudden and severe aggravation of the commercial restrictions, was, if not mainly occasioned, at least consid- erably promoted, by the anxious expectation now awakened with regard to the issue of a legislative project, far more interesting and formidable to their apprehensions, which had been for some time entertained and openly announced by the British government. To this point all the fears and doubts engendered by previous rumors and speculations began to converge ; and the colonists, absorbed by the interest of a great approaching crisis which involved the pretensions of the parent state to a new and important channel of dominion, were naturally impressed with more than usual mod- eration of sentiment in relation to an exertion of British prerogative, which, although overstrained and oppressive, was still confined to a channel of which they customarily acknowledged the legitimacy. We have seen, that, at a very early period of their history, the colonists on various occasions resented their subjection to the British commercial code, not merely on account of the oppressive severity of its regulations, but with express protestation against the injustice of financial burdens imposed on them by a parliament in which they were not represented ; and that, appealing sometimes to the particular provisions of their royal charters, and sometimes to their general character of denizens of the British empire and partners in the whole scheme of British liberty, they questioned the competence, even while they submitted to the force, of parliamentary statutes, which, in imposing taxes on their commerce, seemed to them to usurp the proper functions of their own pro- vincial assemblies.^ In process of time, the colonists became gradually in- ured to this authoritative pretension. It had long formed a prominent part of the established political system under which the population of America was renewed and enlarged by domestic increase and foreign accession ; while both the odium and the pressure of its actual enforcement was mitigated by the indulgent moderation or timidity of the revenue officers, and the growth and subsistence of an extensive contraband trade. An opinion grad- ually arose in America, that the regulation of foreign commerce was the prerogative by which the legislature of the parent state was distinguished from the legislative organs established in the remote provincial settlements. The expediency of a complete harmony of views and principles in the en- tire system of the national commerce, it was said, required that there should be conceded to the metropolitan legislature a privilege, hmited indeed by certain principles, yet derogating considerably from the integrity of that constitutional liberty which in abstract right belonged to the colonies as a constituent portion of the British empire. So far, but no farther, the Americans were generally prepared, more or less willingly, to recognize the subjection of their favorite principles to circumstantial exigence. But in * Annual Register for 1765, and for 1775. Minot. HntcWnson. Holmes. 2 See particularly ««fc, Book n, Chap. IV.; Book IV., Chap. II.; Book VI. ; Appendix I. ; and Note XXVIH., at the end of Vol. I. >^v 372 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL proportion at least to the pain of this concession was the jealous and res- olute vigilance with which they contended for the sacredness of its re- strictive limits ; and while the system of domestic liberty which they en- joyed contributed to enlighten and quicken their resentful sense of the injustice of the commercial restrictions to which they were subjected, the retroaction of this sentiment served additionally to endear to them every principle, usage, and institution that supported or developed their system of domestic liberty. So early as the year 1696, we have seen that a prop- osition, originating in England, to impose a domestic tax on the colonies by parliamentary ordinance, was openly combated, as suggesting a measure beyond the competence of the British parliament.^ Since that period, we have beheld the same design more than once resumed and abandoned by British ministers. Now, however, it was, if not more deeply pondered, at least more deliberately entertained ; and the Americans, who had hitherto regarded it with suspicious aversion or contemptuous incredulity, were sud- denly aroused to the necessity of finally admitting or successfully resisting its operation, by the intelligence of a near and certain attempt to carry it into execution. It was in the commencement of the present year that the American assemblies were apprized, by their agents at London, of a communication which they had received from Grenville, the British minister, who acquainted them with his intention of procuring forthwith an act of parliament im- posing a stamp duty on the colonies, but declared, withal, his willingness to substitute in place of this duty any other internal tax which the colo- nists themselves would preferably recommend, and which should present the likehhood of yielding an equal revenue. Grenville doubtless expected to facilitate the execution of his adventurous purpose, and to reduce some, if not all, of the American States to the attitude of acquiescence in the new pretension of parliament to administer their domestic taxation, by tempting them to suggest what they would consider the least obnoxious form in which this pretension could be exercised ; and the disappointment of his expectation in this particular ought to have served as a warning against the danger of undertaking a novel and important stretch of power over a people with whose temper and sentiments it appeared that he was very little ac- quainted. For, instead of being seduced by his overture, or even consid- ering it as an expression of courtesy or good-will, the Americans universally regarded the invitation to suggest a tax on themselves to the minister as a greater affront even than the projected measure of taxing them without their own consent. It was a maxim which always regulated the poHcy of Massa- chusetts, and which the example of this province had propagated in the neighbouring colonies, that it is better to endure the worst extremity of in- justice with the silence of despair or resignation, than to purchase a mitigation of its severity by any act tending to recognize the legitimacy of its principle. The people who cherished this generous maxim only waited, whether con- sciously or not, the attainment of sufficient strength, and the occurrence of a fit season, to assume the rank of a free and independent commonwealth. Grenville had informed the American agents that either the stamp duty, or the substitutional tax which he expected the colonists to suggest, would be imposed during the session of parliament in the present year ; but, whether the disappointment of his expectation left him unprepared with the details ' ^nte. Appendix I. CHAP. I.] PROPOSED STAMP DUTIES. 373 of his own particular measure, or whether he persisted in hoping yet to re- ceive from some part of America the suggestion he had invited, he ad- vanced no farther during this year than to propose to the House of Com- mons a resolution which was adopted simultaneously with the bill for ex- tending the commercial restrictions, — " that, towards farther defraying the expenses of protecting the colonies, it may be proper to charge certain stamp duties upon them." He was again mistaken, if he expected that the delay by which he thus prolonged the alarm, suspense, and dehberations of the colonists would contribute in any degree to facilitate the execution of his financial design. But, indeed, this design was so desperate and so fatally impolitic, that no system of subsidiary operations, whether in itself wisely or injudiciously concerted, could possibly have escaped the re- proach of conducting to an issue disastrous and disgraceful. The communication of the British minister's project excited mingled sentiments of alarm, aversion, and resentment in America ; and the lan- guage in which the unanimous objection of the colonies was conveyed varied only in proportion as one or other of those sentiments preponderated in the minds of the inhabitants of the several States and of their leading po- liticians and counsellors. In the course of the present year, this project was discussed in all the provincial assemblies, and provoked from them all peti- tions and remonstrances to the British government, which differed indeed in their topics and tone, though breathing the same sentiment and purpose, and some of the more remarkable of which deserve a particular commem- oration. The Pennsylvanian assembly was distinguished above all the others by the temperate, yet firm, dignified, and consistent strain of its de- bates and proceedings ; in w^hich there appeared no trace of those dissen- sions which had lately been reproduced in the province by the illiberal policy of the proprietary family. It was declared in this assembly, that the prop- osition of the British minister was a deviation from ancient usage, uncon- stitutional, unjust,^ and unnecessary ; that the parliament had no right to tax the colonies at all ; that it had been hitherto the invariable practice, when pecuniary subsidies were required from the colonies, that the king, with the advice of his privy council, directed his secretary of state to write cir- cular letters to the several provincial governments, explaining the particular exigence of the public service, and expressing the royal desire and con- fidence that they would provide for it by granting supplies proportioned to their abilities and loyalty ; that the colonies had always evinced a dutiful compliance with those requisitions, and during the last war in particular ex- erted a liberality so far exceeding their proportionate liability to sustain the general burdens of the empire, that the king had acknowledged their claim to a compensation, and the parliament for five years successively returned them a part of their annual contributions ; that the proposition to tax them in parliament was therefore equally wanton and iniquitous ; that, by the constitution of the colonies, it was their sovereign alone who was compe- tent to treat with them in relation to subsidies ; and that it would be deroga- ' As the charter of Pennsylvania (see Ante, Book VII., Chap. I.) was more favorable to iho prerogative of the British parliament than any of the other American charters, tne Pennsyl- vamans never willingly cited it in this controversy. One of their advocates preferred to c'ite the following passage, extracted from an old European historian : — " There is neither king nor sovereign lord on earth, who has beyond his own domain power to lay the imposition of one farthing on his subjects without the consent of those who pay it, unless he does it by tyranny and violence." Philip de Comines, Cap. 108. PP 374 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL tory both to their rights and their dignity to make, any treaty on this subject with the British minister, whose appHcation to them, instead of commu- nicating the wishes of the king, conveyed the command or menace of a financier, with whose projects, for aught they knew, the king might be totally unacquainted. In conformity with this latter sentiment, they took no formal or official notice of Grenville's project, but sufficiently indicated their opin- ion of it, while they professed their readiness to sustain a just proportion of the load of debt with which the British empire was burdened, by passing and recording in their journals a resolution of the following tenor : — " That as they always have thought, so they always shall think, it their duly to grant aid to the crown according to their abilities, whenever required of em in the usual constitutional manner." Dr. Franklin, whose second mission to England we have already remarked, was charged on this occasion with the office of communicating the foregoing resolution to Grenville, who paid no farther regard to it than what may be imphed from the introduction, immediately after, of his threatened stamp bill into parliament. It was the firm persuasion of Franklin, that, if the minister had embraced the plan which was approved by the colonists, and had demanded subsidies of them by the intervention of requisitional letters from the king to the provincial governments, he would have obtained far larger sums from their volun- tary grants than he expected to derive from the stamp duty. The assemblies of Virginia and New York distinguished themselves on this occasion by the positive and absolute contradiction which they for- mally expressed and published of the legitimacy of the pretension to tax the colonies by act of parliament. From Virginia there were transmitted petitions ^ to the king and both houses of parliament, referring to the reso- lution of the House of Commons which proposed to extend a stamp duty to America, and affirming, in the plainest terms, the constitutional exemp- tion of the colonists from parliamentary taxation. By the influence of the provincial council, however, there was insinuated into these petitions a prudential distinction between the right and the power of the British parliament ; and while the right was absolutely denied, the exertion of the supposed power was deprecated in a tone which though firm was yet supplicatory, and which seemed to imply that no opposition beyond remon- strance was yet contemplated. It was declared, indeed, that the taxation of the colonies by a parliament in which they cannot be represented would necessarily establish this melancholy truth, that the inhabitants of the col- onies are the slaves of the Britons from whom they are descended ; but while the petitioners lamented the prospect of such bondage, and implored de- liverance from it, they breathed not a syllable that impHed either the power or the will to resist its infliction. A wise and prudent government, how- ever, would have anticipated only the more dangerous and determined op- position to its measures, from the considerate policy with which the oppo- nents and victims of these measures, while yet there w^as time to retract them, separated the most unqualified censure of them from the slightest ap- pearance of defiance or menace. From the views and temper that prevailed with the people and government of Britain at this period, there is, in- deed, every reason to suppose that such reasonable and salutary appre- ' These petitions were composed by Randolph (the attornej^-general of the province), Lee, Carter, Wythe, Pendleton, Bland, and other members of the assembly. Richard Henry Lee prepared and proposed to the assembly the resolutions on which the petitions were founded. CHAP. I] CONFUSED COUNSELS IN NEW ENGLAND. 375 hensions, however seasonably suggested, would have been entirely disre- garded. It must nevertheless be acknowledged that the Virginian petition did not arrive in Britain till after the Stamp Act proposed by Grenville was actually introduced and considerably advanced. The petition of the assembly of New York, in addition to similar disadvantage in respect of the date of its transmission, was so intemperate and unguarded in its rep- robation of the pretended prerogative of the British legislature, that the agent of the province was unable to prevail with any member of parliament to undertake the office of presenting it. The dehberations of the assembly of Massachusetts were similarly re- tarded, partly by the difference of opinion which prevailed in this province, and partly by the policy of Governor Bernard, who interrupted the sessions of the assembly by long prorogations, and, with the assistance of his deputy, Hutchinson, perplexed its debates and obstructed its proceedings. There was, indeed, no portion of the American population more generally animated with a spirit of jealous opposition to British encroachment, or more united by a common sentiment of aversion to the project of parliamentary taxation, than the people of New England ; yet, from the general diffusion, perhaps, of political knowledge, and the prevalence of pohtical speculation and dis- cussion among them, they certainly betrayed on this important occasion a remarkable discordance in the views they expressed and the principles they maintained and appealed to. Never had New England been distracted by the jumble of more confused and inconsistent counsels. All or almost all its inhabitants were prompted by the same sentiment of liberty to oppose the most determined resistance to the threatened aggression ; but a great diversity of opinion prevailed with regard to the views and purposes which, consistently with truth and reason, or with interest and expediency, might or should be promulgated as the vindication and definition of the colonial re- sistance. Happily for the credit of New England, the identity of those resentful feelings, which were additionally inflamed by subsequent provoca- tion, finally confounded and effaced the prevalent diversities of pohtical opin- ion ; though doubtless these diversities contributed, with other causes, to the success with which an adroit politician of Massachusetts exerted himself to reduce the language of his countrymen in the present crisis to a moderate and even submissive strain, which belied their real sentiments and tended to delude the parent state. In every community, where a struggle with the supreme authority of the empire is provoked by tyranny or excited by faction, the poor are always more prone to precipitate matters to extremity than the rich, who, hoping less from change and dreading more from convulsion and discomfit- ure, are pecuharly interested in supporting moderate measures and cherish- ing conciliatory projects and ideas. But in addition to this general source of diversified opinion at a crisis like the present, there were circumstances in the particular situation of America which gave scope to the most per- plexing varieties in the views of the pohtical champions by whom her interests were advocated. The pressure of the commercial restrictions had lately been screwed to a pitch which created extreme discontent ; and the discussion of this grievance, and of the means most likely to induce the Brit- ish government to redress it, naturally mingled with the consideration of the more alarming project of the Stamp Act. Some politicians maintained that there was a wide and substantial distinction between these two meas- 376 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XT. ures ; the first implying no more than a denial of indulgence ; the second importing a violation of justice and right. While they deplored the sever- ity of the late commercial regulations, they acknowledged the abstract com- petence of parliament to impose them ; but they questioned its legitimate power to assume the domestic taxation of the colonies ; and counselled their countrymen to solicit a mitigation of the one grievance as a boon or act of grace, but to resist the introduction of the other as an unwarrantable usurpation. This was certainly the most prevalent opinion. Yet were there other politicians who recognized no solid distinction between the unjust origina- tion of a novel organ of power, and the oppressive exercise of authority in a more customary or constitutional shape, — between the multiphcation of political fetters, and the aggravation of their weight. Governor Bernard, whose insolence to the provincial assembly, and obsequious devotion to the British court, rendered him increasingly unpopular in Massachusetts, is said by Hutchinson to have agreed with the majority of the people in judging the prerogative of parliament bounded by commercial legislation, and that the remonstrances of the colonists ought to be confined to the project of usurp- ing their internal taxation. Yet he retarded and obstructed their efforts to vindicate the rights which he believed to be their due ; and he, published a series of letters on law and polity in relation to the colonies, in which he maintained without distinction or restriction that the American colonists were constitutionally subject to parliamentary taxation.^ Hutchinson him- self, whose wise and upright conduct in the office of chief justice had re- trieved the loss of public favor which he incurred by accepting this appoint- ment, and who was now in the enjoyment of a short-lived gleam of popu- larity, embraced the opinion of those who considered that the distinction be- tween internal and external taxation was pressed by its advocates a great deal too far ; and that the late parliamentary statute, of which not merely the incidental effect, but the professed design, was to raise a revenue at the expense of the colonies, transgressed as certainly the grounds of British pre- rogative as the proposed Stamp Act threatened to do. Yet his conduct, like that of Bernard, exhibited a remarkable contrast with his opinions ; and he, who deemed that the majority of his countrymen erred in not per- ceiving that a violation of their constitutional rights was committed by the last as well as menaced by the next expected measure of the parliament, was the agent by whom the Massachusetts assembly was persuaded, in its application to the British government, practically to disavow this impu- tation against either of those measures. The views entertained by Hutchinson were communicated only to his private friends. From a laudable desire, by which he professes to have been guided, of avoiding to distract the public councils, and of cooperating with the prevalent party in order to preserve from destruction as much as possible of the fabric of American liberty, he refrained from pubhcly expressing his opinions, and even dissembled so far as to countenance the plea of an entire distinction between external and internal taxation, in the * As a measure of expediency, indeed, he suggested that the Americans should be per- mitted to send representatives to the British parliament. He recommended that the provin- cial governments should be considerably altered in structure and reduced in number, "as the surest means of preventing revolt"; and that an order of nobility should be forthwith established by the crown in America. Bernard's letters excited much displeasure and inqui- ( tude both in Massachusetts and in the other American States. CHAP. I.] VIEWS OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TAXATION. 377 hope (ne said) that concessions to the one measure would fortify the ob- jections that were urged against the other. He even exerted so much activity in the support of his country's interest, as to compose a vindication of the claims of America, which, however, with his habitual pohcy, he declined to avow, and transmitted for anonymous publication to one of his friends in England. The opinions of Bernard, of Hutchinson, and of va- rious other politicians of double heart, who in the progress of the contro- versy came to be ranked as the adversaries of America and the partisans of Britain, appear in the outset of it to have been seasoned not inconsid- erably with the principles of liberty. The main difference between these men and the more constant and faithful friends of America consisted in the force of the attachment they cherished for liberal principles, and the extent of the sacrifices they were willing to incur for their defence and pro- motion. While one class of pohticians in America, not foreseeing the fatal extremities to which the dispute was tending, thus avowed a respect for hb- erty far exceeding the zeal and fortitude they were prepared to exert in its favor,^ the more numerous and more ardent single-hearted and determined votaries of freedom were induced, partly by prudence and partly by a per- plexing discordance of opinion, to mitigate the harshness of their censure of British ^policy by expressions of respect and submission to British au- thority and power, which were far from corresponding with the deliberate frame and temper of their spirits. The majority, doubtless, were favorable to the plea, that the right of domestic taxation was the exclusive privilege of the provincial assemblies ; and, for the preservation of this privilege, they w^ere willing to concede, for the present at least, to Britain the prerogative of external taxation, and even, if necessary, to submit, though with much ill-humor and reluctance, to the late statute by which the exercise of this prerogative was so severely strained. But there was also a party, distinguished less by its numerical strength than by the ardent zeal which pervaded it and the acknowledged patriotism and high popularity of the individuals who composed it, which openly main- tained that the distinction currently received between external and internal taxation was chimerical and unfounded : .that the supreme legislature, if vested with the power of imposing taxes on distant appendages of the em- pire, must possess this power to an indefinite and indefinable extent ; and that either the British parliament was incompetent to tax the external com- merce of the American States, or, if vested with this prerogative, must be equally entitled to tax at discretion every internal possession, emolument, and enjoyment of the colonists. These views were supported, especially, in a series of pamphlets composed by James Otis, of which the first was published in the summer of the present year ; and which presented a formi- dable picture of the boundless pretensions and prerogatives of the parent state, softened, rather seemingly than effectually, by politic concessions to her superior power. It was maintained, indeed, in these pamphlets, that the electoral franchise and the power of taxation ought to be strictly reciprocal and commensurate ; that the right of the colonists to participate in the ap- plication of this principle was practically recognized by the institution of their provincial assemblies, of which the functions could not be absorbed by the parliament without violating the principles of the British constitution, unless representatives elected by America were admitted to sit in the House of Commons ; that the parliament had, indeed, the poicer to commit VOL. II. 48 FF * 378 HISTORY OF NORTH AJMERICA. [BOOK XI. this usurpation, which the colonists, in the first instance at least, could neither legally nor prudently oppose, except by petition and remonstrance ; and that, "when the parliament shall think fit to allow the colonists a repre- sentation in the House of Commons, the equity of their taxing the colonists will be as clear as their power is at present of doing it, if they please." The publications of Otis were so well calculated to promote impressions of British injustice and American danger and suffering, that the provincial assembly, of which a majority was certainly wedded to more moderate and practicable views than these pamphlets disclosed, yet so far approved and countenanced them as to order that copies of them should be transmitted to England and circulated there at the expense of the province. What- ever effect they may have produced in the parent state, their influence upon the colonists corresponded with the warmest wishes of the partisans of American hberty and independence. The Americans were much more alarmed and provoked by the writer's forcible representations of the strength and stretch of British prerogative, of the harsh and inequitable manner in which it was exercised, and of the slavish dependence to which its farther development was capable of reducing them, than impressed by his cautious monitions of the legal criminality and danger they -would incur by resisting the exertions of this prerogative, or by his suggestion of the constitutional remedy by which its inequitable tendency might be corrected, and the in- terest and duty of the colonies reconciled by admitting representatives of the American people into the British House of Commons. The idea of representatives contributed by the Americans to the legislative assemblies of the parent state, which was first publicly suggested by the historian Old- mixon,^ afterwards more deliberately considered and recommended by Dr. Franklin,^ and now revived by Otis and others, was never definitively aban- doned during the w^hole subsequent controversy between the two nations. At no time was it favorably regarded by any considerable party in either country ; and perhaps there were some of its American partisans who were induced to support it because it proposed what they deemed an impracti- cable measure as a condition requisite to the equitable subjection of Amer- ica to British taxation. The politicians of Britain in general considered that it w'ould be impossible to adjust the proportions between the numbers of the American and British representatives ; that the Americans would not be contented with the privilege of sending but a few ; and that, if a consid- erable number w^ere admitted, the balance of the British constitution would be destroyed, and a dangerous increase of power communicated either to the prerogative of the crown or to the strength of the democracy. The Amer- icans, on the other hand, more justly dreaded that the parent state would never grant them a representative force adequate to the effectual defence of their interests ; and that their distance from the seat of government and legislation would expose them to much oppression, and weaken the dependence of the American representatives upon their constituents. When some discussion arose on this subject in the assembly of Massachusetts, one of the members sneeringly remarked, that, if his countrymen were de- termined to have representatives in the British House of Commons, he could recommend to them a merchant who would contract to carry the American members of parliament to England for half the price which the royal court would bid for them on their arrival. Yet this measure was sin- ~ » See^nZe^ Note XXVIII.Tat'thcend of Vol I. » ArUe, Book X.7ChapTlII. ~~ CHAP. 1.] INTRIGUE OF HUTCHINSON. 379 cerely espoused and ably maintained, till the last stage of the controversy, by a few distinguished supporters. Adam Smith, in particular, the greatest master of political philosophy that Europe has ever produced, recom- mended it to both countries in his celebrated treatise on the Wealth of JSTations^^ which was first published in the same year that witnessed the declaration of American independence. Two years after, and of course too late (even if it could ever have been seasonably attempted), the British government, with concession more or less sincere, ofiered to the people of America a share of parliamentary representation, together with the re- dress of every grievance of which they complained.^ The assembly of Massachusetts had already communicated instructions to their agents in England to endeavour to procure a repeal of the late act of parliament, which they characterized with no little warmth of complaint and vituperation ; and, above all, to oppose the project announced by Grenville, with regard to which they remarked, that ^' the right of the subjects to be taxed by their representatives is the grand barrier of British liberty ; and though a people may be free and happy without a particular branch of trade, they can be neither, if they have not the privilege of assessing their own taxes." When, after long prorogations, which excited much displeas- ure againift the governor, they were in the close of the year at length en- abled collectively to deliberate on the resolutions of the House of Com- mons in favor of Grenville's project, they were naturally prompted, by the increased danger by which their hberties were menaced and endeared, to defend them with still greater warmth; and, in the first fervor of their zeal and resolution, they prepared an address to the king wdiich strongly asserted their right to be exempted from parliamentary taxation. They were in- duced, however, to depart from the open profession of this bold principle by the dexterous and assiduous exertions of Hutchinson, who plausibly rep- resented to them that all the interests of America would be injured by an attempt to vindicate any one of them with pretensions so audaciously op- posed to the declarations of the supreme legislature of the empire ; that openly to deny the right of parliament to pursue, in one particular instance, the policy it had announced, w^as not only to enfeeble the objections urged by the colonists against other obnoxious measures, but to provoke the par- liament by the strongest sense of insuhed dignity to persist even in the meas- ure thus especially stigmatized, and which it could no longer retract with- out confession of weakness or of injustice ; and that the interests of Amer- ica, in so far as they were affected by the late, or menaced by the ex- pected act, would be most effectually consulted by petitioning against both merely as severe, ungracious, and impoHtic proceedings, and forbearing to describe either as an instance of injustice or usurpation. The hopes thus excited, of obtaining relief from the parent state, provided her pride were not interested in withholding it, were aided by a prevalent opinion that the * He admitted the difficulties with which this measure was prospectively threatened, but contended that they were not insurmountable ; and that the most considerable of them arose not from the nature of things, but from the prejudices and opinions of the people of both countries. His scheme was, that the number of American representatives should be propor- tioned to the produce of American taxation. He maintained, that, from the rapid advance- ment of the colonies, it was far from unlikely, that, in less than a century, the produce of American would far exceed that of British taxation, and that the seat of empire would then be transferred to America. This was a prospect neither flattering to the pride of the English, nor grateful to the democratic and economical predilections of the Americans. * .Annual Rtgisler for 1778. .,..>.- 380 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. colonial agents in England, some of whom were officers or pensioners of the crown, had not sufficiently exerted themselves in the late transactions to defend the interests of the colonists and make known to the ministry the strong aversion with which their measures and propositions were regarded. The agents in reality had made but a feeble opposition to the regulations introduced by the late act of parliament ; some of them even declared their opinion that these regulations would obtain general acquiescence ; and when the proposition of the stamp duty was communicated to them, not one of them so justly guessed or so honestly anticipated the sentiments of his constituents as to offer the slightest obstruction to it, except Joseph Sherwood, a Quaker, the agent for Rhode Island, who protested that he would never consent to the imposition of taxes on America by a British parliament. In conformity with the counsels of Hutchinson, though unfortunately for the credit of their author and the eventual satisfaction of Massachusetts, the assembly of this province was prevailed with to^depart from its first declara- tion of its own exclusive right to administer the internal taxation of the peo- ple comprehended within its jurisdiction ; and, instead of this, to address the House of Commons by a petition, which, forbearing to insist on right, sued for favor. The colonists were represented as thanking the parent state for the kind forbearance or connivance which had so long indulged them with the exercise of internal taxation through the medium of their own provincial assemblies, 1 and as humbly sohciting from British grace a continuance of the same boon, or at least such a delay of measures repugnant to it as might affi^rd time to the petitioners, in conjunction with the other provincial govern- ments, to present a more ample and accurate exposition of the state and condition of the colonies, and of the true interest of Great Britain with re- gard to them. With objections sound enough in themselves, but very feebly and frigidly urged against the late act of parliament, there were mingled arguments against the proposed Stamp Act, derived from the inconvenience that would result from draining the colonies of money, and farther reducing the narrow means which they possessed of purchasing articles of British manufacture. Indeed, from the language of the Massachusetts petition, it might have been supposed that an enthusiastic devotion to the interest and advantage of Britain was the sole, or at least the predominant, sentiment of a community which was in fact pervaded almost unanimously by a re- sentful sense and vigilant dread of British injustice and oppression. This transaction, under whatever colors it may have appeared at the time to those who actively or passively shared in it, certainly tended to produce the dangerous effect of at once deceiving the British government with re- gard to the degree and scope of the defensive spirit prevalent among the colonists, and of provoking this spirit to a higher pitch of excitation by suggesting to the colonists that they had sacrificed the manly assertion of their dignity and their rights to a prudential, and yet perhaps after all a ' The Americans were fond of comparing their political relation with Britain to that which then subsisted between Britain and Ireland. About five years afler the present period, doc- trines similar to those which Hutchinson now induced an American assembly to profess were broached in the Irish parliament by a minister of the crown, Sir George (afterwards Lord) Macartney, son-in-law of Lord Bute, who asserted, "that Ireland possessed a dependent government, and owed to England the highest obligations for the free exercise of its privi- leges," — a proposition which excited the liveliest indignation jn the Irish parliament, and oc- casioned the rejection of the measure in behalf of which it was advanced, Annual Register for 1769. CHAP. I] COLONIAL PETITIONS AGAINST THE PROPOSED TAX. 33 J fruitless, concern for their interests. It was impossible for them to reflect without anxiety on the rashness, disguised by politic show, which they had committed in sanctioning the pretensions of the parent state, and recognizing their enforcement as an act of legitimate authority, in the uncertain hope of inducing her to depart from them as an act of lenity and indulgence. Shortly after the conclusion of this afFaiir, the assembly of Rhode Island despatched delegates to Boston to procure an authentic copy of the Massa- chusetts petition, which they purposed to use as the model of an application from themselves in behalf of their own provincial community. But these delegates had hardly reached Boston, when there arrived in this city the reports of the transactions of the assemblies of Virginia and New York. The deputies of Rhode Island at once declared their preference of the sen- timents expressed and the language employed by the New York assembly ; and carried back with them a copy of its petition, which was cordially em- braced and reechoed by the unanimous voice of .their constituents, who hesitated not a moment between the manly attitude of pleaders for right and the servile posture of suitors for grace. A corresponding impression was produced in Massachusetts, where the people, sympathetically affected by the brave and honest freedom with which other provinces, in openly profess- ing the sentiments which they equally cherished, had either dignified the preservation of American hberty or diminished the disgrace of its over- throw, began to review their own conduct with sentiments of impatience and regret. They would npw have acted very differently, if the matter had been still entire. Their uneasiness, indeed, was mitigated by the hope of a successful issue of their suit. Some circumstances, nevertheless, served plainly enough to indicate the progress which a spirit of opposition to the parent state was making in this and other parts of America. Instead of the former declarations of individuals in favor of the policy of avoiding to pur- chase the manufactures of Britain, more general and extended associations for the promotion of this object began to be formed ; and, as a subsidiary measure, encouragements were offered by patriotic individuals and societies to the formation of domestic though inferior manufactures. But it was a circumstance still more deeply significant, that prudent, firm, and reasonable men throughout the American States began to unite in the opinion (sug- gested, or at least confirmed, by the unequal, if not discordant, tenor of the petitions from the several provinces) that their country's interest demanded the establishment of some common assembly which should deliberately re- volve, and unequivocally express, the united, consentaneous purpose and voice of British America.^ So various and dissimilar, indeed, was the language of the American colonies, that, if Britain, at the present crisis [1765], had retracted or mod- ified the system which she had begun to pursue, it might have been doubted whether her altered policy was the effect of interest, lenity, or timidity. But no such prudent, just, or generous purpose w^as entertained by the Brit- ish cabinet. Although the later transactions in America were not yet re- ported in England, the resolutions of the assembly of Pennsylvania had been communicated by Franklin to the ministry, and the general aversion of the colonists to the new pretension of parliament was known or antici- ^ Annual Register for 1765. Franklin's Memoirs. Wirt's Life of Henry. Minot. Gor- don. Hutchinson. Bradford's History of Massachusetts. Fitk'in's Political and Civil History of the United States. 382 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. pated. It was, doubtless, in reference to this feature in the actual condition of the empire, that the speech from the throne, at the opening of the ses- sion of parliament [January 10, 1765], while it recommended the establish- ment of such regulations as might serve additionally to bind together and strengthen every part of the king's dominions, expressed his Majesty's re- liance on the firmness and wisdom of parliament in promoting the just re- spect and obedience due to the laws and the legislative authority of the British empire. One of the earliest measures proposed in this session of parliament was Grenville's bill for imposing a stamp duty on the American colonies. On the first reading of the bill, it was opposed as an unjust and oppressive measure by Colonel Barre, an officer who had served with the British army in America, and who was highly distinguished in the House of Commons as an eloquent and zealous advocate of the principles of lib- erty. Charles Townshend, another member of the house, who afterwards succeeded to the officfe of Grenville, supported the bill with much warmth, and, after severely reprobating the animadversions it had received from Colonel Barre, concluded his speech by indignantly demanding : — " And now, will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence until they are grown up to a high degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, — will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie un- der } " Barre, in an explanatory speech, after repelling the censure per- sonally addressed to himself, thus forcibly replied to the concluding ex- pressions of Townshend : — " They planted by your care I 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 upon the face of God's earth ; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they prefer- red all hardships to those which they had endured in their own country from the hands of men who should have been their friends. They nour- ished 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 them in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the deputies of deputies to some members of this house, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them, — men, whose behaviour 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 of whom, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own. They protected by your arms ! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence ; and have exerted a shining valor, amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all their little savings to your emolu- ment. 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 farther. God knows I do not at this time speak from motives of party spirit ; what I de- ' Some disgraceful instances of the abuse of royal patronage in the appointment of Ameri- <,an judges are recorded in Garden's Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War. CHAP. I] PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES ON THE STAMP ACT. 333 liver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this house may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you ; having seen and been conversant with that country. The people, 1 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." At the second reading of the bill, a petition was tendered against it from all the merchants of London who traded to America, and who, anticipating the effect of the contemplated measure in that country, were struck with alarm for the security of their outstanding debts ; but it was rejected in con- formity with a rule of the house, that no petition should be admitted against a money bill in its progress. General Conway, a member distinguished alike by the liberality of his political sentiments and the magnanimous resolution of his character, strongly urged the house, on so great an occasion, to relax this rule, which, he asserted without denial, had not always been inflexibly maintained ; but the ministers were bent on enforcing it in the present in- stance, in order to justify the application of it to the American petitions which had now arrived at London, and in some of which it was known that the right of Britain to tax the colonies was openly denied. The ministers wished to avoid a discussion of this dehcate point, and perhaps imagined that they had gained their end and prevented the prerogative of the parent state from being pubhcly questioned, when the various petitions from the American provinces were rejected as summarily as the petition of the mer- chants of London. But in spite of their efforts to smother the flarae of this dangerous controversy, it broke forth both in the parliament and the nation before the bill could be passed. Alderman Beckford, who, both as a senator and a magistrate, supported the character of one of the boldest patriots in England, united with General Conway in peremptorily disputing the right of the British parliament to impose taxes on America. Pitt had already, as he afterwards declared, embraced the same opinion ; but he was prevented from yet publicly expressing it by a severe sickness, which ren- dered him at present incapable of attending to business. The supporters of the bill, thus constrained to argue in defence of a principle which they had hoped to be allowed silently to assume, insisted that the functions and authority of the British .legislature extended over all the dominions of the empire ; and while they admitted the mutual connection and dependence of the right of being represented and the power of imposing taxes, they as- similated the situation of the colonies to that of Birmingham^ Manchester, and other large towns in England, which, having sprung up after the frame of the parliament was adjusted, had never yet obtained a share in the form of actual representation, — but, being (in current phrase) virtually repre- sented, possessed all the substantial benefit of this popular right. The op- ponents of the measure replied, that the difference between the condition of those towns and the American provinces was as wide as the Atlantic ocean ; that the towns referred to might, not unreasonably, be considered as virtually represented in a parliament which contained a copious infusion of interests precisely the same as theirs, and which imposed no burdens upon them but such as were shared by its own members and the whole population of the realm ; but that the commercial restrictions by which America was so heavily loaded, for the real or supposed advantage of British 384 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. merchants and commerce, plainly demonstrated how completely the same ocean which separated the two countries had disjoined the interests or at least the views of their inhabitants, and how absurd was the pretext that the Americans enjoyed even a virtual representation in the British parlia- ment ; that the situation of the colonies was analogous rather to the condition of Ireland, which, though so much nearer to Britain, and originally gained to the British dominion by conquest, still retained her own independent leg- islature ; and that the right of the colonies to participate in the same ad- vantage had been hitherto acknowledged by the institution and exerted by the instrumentality of the representative assembhes which they all possessed. Such was the commencement of that famous controversy respecting the right of Great Britain to tax America, of which the interest was afterwards so widely extended, and the features and topics so forcibly illustrated and amply diversified by the exertions of the ablest writers and poHticians in the Old World and the New. At present, indeed, it excited comparatively but httle attention in Britain, where its importance was generally under- valued, except within some mercantile circles, where political foresight was quickened by private interest, or aided by superior acquaintance with the condition and sentiments of the colonists. The nation at large, accustomed to regard America as a dependent state, and now flattered with the prospect of deriving from it a considerable mitigation of the burdens of the empire, listened reluctantly to arguments founded on previous instances of British ascendency exerted for the benefit of particular mercantile classes and channels of commerce, and which yet opposed this prerogative in the only instance that had ever occurred of its exertion for the general and undoubted advantage of the British community. So little impression was produced by the efforts of the opponents of the Stamp Bill, that, after it had finally passed the House of Commons, where two hundred and fifty members voted for it and only fifty against it, it was carried through the House of Lords without a moment's obstruction or a syllable of opposition. It seemed as if the interesting topic of controversy awakened by the measure had not yet pen- etrated into this elevated region of the legislature ; as, so far from being discussed, it was not even adverted to by a single peer. The bill soon after received the royal assent, and was passed into a law.i [March 22, 1765.] It began by referring to the statute of the preceding year, and declaring the necessity of a farther revenue than had been de- rived from the operation of that measure. In sequence of this preamble, it loaded the colonists with heavy duties, imposed on almost every transac- tion of a public, judicial, or commercial nature in America, and secured by the requisition, that papers stamped by the British government with the appropriate duties should be essential to the validity of all such transac- tions. A farther security was derived from the infliction of severe fines at- tached to every instance of neglect or evasion of the law. The details of this measure were by no means calculated to palliate the tyrannical injustice with which its principle was reproached in America. In addition to the positive weight of the various taxes imposed by the statute, many of them were attached to objects which the colonists considered with a peculiar jealousy of regard. The taxation of judicial proceedings, newspapers, and liills of lading, the indiscriminate rates affixed to papers at the probate offices, and the tax imposed on every degree or diploma conferred by semi- ' » 5 Geo. III., Ca^2: " CHAP. I] PASSAGE OF THE STAMP ACT. 335 naries of learning, have been particularized by American writers as branches of this measure especially offensive to their countrymen. To crown all, it was ordained that the penalties attached to violations of the act should be recoverable in the detested Courts of Admiralty. This was, indeed, to wound America in a part yet galled and inflamed by prior provocation. And thus, with strangely misguided councils, the parent state, instead of attempting to soften and facilitate the introduction of that obnoxious preroga- tive which she now resolved to exert over a people already disgusted with her treatment of them, contrived to render the first practical introduction of it additionally odious and irritating, by the arbitrary nature of the col- lateral and subsidiary measures with which it was combined. Perhaps, indeed, it was hoped, in the plenitude of ministerial ignorance, to balance or mollify the displeasure of the colonists by the opposite sentiment with which they might be supposed to regard a slender boon which the parliament at the same time conferred on them, in permitting American lumber to be car- ried to all the ports and markets of Europe, and even encouraging by a bounty its importation into Britain. But so trivial was this measure as a compensation, and so unseasonable as a favor, that it was universally re- garded either with scorn or total indifference in America, where all other sentiments were swallowed up in the alarm excited by the Stamp Act. Nay, so paramount and engrossing was the importance which the Americans attached to this act, that for a while they hardly even remarked a contem- porary statute by which the parliament required the provincial assemblies to provide quarters for all detachments of British soldiers in America, and to furnish them with beds, fire, and candles, at the expense of the colonies ; though their disgust at such a requisition was sufficiently manifested when their attention was aroused in the sequel by an attempt to carry it into effect. On the day after the Stamp Act was passed, Franklin communi- cated the tidings by letter to a friend in his native country, and added, — " The sun of liberty is set ; you must now light the lamps of industry and economy." But his friend prophetically answered, that torches of a very different description would be kindled in this emergency by the Amer- icans.^ The colonists had firmly expected that the British government would be deterred by their petitions and remonstrances from persisting in the project of the Stamp Act ; and when they learned the actual and opposite result, they were struck with an astonishment approaching, if not amounting, to dismay, and which seemed at first to quell every sentiment and confound every purpose of resistance. In Massachusetts, particularly, where the people had been encouraged to expect from the policy into which they wer« beguiled even greater advantages than mere deliverance from the Stamp Act, the disappointment was at once overwhelming from its magni- tude, and humiliating from a grating sense of the prostration by which they had ineffectually attempted to evade it ; and so profound and still was the pause during which the spirit of freedom that pervaded this prov- ince was collecting its force and studying the direction in which it might be exerted with the greatest advantage, that some of the partisans of the parent state mistook the preparation for the dispersion of a tempest, and exulted in the fancied victory of British prerogative, on the very brink of » .Annual Register for 1765^ Gordon. Minot. Rogers. American Biographical Die- tionary. VOL. II. 49 66 386 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL the conflict in which it was fated to perish. Hutchinson, among others, partook the delusion, and in letters to England announced that his country- men were waiting, not to consider if they must submit to a stamp duty, but to learn when its operation was to commence, and what farther taxes were contemplated in case the produce of such duty should fall short of the expectations of the ministry. This man's influence and authority in Massachusetts were now entirely and for ever blasted ; yet was he able, during the first confusion of pubhc feeling, by dint of his address and of the remaining advantages of his situation, to procure from the assembly the re- election of himself and some of his partisans into the provincial council, where, still occupying the helm of affairs, he continued his' exertions to direct the constitutional organs of the State against the adverse tide of popular sentiment and opinion, until it swelled to such a height as to overwhelm himself and all who adhered to him. Governor Bernard, in the speech with which he opened the session of the assembly, forbore to make any express reference to the subject with which every mind was principally engrossed, the Stamp Act [June, 1765] ; nor even indirectly alluded to it any farther than by remarking that it was happy for the colonists that their supreme legislature, the British parliament, was the sanctuary of liberty and justice ; that their monarch who presided over the parliament realized the idea of a patriot king ; and that, conse- quently, they would doubtless submit all their opinions to the determinations of a sovereign authority so august, and acquiesce in its measures with a per- fect confidence that the just rights of every part of the British empire must be safe in the hands of the conservators of the welfare and liberty of the whole. He expatiated on the advantage which the colonists must derive from the permission to carry their lumber to European markets, which w^ould furnish them with sufficient means to pay for the commodities they imported from Britain, and obviate every motive for persisting in vain at- tempts to transplant manufactories from their ancient and settled abodes. This speech was followed shortly after by a message recommending a pecuniary grant to Hutchinson in recompense of his services as heutenant- governor. Never were services more unseasonably recommended to grate- ful consideration. The assembly took as little notice of the governor's speech as he had taken of the circumstance most interesting to their feelings and to the hberty and happiness of their country ; but to his 'message they answered that they would make no grant whatever to the lieutenant-governor. Without a moment's delay, they proceeded to review and discuss the treat- ment they had received from the parent state ; and, more desirous to mature their councils than to divulge their sentiments and designs, they appointed a select committee of their own body to concert and report the measures most suitable to the existing emergency. In conformity with the report of this committee, they soon embraced a purpose of decisive efficacy, and which originated the machinery of the American Revolution. They voted a declaration or resolution importing that they were sensible of the difficulties of the predicament in which the American colonies w^ere placed by the late British statutes ; that it was highly expedient that there should be held with all convenient speed a convention of committees from the as- semblies of all the British colonies, to consult upon the present circum- stances of the American people, and the difficulties to which they were and must yet farther be reduced by the operation of the acts of parliament CHAP. I] NEW YORK MANIFESTO. 337 imposing duties and taxes upon them, and to concert a general and humble address to his Majesty and the parliament imploring relief ; that the meeting should be held at New York on the first Tuesday of the month of October following ; and that letters should forthwith be prepared and transmitted to the speakers of the respective assemblies in British America, acquainting them with this measure, and inviting their accession to it. The project, thus announced, of strengthening the voice and eventually the force of the American States, by combining their councils, was so firmly yet temperately expressed, that the governor and his party did not venture to oppose it. Its promulgation was highly agreeable to the people, whose hopes were farther animated and their spirit additionally roused by the tidings which they now received of the courageous and determined expression, in other colonies, of sentiments congenial to their own. The parliamentary edict by which the stamp duty was definitively decreed did not deter some of the patriots of New York from repeating with undimin- ished, nay, with increased, force and spirit, the objections by which they had previously withstood its proposed introduction ; and in a popular news- paper of this province there was published an inquiry into the soundness of the ministerial pretexts for taxing the colonies, which, considering the sentiments and temper so recently displayed by the inhabitants of New York, was calculated to produce a very powerful impression upon their minds, and, being now repubhshed in New England, was there perused by the people with equal avidity and approbation. This treatise, or rather manifesto, de- monstrated, in brief, forcible, and perspicuous terms, the absurdity of ap- plying the doctrine of virtual representation in the British parliament to the American colonies. As every distinct interest in a commonwealth, it was insisted, ought to have its due influence in the administration of public af- fairs, so each of those interests should possess the power of appointing rep- resentatives proportioned in number to its own importance in the general scale of the empire. When two interests are so radically inconsistent, that the promotion of the one must be necessarily and proportionally in- jurious to the other, it is impossible that these two can unite in the same political system ; and hence, if the interests of Britain and her colonies cannot (which, however, the treatise with more or less sincerity denied) be made to coincide, — if the welfare of the mother country, for example, require a sacrifice of the most valuable pohtical rights of the colonists, — then, the connection between them ought to cease, and sooner or later must inevitably be dissolved, in a manner, perhaps, ruinous to one or both of the countries. The British nation, it was maintained, could not long pur- sue a policy towards her colonies diametrically opposite to the principles of her own domestic government, without either witnessing the conversion of this government altogether into a system of arbitrary powder, or provoking the colonists to reject their partial burdens, and assert that freedom w^hich was denied them by men who themselves had no better right to it. The doctrine of virtual representation was derided by the plea, that, if Americans might be represented in England without their own knowledge or consent, Enghshmen might, by parity of reason and similitude of process, be repre- sented in America. The laws passed in the colonies, it was declared, after obtaining the royal assent, were equivalent to acts of parliament ; and hence, in conformity with the new ministerial doctrines, the provincial as- semblies nught at some future period be rendered instrumental by the 388 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. crown to the taxation of England. Even if it could be proved (which was denied) that there were towns and corporations in England, of which the situation was entirely analogous to that of the colonies, this circumstance, it was maintained, could serve to show only that some of the English as well as all the Americans were injured and oppressed, without affording the slightest apology for the oppression. It was denied that such terms as de- pendence or independence could ever be justly employed to characterize the situation of the colonies. They were a part of the British dominions ; and, in an empire pervaded by the same political principles, how, it was asked, could one part be said to be dependent on another ? All the parts, indeed, were reciprocally dependent on each other for the promotion and the secure and convenient enjoyment of their common and respective rights ; but they derived these rights from the Author of nature, and not from the generosity or indulgence of their equals. There was nothing which contributed at this period more effectually to cherish the warmth and propagate the influence of sentiments of liberty in America, than the resolutions embraced and published by the assembly of Virginia, — and which, as they were prior in actual date to the proceedings of all the other provincial assemblies, have enabled this State to claim the honor of giving the earliest impulse to American resistance.^ Yet many of the inhabitants and almost all the leading politicians of Virginia, though they had withstood the purposes, were averse to dispute the commands, of the British government, and accounted the submission of the colonies to the Stamp Act unavoidable. Considering their countrymen as not yet able to make effectual resistance to the power of Britain, they shrunk even from the discussion of a topic calculated to promote opinions and awaken pas- sions which might beget a premature revolt. Nor were these sentiments confined to Virginia. Some of the most eminent patriots and politicians of the other provinces were unwilling to abet or encourage an opposition which they believed could not possibly be successful, and even used means to reconcile their countrymen to the Stamp Act, or at least to engage their submission to it. It was asserted in a popular newspaper of Pennsylvania,^ that the produce of the new stamp duties, for the first five years, was to be applied to the improvement of roads and the multiplication of bridges in America. Even Franklin, who considered the Stamp Act as inferring the total eclipse of American liberty, with a policy which w^ould have drawn on any other man the most dangerous suspicions, engaged his friend Ingersoll, a patriotic and respected citizen of Connecticut, who was in England with him at the time when the act was passed, and had aided him in opposing it, to accept the appointment, which ihe ministry tendered to him, of dis- tributer of stamps in his native province ; and so little did he forebode the opposition which was to ensue, or the loss of popularity which his friend was to incur by accepting a share in the administration of the obnoxious law, that, when Ingersoll was departing for America, he charged him to commu- nicate a gay, yet politic, counsel to the colonists, saying, — "Go home, and tell our countrymen to get children as fast as they can," meaning that America was not yet sufficiently populous to undertake a forcible assertion * It is certain, nevertheless, that the transactions of the assembly of Massachusetts were concluded before the Virginian resolutions were known in that province. The one assembly had adjourned, and the other was dissolved, before either '.vas acquainted with the transac- tions of the other. * Peren*7//m/ua Gaictte, May 30th. ,^ ' CHAP. I.] RESOLUTIONS OF THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY. 339 of her rights. Many of the Americans, however, entertained a different opinion, and, revolting from the idea of propagating slaves, determined that the birthright of freedom which they inherited from their fathers should be transmitted unimpaired to their own descendants. It was by a party who cherished this generous sentiment that Patrick Henry was elected a member of the present assembly of Virginia, for the express purpose of supporting and animating the expected opposition to the late measure of the British government. But so much reluctance and hesitation to handle or even approach this dangerous subject prevailed in the assembly, and especially among those members whose rank and talents had secured to them hitherto a leading influence in its councils, that nearly the whole of the session was suffered to elapse without the slightest allusion having been made to the Stamp Act ; when, at length, only three days before the appointed adjournment of the assembly, the topic which en- grossed every mind, though no tongue had yet ventured to broach it, was abruptly introduced by Henry. After waiting thus long, in the hope of being preceded, in a matter so momentous, by some member of more estab- hshed credit in the house, this intrepid politician produced to the assembly, and proposed for its adoption, a series of resolutions affirming, in the most unquahfied terms and determined tone, that the Virginian colonists had originally imported with them from Britain, and ever since claimed, en- joyed, and transmitted, an entire participation in every political right and franchise competent to Britons ; that the most substantial and valuable part of their pohtical birthright was the privilege of being taxed exclusively by themselves or their^ representatives ; that they had uninterruptedly exercised this privilege by the instrumentality of their provincial assembly ; and that it had been constantly recognized by the king and people of Great Britain, and never yet voluntarily resigned or justly forfeited. This overture of Henry was encountered with the warmest opposition ; nor is it surprising that among its most zealous opponents were some of the persons who had dis- tinguished themselves by promoting the petitions of the preceding year, which expressed doctrines substantially the same with those advanced in . the present resolutions. The same consideration of their own superior wealth and patrimonial stake in the province, which animated the zeal of these persons in reprobating parliamentary taxation, naturally operated to deter them from resisting it, — to which they would doubtless seem to pledge themselves by applying their former language to the present altered posture of affairs. That language, however, though disregarded by the parent state to which they addressed it, had produced an effect far ex- ceeding their views and expectations in the colony, and roused in the great mass of its inhabitants a spirit of opposition to tyranny, undiluted and unbounded by prudential considerations. The most violent debates ensued upon the motion of Henry, who, loaded with abuse and galled by menaces from some of his opponents, was pro- voked at one stage of the discussion to a tone of defiance, which produced a remarkable scene. "Caesar," he exclaimed, ''had his Brutus ! Charles the First, his Cromwell! and George the Third," — here he was inter- rupted by a cry of Treason ! raised by the speaker and echoed from all parts of the house ; but drowning the cry by the commanding elevation of his own voice, and baffling the charge with superior presence of mind, he re- sumed the thread of his discourse with these words, — " George the Third, GG * 390 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL I say, may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it ! " We may judge of the temper which Henry found or created in an assembly which could embrace a measure thus advocated, — thus openly associated with revolt and regicide. How altered was the strain of pubHc sentiment in Virginia, since the days in which the peculiar boast of this province was the romantic gallantry with which it espoused the interests of monarchy against the arms of Cromwell ! i The resolutions, though opposed by every member who had hitherto enjoyed any preeminence or particular consideration in the assembly, and, among others, by several individuals who were afterwards distinguished as bold and generous champi- ons of American liberty, were finally carried [May 28, 1765] by a small majority of votes. Fauquier, the lieutenant-governor of the province, no sooner learned this proceeding than he dissolved the assembly. But they had already set the example of resistance, and kindled or seasonably nour- ished a flame which was to spread over all America. Their resolutions were circulated and republished in every one of the States ; and everywhere they produced a glow of kindred feeling and purpose.^ The spirit of re- sistance thus awakened was sustained by the prospect of that powerful or- gan of its expression which was suggested by Massachusetts, and gradually mounted to such a height, that before the first of November, when the Stamp Act was appointed to take effect, the execution of this unhappy measure had become obviously and utterly impracticable.^ Amidst the general agitation, all at once a number of party names came into vogue, and operated with their usual efficacy in augmenting the warmth and acrimony of political affections and passions. The distinctive epithets of Whig and Tory — hitherto little used in America, where they were known merely as the titles bestowed on each other by two parties in the parent state, of which the one w^as understood to be friendly to liberty, and the other to arbitrary power — were now employed in all the provinces, and especially in Massachusetts, with as much animosity as signaHzed the dissensions of that remarkable era when they were first introduced into England.'* The partisans of American liberty assumed to themselves the title of Whigs, and gave the appellation of Tories to the custom-house officers, the other functionaries appointed by the crown, and in general to all persons who administered the authority or supported the pretensions of the parent state in America. But the favorite appellation was suggested by the speech of Colonel Barre in the House of Commons, which ob- tained in all the provinces the warmest sympathy and applause, and in conformity with which the more ardent patriots everywhere appropriated to themselves the animating title of Sons of Liberty. The justice of the pre- tensions preferred by the parent state was denied, and the whole tenor of her poHcy towards America was vilified in speeches, pamphlets, and news- papers, which addressed the reason and the spirit of the colonists with ^ Jnte, Book I., Chap. II., adjinem. ' The Pennsylvania Gazette exhibited a remarkable proof of the sudden change in public sentiment occasioned by the Virsfinian resolutions. We have noted an effort made by thjtt journal on the 30th of Maj .o reconcile the Americans to the Stamp Act. On the 20th of June it displayed a very different spirit in the folloviring observation : — "We learn from the northward, that the Stamp Act is to take place in America on All-Saints' day, the 1st of No- vember next. In the year 1755, on the 1st of November, happened that dreadful and mem- orable earthquake which destroyed the city of Lisbon." 3 Minot. Bradford, Wirt. "^Gordon. * They were first employed by English politicians in the year 1680. Hume. Thus, both in Britain and America, they proved the harbingers of revolution. CHAP. I] GENERAL FERMENT. 391 every argument and consideration fitted to kindle resentment and justify resistance. If liberty, it was declared, be the peculiar due of those who have sense enough to know its value and fortitude enough to incur every dan- ger and difficulty for the sake of its acquisition, then are the inhabitants of America more truly entitled to this blessing than even the people of Great Britain. The founders of the American commonwealths, it was justly re- marked, had been originally constrained by oppression and hardship to emi- grate from Britain ; at their own cost, and with infinite toil and suffering, they had reared those institutions, and planted that system of freedom, of which Britain now attempted to bereave their descendants. Their accept- ance of royal charters, it was insisted, could not reasonably infer any obli- gation beyond that allegiance which the supreme head of the realm might claim indiscriminately from all its subjects. The assistance which Britain had contributed to the defence of the colonies, it was argued, must be ac- counted either a friendly or an interested service. If it was an act of kind- ness, the colonists were willing to return a suitable proportion of gratitude ; if it was a mercenary act, it was already repaid by the tribute derived from the restrictions of their commerce. But never had it been demanded by Britain, or conceded by the colonists, that the surrender of their liberties to her was to be the price of this service. It was denied that the submission of the colonists, on former occasions, to acts of parliament affecting their munici- pal institutions, afforded any fair precedent in support of the present claims of Britain. These exertions of parhamentary authority, it was passionately declared, were such stretches of arbitrary powerj as the Americans would now no more submit to, than the English would endure a repetition of the Star Chamber jurisdiction established by Charles the First, or of the dis- pensing power usurped by James the Second. A controversy, which came home to the bosoms of all classes of people in a great community, could not long be conducted in this animated strain, without provoking some violent and tumultuary proceeding. It was im- possible that the people could hear it incessantly repeated or insinuated that America would not submit to the tyranny of England, without demon- strating some degree of readiness or inclination to verify the boast. The tumults which ensued might perhaps have been averted, if it had been pos- sible to convoke at an earlier period the projected convention, and to have soothed the general inquietude by presenting the image of a deliberative body engaged in concerting the most effectual measures for common de- fence, and on whose \Visdom and spirit the hopes of America might securely repose. But ere the time appointed for the convention had arrived, the rising ardor of the people became impatient of farther inaction ; and it was additionally stimulated by the consideration which now began to occur, that the proceedings of the convention could not possibly have any effect or even be known in Britain, before the date at which the Stamp Act enjoined that its operation should commence. The influence of this consideration was not confined to the poorer and less reflective classes of the colonists ; it was partaken by some of the most distinguished inhabitants and consid- erate politicians of Massachusetts, who fomented the ardor already over- boiling in the breasts of their fellow-citizens, and cordially desired to wit- ness an explosion of popular violence, which they vainly expected to mod- erate and restrain from outrageous excess, and which, thus confined, they hoped would not appear disproportioned to the provocation, but operate 392 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. beneficially in illustrating the past, and imparting animation and efficacy to the future, addresses of the American assemblies to Britain. Perhaps, also, a vague hope was entertained that a show of resistance might yet contribute to avert the fatal precedent of even a temporary operation of the Stamp Act. Nevertheless, it is generally admitted that neither the populace of Massachusetts nor the more considerate directors of their proceedings con- templated the extent, whether of evil or of good, that resulted from the first impulse that was given to the whirlwind of riot and anarchy. The tumultuary scene which had formerly been produced in this province, by the attempt to subject the people to naval impressment,^ afforded an instance where riot was promoted by the leading inhabitants without detec- tion, was conducted by the mass of the people with entire impunity, and issued in a successful vindication of the provincial liberties. It was at present the more easy, though, doubtless, also the more dangerous, to pro- duce a similar explosion in Massachusetts, from the peculiar impression which the late occurrences were calculated to make on the habitual temper and favorite sentiments of this people. Resolute and enterprising, firmly and ardently attached to liberty, and proudly cherishing the conviction that theirs was the leading province of Jlmerica^^ they had seen their repre- sentative assembly alone, of all the American legislatures, when menaced with the approach of arbitrary power, beseech exemption from it as an indulgence, instead of protesting against it as an act of tyranny and injus- tice ; and they had envied the bolder tone of other assemblies, even while they cherished the delusive hope of reaping advantage from the submissive- ness evinced by their own. Among other sentiments excited in this prov- ince by the intelligence that the Stamp Act had passed, w^as a painful embarrassment mixed with strong resentment, and derived from the remem- brance of that language in which they had so lately characterized this meas- ure, while they ineffectually petitioned against it. The embarrassment of the assembly was sufficiently manifested by the caution with which they forbore now either to repeat their former language or abruptly to assume a different strain ; and their purpose was rather insinuated than expressed by the reference to a general convention, in which it was securely foreseen that the resolution to assert the rights of America would prevail. Pro- portioned to the restraint thus imposed on the expression of public sentiment and opinion through its constitutional organ, was the rage and mortification which swelled in the bosoms of the mass of the people, and at length trans- ported them into acts of unbounded license and disorder. Whether the first indulgence of their passion was instigated by the counsel, or merely supported by the known sympathy and approbation, of the more considera- ble inhabitants, is matter of uncertain conjecture ; but the former suppo- sition derives some weight frOm the comparative order and limitation which marked the outset of the violence, but which were completely discarded in the course of its progress. On the morning of the 14th of August [1765], there appeared suspended to a tree, which, in the sequel, acquired much notoriety and received the name of Liberty Tree, in the main street of Boston, effigies representing Andrew Oliver, the brother-in-law of Hutchinson, who had been appointed by the British government to be the distributer of stamps in Massachusetts, and of Lord Bute, who was generally regarded and detested as the secret • ' ^nte. Book X., Chap. II. 8"SeelVote~XXIII., at theend~of the volume. CHAP. I] RIOTS IN BOSTON. 393 author of every arbitrary measure embraced by the British king and court. Hutciiinson, as chief justice, commanded the sheriffs to remove these in- sulting and menacing emblems ; but the sheriffs either durst not or were not disposed to obey. The council, convoked by the governor, declined in like manner to exasperate the people by opposing a manifestation of their sentiments, which, though indecent, was attended with no immediate vio- lence or breach of the peace. At night the images were taken down and carried on a bier, amidst the acclamations of a vast multitude of people, through the court-house, and thence down King Street to the stamp-office, which Oliver, in anticipation of his functions, had lately caused to be erected. This building was instantly levelled with the ground, and the rioters were proceeding thence to Fort Hill in order to conclude their operations by burning their pageantry, when the appearance of Oliver's house, situated in that neighbourhood, tempted them with a new object on which to wreak the rage with which they were blazing. Hutchinson vainly endeavoured to exert his authority in defence of his kinsman's property ; the insurgents, loading him with insult, roughly thrust him aside, and having broken into the house, from which the family had fled, demohshed the windows and part of the furniture. On the following day [August 15], Oliver commis- sioned some of his friends to announce at the exchange that he had declined the office of stamp-master ; a resignation which he was compelled to repeat again in the evening, in order to satisfy the doubts and soothe the gathering passion of a great concourse of people assembled round a bonfire. The populace, however, were but partially appeased. Accounting Oliver no longer a fit object of resentment, they resolved to discharge upon Hutchin- son the violence for which they were prepared ; and, accordingly marching to his house, demanded immediate assurance of the truth or falsehood of a report that he was a favorer of the Stamp Act. Hutchinson, whether from a punctilious sense of dignity, or from unwillingness to commit himself by any public declaration that might be offensive to the British government, declined to appear before their tumultuous array, or to return any answer to their requisition ; and they were on the point of commencing a general at- tack upon his house, when they were diverted from this purpose by the exertions of a prudent and popular citizen, who justly feared that such an outrage would discredit their cause and endanger the advantage which it had already obtained. He pledged himself that Hutchinson was opposed to every parliamentary statute injurious to the country ; he declared that it was insulting and unreasonable to require the public appearance of the heu- tenant-governor and chief justice in this disorderly manner ; and urged his hearers not to stain their proceedings with the iniquity of maltreating an in- dividual who had spent forty years of his life in the service of the province. The people, yielding rather to their habitual deference to this speaker than to the force of his arguments, complied for the present with the counsel he gave, and quietly dispersed themselves. So far, the career of popular violence seemed to be attended with success, and was almost wholly exempted from blame. Hardly a voice was raised m condemnation of disorderly force directed against an object so unpopular, and yet exerted with so much discrimination and self-control. Even Sam- uel Adams, one of the wisest and most austerely virtuous citizens of Mas- sachusetts, was known to approve the demolition of the stamp-office. The misfortune was that the populace, inflamed by triumphant and applauded VOL. II. 50 394 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL violence, had tasted a gratification which it was much easier to tempt them to repeat than to persuade them to rehnquish or restrain within moderate bounds. At the very time when the tempest was supposed to have entirely subsided, it burst out again with redoubled fury. Its second eruption was preceded by various unfounded rumors, and, among others, that, in conse- quence of Oliver's resignation, the governor had undertaken to conduct the distribution of the stamps. On Sunday, the 25th of August, Mayhew, a popular preacher in Boston, dehvered from his pulpit a sermon in which the Stamp Act was warmly condemned, and to which, with extreme rash- ness, if not from unbecoming and incendiary zeal, he prefixed the text, *''• I would they were even cut off which trouble you^ At twilight on the following day [August 26, 1765], the kindling of a bonfire served as the signal of assemblage to a large, disorderly multitude, who repaired in the first instance to the house of Story, the deputy registrar of the Court of Admiralty, and, forcing their way into it, destroyed all his private papers as well as the records and files of the court. Hallowell, the comptroller of the customs, was the next object of their vengeance. They broke into his house, and not only demolished all his furniture, but rioted on the liquors in his cellar till intoxication heightened their rage to frenzy. In this condition they directed their course to the dwelling of Hutchinson, where, partaking the tranquil happiness of domestic life, which the warmth and tenderness of his private affections peculiarly fitted him to enjoy, he sat unexpectant of the storm that was preparing to burst upon him and to desolate the scene of his felicity. Notice of their danger was conveyed to him and his family barely in time to enable them by a precipitate flight to save their lives from the frantic populace, w^hose rage was not satiated till it had converted the finest house in the province into a mass of ruins. The very partition-walls were beaten down ; the furniture destroyed ; the family paintings and plate defaced ; a large sum of money pillaged ; and a valuable collection of books and manuscripts, the fruit of thirty years' labor, almost entirely annihilated.^ These acts of outrageous violence w^ere, with more or less sincerity, generally deplored or condemned. A numerous meeting of the citizens of Boston, including all the principal inhabitants and leading politicians of the place, assembled the next day, and unanimously resolved that the select- men and magistrates should be directed to employ their utmost endeavours to prevent a repetition of the late disorders, and should be assisted in this duty by a civic guards which the meeting directly proceeded to organize. It was not merely by the wealthy, the timid, and the partisans of Britain, that this measure was promoted. So much shocked were all the consider- ate friends of liberty with the extravagance which the populace had com- mitted,^ and so anxious to disavow it and to manifest their zeal to guard against its recurrence, that, if the attempt could now have been made to carry the Stamp Act into execution, the cause of British prerogative would ' " Perhaps the sun of liberty must always rise in the midst of anarchy, and gradually dis- pel its noxious vapors as he ascends to his meridian lustre." Minot. "So infatuated were the p«;ople at this period, that, if a man had any pique against his neighbour, it was only to call him a few hard names, and his house would be certainly pulled down and his life put in jeopardy." Eliot. " Le passage du mat au bien^ ne peut ii se faire que par les votes de la viiilenref " Millot. * Mayhew, in particular, was so much affected, that, while he denied all intentional acces- gion to the riot, he protested that he would willingly part with all his property to recall his unfortunate sermon. We shall find, however, that "hia political zeal blazed out not long after with as much fervor is ever. CHAP. I] RIOTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 39g have gained a great and perhaps decisive advantage. But this advantage was lost by delay, and counterbalanced by the impolitic behaviour of the governor. At the very time when he would have been effectually supported in measures tending to repress all violent opposition to established authority, he made an unseasonable concession to the popular desires, and gave a color of utility and good policy to the late commotion, by publishing a declaration that he had no authority to distribute the stamps, and harboured no such imprudent purpose as the assumption of functions which did not belong to him. He proffered, indeed, in conjunction with the council, very large rewards for the discovery of the rioters, and especially their ringleaders ; but it was easier to discover than to convict or punish them. One of the ringleaders, a tradesman of some note, was apprehended by the sheriffs, but instantly released by them without even the formality of an inquiry, in consequence of a threat from a large and respectable portion of the civic guard, that they would disband themselves the moment he was committed to prison. Eight or ten persons of inferior condition were actually impris- oned, and some disclosures injurious to more important characters were expected from them ; but they were soon placed beyond the reach of dan- ger by the resolute interposition of a numerous body of their fellow- citizens, who, assembling without noise or tumult in the night, compelled the jailer to surrender his keys. The prisoners were liberated without ob- struction or commotion, and enabled by their friends to live in exile or con- cealment till every prospect of a judicial visitation of their offence had vanished. The leading politicians of Massachusetts now took especial care to restrain the popular ardor from exploding again with that active violence which had proved so dangerous and ungovernable ; but gradually recovering their confidence, without discarding their caution, and animated by the behaviour of the other colonies, they steadily pursued the purpose of cultivating among their fellow-citizens a spirit of resistance, in unison with a bias to that policy without which resistance could not be successfully undertaken. Among other expedients adopted for this purpose was the institution of a new political journal, of which the tendency was illustrated by the emblematic device prefixed to it, — a snake cut into pieces, each bearing the initial letters of the name of one of the American provinces, and the whole surmounted by the motto. Join or Die.^ The explosion of popular wrath and impatience in Massachusetts pro- duced, or at least promoted, corresponding movements and convulsions in the other colonies, of which those that occurred in Rhode Island and Providence were the most violent. About ten days after the first commo- tion at Boston, a gazette extraordinary was published at Providence, with the motto. Vox populi^ vox Dei, and underneath, the text. Where the Spirit ' Hutchinson. Annual Register for 1765. Minot. Bradford. Holmes. Eliot. No man capable of just reflection has ever been the eyewitness of a revolution accomplished by vi- olence, without being deeply struck with the influence of wealth in rendering its possessors chary of their personal safety. The poor, who have nothing but thei'r lives, promptly and boldly risk them in defence of that consciousness of liberty, which, like Nature's gifl; of air and light, is a blessing that cannot be supplied by any artificial good within their reach. No gen- erous man ever saw a revolution be^un in a civilized community, and against a powerful and estaljlished government, without feeling the inexpressible usefulness of the poor as the defend- ers of liberty. The utmost, in general, that the rich at first do, at such seasons, is to impel or promote the excitation of the poor, whose actual or apprehended violence affords to themselves m the sequel a safe pretence for avowed interposition, and an occasion of assuming the com pletion of an enterprise which they are more fitted to consummate than to commence. The popular riot produced the civic ^uard at Boston 396 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL of the Lord is, there is Liberty ; and effigies of persons accounted par- tisans of British prerogative were exhibited with halters about their necks, and were hanged upon a gallows, and afterwards cut down and burned amid loud and universal acclamations. Three days after, a similar ceremonial was performed by the inhabitants of Newport ; but it seemed to have inflamed, instead of satiating, their rage ; for, assembling on the following day [Au- gust 28], they attacked and destroyed the houses of Howard, a lawyer, and Moffat, a piiysician, of whom the first had defended the pretensions of parliament with his pen, and the second in conversation had supported the same opinion. Johnston, the distributer of stamps, saved his house from a similar fate by publicly declaring that he would never undertake a function offensive to his countrymen. In Connecticut, about the same time, the people at sundry places exhibited, in contumelious parade, and com- mitted to the flames, the effigies of Ingersoll, the distributer of stamps, and of various other individuals who advocated the authority of Britain or recommended the submission of America ; and the resentment at length became so general and alarming, that Ingersoll thought proper to resign the obnoxious office, which he had not accepted without hesitation and re- luctance, overcome by the urgency of Dr. Franklin. A similar resignation was produced by the spirit displayed at New York, where the Stamp Act was contemptuously reprinted and hawked about the streets, under the title of The Folly of England and Ruin of America. The project of obstruct- ing the execution of this act by inducing the officers charged with its ad- ministration to resign their functions was successively embraced by all the British provinces in America, except Nova Scotia and Canada, which sub- mitted to the act ; and it was aided by the policy which induced the British government to confide these functions to natives of America. Messerve, the distributer of stamps for New Hampshire, son of a brave officer of this province who was slain at the last siege of Louisburg, in deference to the wishes of his countrymen resigned his office with an alacrity which they rewarded with the warmest approbation. The establishment of the first newspaper in New Hampshire, which took place in the present year, contributed greatly to the animation and diffusion of public spirit.^ [September, 1765.] Mercer, the distributer of stamps for Virginia, resigned his office as readily as Messerve had done, and ob- tained equal applause. The justices of the peace for the county of West- moreland, in this province, gave public notice that they, declined any longer to exercise judicial functions which might be rendered instrumental to the ruin of their country's liberty ; and the Virginian lawyers in general de- clared their resolution rather to abandon their occupation than conduct it 1 We find that newspapers had also been introduced into North Carolina and Georgia at this period. Prior to 1750, there were only seven newspapers in the American colonies. In the present year (1765) there were twenty-six. This is the machinery, which, collecting, combining, and organizing the force of those political sentiments and principles which are scattered throughout Society, have produced that great living stream of public opinion of which the resistless energy has been so surprisingly developed since the middle of the eighteenth century. Before newspapers were known, the great mass of the inhabitants of every coun- try were very imperfectly acquainted with the .domestic policy of their rulers and the senti- ments and interests of their fellow-citizens ; and only from the pages of history could they learn to appreciate the foreign policy to which their own national force had been made sub- servient, and the emergencies, however interesting to themselves, that had befallen neighbour- ing states. The invention of newspapers formed, in every country where they were intro- duced, a channel for the expression of common interest and the flow of public opinion ; and their multiplication has tended to combine and ally the force of all the contemporary streams. CHAP. I.] CONVENTION AT NEW YORE. : 397 with stamped papers. Hood, the distributer for Maryland, to avoid re- signing his office, fled to New York ; but he was quickly pursued thither by a number of the freeholders of his native province, whose remon- strances induced him to subscribe, and even attest on oath before a magis- trate, a document importing his absolute and final resignation. In Penn- sylvania, Allen, the son of the chief justice, and other public-spirited pol- iticians, chiefly of the Presbyterian persuasion, endeavoured, vainly for some time, to persuade Hughes, the distributer, to resign his office. Even the proprietary party united with them in this attempt, from personal dislike to Hughes, who had seconded all Franklin's measures and been the chief promoter of his late mission to England, and whom Franklin, in re- turn, had recommended to the British government as a fit person to execute the Stamp Act in Pennsylvania, if the Stamp Act were to be executed at all. That Franklin's own popularity escaped unharmed by so much active cooperation with the policy of the British government is not the least mem- orable instance of the good fortune that controlled and shaped the ends of his political career. Hughes was supported in his refusal to resign by the Quakers, and. by a number of the Baptists and of the partisans of the church of England, who were willing to submit to the statute. The as- sembly, however, of which the Quakers no longer possessed the command, gave a vigorous impulse to the public spirit by unanimously protesting that the only legal representatives of the provincial population were the per- sons elected to serve as members of assembly ; and that the taxation of the province by any other persons whatsoever was unconstitutional, unjust, subversive of liberty, and destructive of happiness. Resblutions of the same tenor were passed shortly after by the assemblies of Connecticut and Maryland. Finally, Hughes was constrained to resign [October 5] by the strong manifestation of public feeling produced in Philadelphia by the approach of the ships conveying the stamped papers from England ; on which occasion all the vessels in the harbour hoisted their colors half- mast high, and a melancholy peal was tolled from the muffled bells of the churches. Ere the arrival of the day when the execution of the Stamp Act was appointed to commence, every distributer of stamps in America had resigned his office. The hopes and spirits of the colonists were ani- mated by the tidings of the change of ministry which took place in Eng- land in the course of the summer, when Grenville and his colleagues were deprived of power, in consequence of a disagreement between them and the king respecting the terms of the regency bill ; and a new administration was formed, at the head of which was the Marquis of Rockingham, a lib- eral Whig, and in which the office of secretary of state was held by Gen- eral Conway. 1 The time had now arrived, when the measure suggested by Massachu- setts was to be carried into effect ; and on the appointed day there assem- bled, in the town of New York, a convention, composed of twenty-eight delegates from the assemblies of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecti- cut, New lork. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina. The assembly of New Hampshire, for some unexplained reason, neglected to send delegates to this convention ; and the assemblies of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia were prevented from electing 1 Ramshy's American ReToluti(m. Annual Reffister for 176o. Gordon. Belknap- Holme«. Dwight's Travels. -. ,..,.,,,,*./ ,. . ; C HH 398 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. delegates by the expedient of long adjournments which the governors of these provinces had recourse to for this purpose. But no substantial ad- vantage was gained by this attempt to disunite the colonies. On the con- trary, they were prompted more strongly than ever to cherish the purpose of union by the opposition which this purpose received from the detested partisans of British prerogative ; and the assemblies of the four colonies which were not represented on this occasion took the earliest opportunity to pass resolves and transmit memorials and petitions studiously accommo- dated to the sentiments and language of its proceedings. Golden, the gov- ernor of New York, attempted, by the expedient of adjournment, to prevent the assembly over which he presided from contributing to the composition of the convention ; but a committee of management, which the assembly had elected in the preceding year to conduct extraordinary business emerging during its adjournments, undertook, with general approbation, to counteract the governor's policy, and elect delegates to represent itself and its constit- uents. In Massachusetts, Bernard and Hutchinson, instead of withstanding the nomination of delegates, had endeavoured to make it fall upon their own partisans. Their intrigues for this purpose were but partially success- ful ; and though they were able to introduce dissension among the delegates of Massachusetts, they failed in the attempt a second time to stifle or dis- guise the sentiments of the province. Ruggles, whose appointment to be one of the delegates was the fruit of their exertions, refused to acquiesce in the measures of his colleagues ; but his dissent was disregarded by the con- vention, and punished in his native province by a censure of the assembly and by the general contempt and displeasure of the people. Ogden, one of the delegates from New Jersey, also refused his assent to the proceedings of his colleagues ; for which he was afterwards hanged and burned in effigy by his fellow-citizens. The first measure of the convention was a declaration of the rights and grievances of the American colonists ; in whose behalf they claimed a full participation in all the franchises and liberties of subjects born within the realm of Great Britain, — of which the most essential were the exclu- sive power of taxing themselves, and the privilege of trial by jury. The grievance chiefly complained of was the Stamp Act, which, by taxing the colonists without their own consent, and by extending the jurisdiction of Courts of Admiralty, was declared to have a direct tendency to bereave them of their birthright of freedom. In conformity with these views, a petition to the king and a memorial to each house of parliament were composed and signed by the members of the convention ; representing, in firm, yet loyal and respectful language, that they were animated not less by attachment to the person, family, and government of the king, than by zeal for the preservation of those principles of liberty which had been incor- porated with the first establishment of all the American communities ; that they acknowledged a due subordination to parliament, consistently with the possession of an equal share in the system of political liberty enjoyed by the natives of Britain ; that, while all British subjects were entitled to the privilege of being taxed only by their own representatives, the remote situ- ation of the colonies rendered it impracticable that they should be repre- sented except in their own subordinate legislatures ; that, as the colonial settlements, on the one hand, had contributed to render Britain the most ex- tensive and powerful empire, in the world, so the colonists, on the other, CHAP. I.] POLITICAL €LUBS. 399 esteemed a connection with Britain their greatest happiness and safeguaj^ ; that the permanence of this connection would be most securely establisned by making liberty and justice its pillars, and practically demonstrating that the inherent rights and liberties of the people of America reposed on the principles of the British constitution ; that the American legislatures pos- sessed in sound theory, and in actual practice had always hitherto enjoyed, the same authority which the parhament of Ireland still retained, and which the Americans had never deserved to forfeit nor consented to forego ; that the commercial duties lately imposed by. parliament invaded this rightful authority, and introduced an odious distinction between the Americans and their fellow-subjects in Europe ; that, without waiving their claim to be ex- empted from such impositions altogether, they complained of them as bur- densome in their extent and grievous in their particular operation ; and that they earnestly and humbly entreated the redress of their wrongs and restora- tion of their just rights and hberties. Having concluded these transactions, and transmitted along with the re- ports of them a recommendation to all the colonies to appoint special agents in England who should unite their utmost endeavours in soliciting justice to America, the convention dissolved itself. The general approbation with which its proceedings were regarded tended to promote the growing incli- nation of the colonists in favor of a system of united councils ; and as the. provincial assemblies could not yet venture to advance this system to ma- turity by establishing a permanent convention, the more zealous politicians in several of the States sought to attain the same object by different and less regular paths, and cultivated the principle of union in a form which, with- out seeming to combine the force of the colonies, was peculiarly fitted to assimilate the sentiments and inflame the passions of the people. Political clubs and associations were formed in almost all the provinces, and as- sumed the title of The Sons of Liberty. These clubs now began to form treaties of union and correspondence with each other ; and, being totally irresponsible for their conduct, freely indulged and inflamed their mutual ardor in secret councils and rival flights of the most daring spirit of resist- ance and language of menace. Several of them instituted processions, in which copies of the Stamp Act, after having been exposed to public op- probrium, were burned along with the efiigies of its chief promoters. One of them proceeded so far as to circulate printed placards, which were even affixed to the doors of public offices, denouncing vengeance on the person, house, and effects of every man who should presume either to distribute or even to make use of stamped paper. The club established at Boston sig- nified its commands to Oliver, long after he had resigned the office of stamp-master, that he should appear on a certain day at the foot of Liberty Tree, and there read aloud a declaration signifying what he had done, and attest it upon oath in presence of a magistrate. In vain he appealed to his former resignation, and entreated, that, if a repetition of this ceremony were necessary, it might be performed in the town-house ; the club peremptorily refused to qualify its mandate or spare his humiliation, and he was compelled to obey. Innumerable satires, political proverbs, caricatures, and pas- quinades were published ; and incessant activity was exerted over all America to render British prerogative and its partisans hateful, contempt! ble, and ridiculous, and to fortify the cause of liberty by uniting it with at- tractions adapted to every variety of human taste, temper, and disposition. 400 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. TJp most promptly efficacious are not always the most creditable or whole- some measures ; and notwithstanding the unquestionable benefit which the interests of liberty derived from those clubs, it is probable that to their op- eration must be ascribed the harsh and illiberal features by which some of the scenes of the American Revolution were defaced. The mystery which overhangs such associations frequently secures to their mandates and measures a respect and acquiescence from the mass of society, which a disclosure of their real elem-ents and composition would neither merit nor be able to obtain ; and in the secrecy of their conclaves, the dishonest, the cruel, and the dastardly are temptingly encouraged, and too often success- fully enabled, to urge their ferocious and malignant suggestions in prefer- ence to the calmer counsels of the just, the liberal, and the truly brave. The assembling of the convention at New York was an important event for the American States ; and that they fully appreciated its importance was plainly shown by the eagerness with which they approved the proceed- ings of that body, adopted its sentiments and language, and complied with its directions. Among other consequences that resulted from it was the deliverance of the Massachusetts assembly from the embarrassment which had hitherto restrained its free and open assertion of the rights of its con- stituents. In the month of September, before the convention was held, Governor Bernard, having convoked the assembly, addressed [September 25] an elaborate speech to it upon the alarming aspect of pubHc afiairs. After referring to the recent tumults at Boston with expressions of suit- able disapprobation, he undertook the defence of the late ministers of Brit- ain and of the measures they had pursued. He declared his conviction of the supreme and unlimited authority of parhament ; and farther, on grounds of expediency, recommended the unqualified submission of the province to the mandates of a power which it could not resist without augmented dis- tress and inevitable ruin. The ordinary executive government of Massa- chusetts, he observed, was plainly too weak to contradict authoritatively the late popular declarations that the Stamp Act should not be executed within the province, or to oppose the force by which these declarations \vere supported ; and therefore he now invited the provincial legislature either to strengthen the hands of the executive officers in proportion to the emergency, or at once to acknowledge, that, as the Stamp Act could not be executed, so also must all commerce be abandoned, all judicial and magisterial functions suspended, and the whole community resigned to anar- chy and confusion. It was the more especially their interest, he assured them, to embrace the former part of the alternative, that they might con- fidently rely on the redress of all their grievances, provided they yielded in the first instance an imphcit obedience to the authority of the parent state. The assembly, though still constrained to dissemble the sentiments which they longed to avow, would have been more perplexed by this address, if it had immediately succeeded the Boston riots, or if it had preceded the intelligence already received of the change in the British cabinet, and of the determination expressed by the other provinces to resist the execution of the Stamp Act. After some delay, which they would willingly have prolonged, but which the anxious expectation of the people induced them to abridge, they returned to the governor's address a vague and cautious answer, importing, that, in a qualified sense, they acknowledged the su- CHAP. I] MASSACHUSETTS DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 40] f)reme authority of parliament ; that they could not presume to adjust the Imlts of this authority, but could as little hesitate to declare that " there were bounds to it" ; that, if an act of parHament was just, it needed nei- ther aid nor confirmation from a subordinate legislature ; that, if it was un- just and tyrannical, it was null and void, as were formerly declared all stat- utes inconsistent with the franchises of Magna Charta ; and that it was strange doctrine, and highly disrespectful to parliament, to affirm that it required obedience to an unjust law as a preliminary condition essential to its repeal ; that they must desire to be excused from assisting in the execution of an act of parliament which their constituents regarded as subv^ersive of liberty, and inconsistent with the fundamental principle of the British constitution, that taxation and representation are commensurate ; that they knew of no general declarations by their countrymen of an inten- tion to prevent the operation of the act of parliament, otherwise than by refraining from the proceedings and transactions which it loaded with im- posts ; that they saw much misery, but no criminality, in this choice ; and " therefore must consider it unkind in your Excellency to reflect on a province, whose unshaken loyalty and indissoluble attachment to his Maj- esty's person and government was never before called in question, and, we hope in God, never will again." But no sooner were the well foreboded proceedings of the New York convention promulgated in this province, than the assembly, renouncing all further reserve and ambiguity, by a unanimous vote [October 29], declara- torily resolved, that there were certain essential rights recognized by the political constitution of Great Britain, which were founded on the law of God and nature, and were the common property of mankind ; that the peo- ple of Massachusetts, both by the general principle of birthright and by the particular terms of their charters, were entitled to participate in these ad- vantages, and could not justly be divested of them by any law of society; that no man could rightfully take either the whole or a part of the property of another without the proprietor's consent ; and that on this principle re- posed the main pillar of the British constitution, namely, the representation of the people in the same branch of the legislature to which the power of taxing the people was confided ; that the citizens of Massachusetts never had been and never could be adequately represented in the British parlia- ment ; that, in accordance with their general rights and their particular cir- cumstances, they had always till now enjoyed the privilege of being taxed by their domestic assemblies alone ; that all statutes imposing taxes on them, and enacted by any other authority whatever, were infringements of their inherent and unalienable rights as men and British subjects ; and, final- ly, that these resolutions should be preserved on record, in order that a just sense both of liberty and of loyalty might be trajismitted to posterity. Ber- nard, infatuated by insolence and selfish ambition, perceived now the failure of his policy, without, however, discerning or acknowledging its folly. In a wrathful and intemperate address which he delivered soon after to the assembly, he accused them of having countenanced all the riots that had oc- curred in Massachusetts, and of being themselves on the eve of open re- bellion. To this charge the assembly promptly replied, that they repelled with scorn and indignation the pretext that they had either encouraged or justified the late riots ; but they plainly declared their opinion that the ob- noxious laws which provoked the tumults would never have been embraced VOL. II. 51 HH* 402 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. by the British parliament without the sinister instigation and pernicious coun- sel of the functionaries of Britain in America. " Impartial history," they declared, " will record that the people of this continent, after giving the strongest testimonies of their loyalty to his Majesty, by making the utmost exertions to defend his territories and enlarge his dominions in this part of the world, gave an equal testimony of a love of Hberty and a regard to those principles which are the basis of his Majesty's government, by a glo- rious stand, even against an act of parliament^ because they plainly saw that their essential, unalienable right of representation and of trial by jury, the very foundation of the British constitution, was infringed, and even annihi- lated by it."i The day on which the operation of the Stamp Act had been appointed to commence [November 1, 1765] was not suffered to elapse without some remarkable tokens of pubhc feeling in various parts of America. At Bos- ton, it was ushered in by the tolling of bells ; shops and warehouses were closed ; effigies of the authors and abettors of the act were carried about the streets, and afterwards torn in pieces by the populace. In New Hamp- shire, the people, who had hitherto behaved with a remarkable degree of calmness and self-control, were now restrained from a general riot only by the assurance of their domestic government that no attempt would be made to execute the obnoxious law. At Portsmouth, the metropolis of this State, as well as in the towns of Newcastle and Greenland, the bells were tolled to denote the decease of liberty, and all the friends of the departed goddess were invited to attend her funeral, of which the ceremony was per- formed with much pomp and solemnity. A coffin, splendidly decorated, and bearing the inscription, " Liberty, aged CXLV. years," ^ was carried in funeral procession from the State-house of Portsmouth, attended with the music of unbraced drums. Minute guns were fired until the coffin reached the place of interment and was deposited in a grave prepared for its re- ception, when an oration was pronounced in honor of the deceased friend of the people. Scarcely was the oration concluded, when some remains of life, it was pretended, were discovered in the body, which thereupon was eagerly snatched from the grave. The inscription on the lid of the coffin w^as immediately altered to Liberty revived ; a cheerful peal resounded from the bells, and every countenance brightened with joy. Childish and even ridiculous as this pageant may appear to philosophic minds or tranquil spirits, it was well calculated to preserve the sentiment and cherish the earnest pur- pose of liberty in all classes of the people of New Hampshire. At New York, the day was signalized by an eruption of popular violence, partly provoked by the impoHtic behaviour of the governor in demonstrating his expectation of some such occurrence. In consequence of the resigna- tion of the stamp-master, Golden took possession of the first cargo of stamps that arrived from England, and lodged them in Fort George. He was al- ready the object of much popular dislike, which he contrived to augment by the ostentatious precautions he now adopted for the defence of the stamps in his custody. Offended by this appearance of menace or defiance, the ])eople began to assemble in crowds in the streets, and, with the usual issue ' Bradford. Gordon. Minot. [Here ends the narrative of Minot ; and here, accordingly, in tracing the labyrinth of American politics, we lose a guide more liberal, moderate, and impartial in his sentiments, than vigorous or perspicuous in his language.] Holmes. Hutch- inson. * Computed from the landing of the first colonists of New England at Plymouth, in 1620. CHAP. I ] NON-IMPORTATION AGREEMENT. 4QJ of angry and multitudinous congregations, were easily impelled to perpetrate the violence which Golden had imprudently suggested. They began by seizing the governor's coach, in which they carried an effigy of himself to the public gallows, where they suspended the effigy along with a stamped bill of lading and a figure intended to represent the devil ; and then, with shouts of execration, transporting the coach, gallows, and effigies to the fort, they burned the whole in triumphant challenge under the very muzzles of the guns. Thence they proceeded to the house of Major James, who had expressed approbation of the Stamp Act, and, after plundering it and ravag- ing his garden, consumed every article of the furniture in a bonfire. On the following day, they readily assembled again at the summons of one of their ring;leaders, Isaac Sears, who had formerly commanded a privateer ; and, in conformity with his suggestion, clamorously demanded that the stamped paper should be surrendered to their hands. After some negotiation, the governor submitted to deliver it up to the corporation of the city, and it was- accordingly deposited in the town-hall. Ten boxes of stamped paper, which afterwards arrived, were promptly seized by the people and com- rhitted to the flames. The supporters of colonial rights in the higher classes of society at New York were struck with alarm at the riotous outrage committed by their townsmen, and perceived the expediency of constituting prudent lead- ers for the management and control of the multitude. Having convoked a general meeting of the inhabitants [November 6] , they proposed a resolution, which was readily embraced, to confide the interests of the province, with respect to British prerogative, to a committee who were authorized to in- stitute a correspondence with all the other colonies. Sears and four other persons were charged with this function, which they exercised w^ith much zeal and efficiency. From the want of such communication with each other, and consequently of union among themselves, many nations have lost their liberties, or failed in their attempts to regain them. In every age and country, the predominance of the few has been supported by the lack of union among the many ; and human wisdom has never devised a system more sub- servient to the political advancement and illumination of the mass of society than a reciprocal exchange of sentiment and intelligence by corresponding committees. One of the earliest effects of the correspondence which was now established was the general adoption and extension of a measure which Originated at New York, and proved eminently serviceable in creating within the parent state an interest in unison with the desires of the colonists. The merchants of New York were the first who exemplified the policy of direct- ing their British correspondents to ship no more goods for them until the Stamp Act should be repealed ; and they farther declared that they would riot sell on commission any goods shipped from Britain after the first of Jan- uary, in the ensuing year, until the tidings of such repeal should be received. This spirited and patriotic purpose was diffiised by the clubs and corre- sponding committees over all America, and everywhere awakened applause and imitation. A similar non-importation agreement was framed by the mer- chants of Boston and Philadelphia shortly after ; and it a meeting of the inhabitants of Philadelphia [December], it was resolved, though not unani- mously, that, till the repeal of the Stamp Act, no lawyer should support the suit of an English creditor against an American debtor, nor any American make remittances to England in navment of debts. These Philadelphia 404 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. resolutions were extremely unjust, but by no means unnatural ; for nothing is more congenial to the temper of mankind than to retaliate the injustice which provokes their own impatience and complaint. Even when remon- strating against arbitrary power, the Americans refused to permit Quakers, and other timid or conscientious individuals, to submit, as they were in- clined, to the Stamp Act ; and to reinforce their own protestations against the injustice of the British parhament, they refused or obstructed the pay- ment of their debts to the very merchants who had strenuously endeav- oured to prevent the injustice of which they complained. It may be rea- sonably surmised, that, both in this and in other instances, the heated pas- sions of the multitude were artfully directed into channels corresponding with the private interest of sordid and hypocritical counsellors. The non- importation agreement was gradually propagated throughout all America [1766], though its terms were not everywhere the same ; for in some parts, and especially in New England, it was resolved to adhere to it, until not only the Stamp Act, but also the previous commercial impositions were abol- ished. In every colony and every class of society, these compacts were enforced by the guardian care of the political clubs, and aided by the for- mation of collateral conventions, which adopted subsidiary purposes. To encourage a woollen manufacture in America, it was recommended to the colonists to abstain from eating the flesh of lambs. Not a butcher durst af- terwards expose a lamb for sale. Instead of wearing British cloth, which was formerly accounted a mark of fashion and gentility, the wealthiest colonists now set the example of clothing themselves in old or in homespun habiliments ; and, instead of being married by licenses, on which a duty was now imposed by the Stamp Act, the richer Americans agreed to imi- tate the procedure of their humbler countrymen, and neither to contract nor countenance marriages celebrated by any other authority than public procla- mation in church. Associations were formed and resolutions expressed to abstain from particular luxuries which could be procured only from Britain. The American women distinguished themselves by the eagerness with which they promoted these purposes, and rendered both themselves and the interests of liberty additionally dear to their countrymen by their prompt and cheerful surrender of every ornament and indulgence of which the use was accounted a demonstration of servility or a contribution to the resources of arbitrary power. The domination of Britain was, indeed, much more seriously en- dangered by the prevalence of industrious and frugal habits among the col- onists, than by the most violent and menacing declarations of their pro- vincial assemblies. Economy is essential to national as well as to indi- vidual independence. " Save your money, and you save your country" became a proverb with the people of New England. The self-control and endurance practised by those who dispensed with the costly British lux- uries to which they had been accustomed served at once to loosen the de- pendence of America on Britain, to prepare the Americans for the rigors of warfare, and to diminish the resources of their enemy and oppressor. So forcibly were these considerations impressed on the mind of Franklin, that, when the proposition for the repeal of the Stamp Act was afterwards entertained in England, he declared his opinion that the interests of America would be more effectually promoted by a suspension of this act, which would at once postpone a struggle dangerous to the weakness of the col- onists and promote among them habits of virtue inconsistent with final or listing subjugation. CHAP. I.] THE STAMP ACT DISOBEYED. 4Q5 The only semblance of respect which the Stamp Act obtained in America was the general suspension of commercial and judicial business that ensued for a while in almost all the provinces. This state of things could not and did not last long ; the people soon resumed their former pursuits, and the provincial magistrates their functions, and risked the consequences of ex- ercising them in defiance of the act of parliament. Courageous traders sent their vessels to sea, without any new ceremony of precaution ; more timid merchants and ship -masters gave a color of legitimacy to their transactions by obtaining certificates that the persons who were appointed distributers of the stamps refused to deliver them. So strong was the current of public will, that the custom-house officers hesitated not a moment to give way to it, and granted clearances to every vessel that sailed, without a syllable of objection to the want of stamps. In Rhode Island, the courts of law were never closed for a single day. In Virginia and Maryland, before they had been closed a single month, they were reopened by general consent. In Massachusetts, most of the judges in the inferior courts gave notice that they would discharge their functions as usual ; but the judges of the Supreme Court firmly refused at first to entertain any legal proceedings without stamps; and even the most patriotic of the lawyers were prompted, by inveterate pro- fessional prejudice, to account it impossible to conduct judicial business in open disregard of a subsisting act of parliament, however unjust and tyranni- cal. At length [January 23, 1766] the popular party prevailed so far as to obtain from the assembly a resolution " that the shutting up the courts of justice is a very great grievance ; and that the judges, justices, and all other public officers in this province ought to proceed as usual." The judges were compelled to yield obedience to this resolution ; and the colo- nists enjoyed the triumph of beholding the mandate of their domestic legis- lature prevail over the command of the British parliament. The judges, however, declared that they submitted only for self-preservation, — being sensible that they were in the hands of the populace ; and, by the conni- vance of the lawyers, but little judicial business was transacted. In South Carolina, the governor still refused his sanction to the transaction of public business without stamps ; but the assembly, having ascertained that the copy of the Stamp Act transmitted to him from England had been sent in an irregular and unusual manner, laid hold of this pretext, and insisted that he had received no such formal notification of the act as to render it incum- bent on them or him to pay any attention to its injunctions. The consciousness of having thus practically disavowed the authority of parliament and defied its power seemed to inspire the colonists with addition- al boldness of tone, and to impart additional spring and latitude to their spec- ulations and purposes. Treatises were published in the journals of New York, openly denying that the British parliament possessed even the shadow of jurisdiction over America, and limiting the constitutional relation between Britain and America to the common subjection which the two countries ac- knowledged to the same monarch. The clubs and corresponding commit- tees redoubled their exertions to influence and unite public feeling ; and all who had distinguished themselves by peculiar intemperance of language or conduct consulted their safety or vented their zeal in efforts to impHcate the great body of their countrymen as deeply as themselves in demonstration of resistance. A union of all the clubs in America was proposed, approved, and partially accomplished ; the members pledging themselves with their 406 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. lives and fortunes to defend the British constitution in America against the measures disclosed in " a certain pamphlet which has appeared in the shape of an act of parliament, called and known by the name of the Stamp Act "; to support each other in all their past and future opposition to those meas- ures ; and to bring to condign punishment all betrayers of their country who should promote such measures by assistance or submission. The people in various places were invited to form associations for the protection of their fellow-citizens who had signalized themselves by generous zeal for American liberty. To these invitations the most cordial assurances of support were generally returned. [February.] Most of the towns in Massachusetts replied to an appHcation of this nature, by signifying the determination of their in- habitants to march with their whole force to the support of the British constitu- tion^ and consequently the relief of those that shall or may be in danger from the Stamp Jlct or its abettors.^ Popular license, in short, was carried to the highest pitch it could admit without assuming a different name. The tidings of all these remarkable events in America were successively transmitted to Britain, where they produced a strong impression on the public mind, together with much contrariety of purpose and opinion. One point, indeed, became every day more undeniably manifest and more pres- singly urgent. All parties agreed that affairs could no longer be suffered to remain in their present posture, and that Britain must either forthwith exert her utmost force to carry the Stamp Act into execution, or promptly repeal it. Each of these views of poHcy was espoused by different statesmen, and warmly supported by numerous partisans. The new ministers, and es- pecially Secretary Conway, who formerly denied the power of parliament to tax America, were desirous to repeal the Stamp Act ; but their senti- ments were perplexed and their language modified, partly by the violent opposition to any such measures by the members and friends of the late cabinet, and partly by the pride naturally attending the possession of power, and by aversion to bend or even to seem to bend in concession to the hos- tile and menacing attitude which America displayed. To make war on the Americans in support of the act seemed, if not absolute suicide, at least tan- tamount to making use of one arm to cut off the other. The prior declara- tions of parliament and the present temper aroused in the British people for- bade every thought of repealing the act on the ground of incompetence ; and the violent conduct of the Americans rendered it difficult to reconcile the dig- nity of the British empire with a repeal founded on the plea of expediency. In circular letters to the provincial governors, Conway expressed the royal displeasure at the riots which had taken place, but added withal that it was " hoped that the resistance to the authority of the mother country had found place only among the low^er and more ignorant of the people." In fact, many respectable tradesmen, and even some of the principal inhabitants of various parts of America, had both promoted and partaken the resistance of their countrymen ; and of this the ministers received ample and even ex- aggerated information from the letters of the royal governors. But, eager to procure a repeal of the Stamp Act, both as a measure of good policy and a stigma upon their predecessors, they willingly countenanced the idea that the agitations in the colonies were neither general nor formidable ; they wished to confine the discussion of the matter to considerations of equity and com- ^ jinnual Recrister for 176o and for 1766. Belknap. Gordon. Holmes. Franklin's JI/«- moirs. Hutchinson. . CHAP. I.] FRANKLIN'S EXAMINATION. 4Q7 mercial expediency ; and affecting to believe that the distress, of which many Enghsh manufacturers loudly complained at this period, was wholly occasioned by the non-importation compacts of the Americans, they pro- moted petitions to parliament for a repeal of the Stamp Act from the prin- cipal trading and manufacturing towns in England. No instigation was needed to prompt the merchants of London to aid this purpose ; they pe- titioned and exerted all their influence to obtain the repeal. The wishes of the ministry were ably seconded by the American agents in Britain, and especially by Dr. Franklin, who was examined at the bar of the House of Commons [February 3] with regard to the actual condition of America, and the sentiments, opinions, and conduct of his countrymen. The genius which he displayed on this occasion, with a steady self-possession that gave it the fullest effect, — the extent and variety of knowledge he manifested, — the clearness and. comprehension of his views, — and the graceful, perspicuous, and forcible language in which his testi- mony was delivered, attracted universal attention and general praise. O^ some of his statements the inaccuracy is certain ; and the good faith with which they were propounded is, at least, doubtful. He was perplexed by the inconsistent desires of vindicating the conduct and protecting the interests of his countrymen, on the one hand, and yet of avoiding to wound the pride of the British nation and government, on the other. After delivering a succinct and interesting description of America, he defended the Ameri- cans with equal force and ingenuity. He affirmed that they were willing to submit to external taxes imposed by parhament ; but reckoned themselves, both as partakers of the British constitution, and also in conformity with a just interpretation of their provincial charters, exempted from the authority of parliament in relation to internal taxes ; that the Stamp Act was calcu- lated to operate with especial disadvantage in America, and was the cause of the diminished affection of the colonists to the parent state, and of the late non-importation agreements to which they had resorted ; that the effect of a longer subsistence of these agreements would be the permanent estab- lishment of domestic manufactures in America, and the extinction of the colonial market for British manufactures ; that the riots were mere transient and unpremeditated ebullitions of popular passion, condemned by the repre- sentative assemblies, and disavowed by all respectable Americans ; and that it would be absurd to send a military force to America in order to ex- ecute the Stamp Act, as the soldiers would find nobody prepared or disposed to contend with them, and would have no occasion to use their arms, unless they were to employ them in slaying men for refusing to buy stamped pa- per. A British army despatched to America, he said, would not find, but might easily create, a rebellion in that country. Franklin, during his present stay in England, had been hitherto agent only for the province of Pennsyl vania ; but such was the impression of his political genius and sagacity pro duced in America by the report of this examination, that he was appointed soon after to be agent also for Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia. The policy of the British ministers was counteracted by the efforts of their parliamentary opponents, who, in letters which they exhibited from the royal governors and other officers of the crown in America, found materi- als for a description very different from Franklin's of the actual state of affairs in the colonies. These functionaries, who had encouraged the au- thors of the Stamp Act to beheve that it would be easily carried into execu- 408 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL tion, and who had themselves personally sustained numerous indignities in the course of the opposition it eventually provoked, were prompted, both by concern for the reputation of their counsels and by vindictive feelings, to impute the opposition to the intrigues of a few factious men, and at the same time to give the most irritating picture of the excesses with which it was attended. From these representations the friends of the Stamp Act de- duced the conclusion, that America had openly defied the power and au- tliority of Britain, and was in a state of actual rebellion. And has it come to this (ihey asked), that Britain must yield to the commands and menaces of America ;' and that parliament must recede from a prerogative which it has solemnly asserted, in accommodation to the will of a handful of British subjects, who, so far from deserving favor or indulgence, merit the severest chastisement for the undutiful insolence they have displayed ? This appeal was but too well calculated to interest the passions of the English, — a people remarkably distinguished by their haughty fear of seeming to yield to intimidation, and (like most great nations) much more susceptible of a vigilant jealousy than of a liberal estimate of their dignity and honor. So strong was its effect both in parliament and on the nation at large, that Franklin, who anxiously watched the progress of the discussion, assured his friends in America that in all probabihty the repeal of the Stamp Act would not be obtained. The embarrassment of the ministers was unexpectedly increased by the openness and impetuous determination with which Pitt, who had now regained his health, and who neither communicated nor acted in concert with them, undertook the defence of the boldest and most ob- jectionable proceedings of the Americans. Inflamed wuth resentment and disdain by a speech of Grenville, who declared that this people were en- couraged to persist in a mad, ungrateful, and rebellious career by reliance on the countenance of some British statesmen, — Pitt warmly replied, that such an imputation should never discourage him. " We are told that America is obstinate," he proceeded, " that America is almost in open rebellion. Sir, / rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would hav6 been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest."^ Deprecating any attempt to execute the Stamp Act, he declared, " I know the valor of your troops and the skill of your officers ; but in such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man ; she would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution with her. The Americans have been wronged ; they have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned ? No ; let this country be the first to resume its prudence and temper." He concluded by declaring his opinion, '' that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately ; and that the reason of the repeal be assigned, that it was founded on an erroneous principle." * Shakspeare has anticipated this strain of sentiment in the following lines : — " O Dieu vivant! shall a few sprays of us, Our scions put in wild and savage stock, Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds, And overlook their grafters." — Henry the Fifth. " We did not send them forth to be scorned by them, but to have the governance of them, and to be honored by them as is becoming," was the remark of the Corinthians on the protes- tation of their colonists of Corcyra, " that colonists are not sent out to be the slaves of them that stay, but to be their equals." Thucydides. * Charles Fox expressed a similar sentiment, when he declared in the House of Commons (hat " the resistance of the Americans to the oppression of the mother country has undoubt- tt])y preserved the liberties of mankind." CHAP. 1] DECLARATORY ACT. 4Q9 But the language of Pitt on this occasion was much more palatable to the Americans than to the English, to whom he vainly recommended that rare triumph of wisdom, so hard a science to mankind, well-timed retreat. His auditors prized much more highly the imaginary dignity that was wounded by suggestions of the spirit and resolution of the people with whom they were contending, than the real dignity of generous forbearance in a mischiev- ous and impolitic quarrel. To facilitate the repeal of the Stamp Act, by satisfying or soothing the irritated pride which was roused against such con- cession, the ministers first introduced a bill *'for the better securing the dependency of his Majesty's dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain." This bill, which was carried without a division in either house, obtained the name of the Declaratory Act,^ It proclaimed that some of the American colonies had unlawfully pretended that the right to tax them resided exclusively in their own domestic assem- blies, and that riotous and seditious outrages had been committed by mobs deluded by this opinion ; and enacted declaratively, that the king and par- liament had right to make laws " to hind the colonies and people of America^ subjects of the crown of Great Britain^ in all cases whatsoever.''^ A bill for repealing the Stamp Act was then proposed to the House of Commons. Its preamble varied widely from the suggestion of Pitt, and expressed mere- ly that " the continuance of the said act would be attended with many in- conveniences, and may be productive of consequences greatly detrimental to the commercial interests of these kingdoms." The memorial of the Amer- ican convention was tendered in support of this measure ; but the house re- fused to hearken to the application of an assembly unknown to the laws and constitution. Very few petitions from America were presented ; and those only which w^ere couched in a submissive or moderate strain. But nu- merous petitions were exhibited from English merchants and manufacturers ; and so many facts and circumstances were cited and established, as to render the preamble of the bill perfectly incontrovertible. Yet with all this, and notwithstanding the precaution that was employed to render the preamble inoffensive to English pride and consonant w4th English commercial ambi- tion, the bill was violently opposed by the members of the former cabinet, and by their friends and various other persons in both houses, who insisted that to recede at the present juncture from actual taxation, and remain con- tented with a declaratory assertion of this authority, was virtually to surren- der the prerogative of Britain to the force and opposition of America, to encourage faction by success and impunity, and to insure resistance against the first attempt to give a practical application to the Declaratory Act. The opposers of the repeal, indeed, wandered far beyond this topic, and, with an eagerness to promote discussion that contrasted remarkably with their desire only a year before to evade or abridge it, revived in every stage of the proceedings the question of the right of parliament to tax Amer- ica. With a plausible show of constitutional principle, they maintained, that, if the colonies, in their advanced state of opulence and power, should be permitted to contribute to the national expenditure by making free grants to the crown, as they had hitherto customarily done upon requisition, the crown might be rendered independent of parliament for pecuniary supplies. ' 6 Geo. III., Cap. 12. With similar policy, the British cabinet of which the Duke of Wel- lington was premier prefaced its tardy and extorted concessions to the Catholics of Ireland by an act of insolent rigor which robbed the concessions of almost all their grace. So unfruitful hitherto have been the lessons of history. VOL. II. 52 II 410 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. Of the friends of the repeal bill, some contented themselves with arguing in support of the undeniable truths expressed in its preamble ; others, em- bracing the invitation to discuss the general question of parliamentary prerog- ative, insisted either that this prerogative was sufficiently guarded by the Declaratory Act, or that America was already taxed in a pecuhar manner, and in the only manner adapted to her peculiar situation, by the commercial restrictions. This last view was supported in substance, though profess- edly controverted with much nicety of discrimination, by Pitt in the House of Commons, and by Pratt, chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas (whom the new ministry had invested with the title of Lord Camden), in the House of Lords. " You have no right," said Pitt, " to tax America. Nevertheless, I assert the authority of this kingdom to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of government and legislation whatsoever. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power ; the taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the commons alone. The concurrence of the peers and of the crown is necessary only as a form of law. This house represents the commons of Great Britain. Here we give and grant what is our own ; but it is unjust and absurd to suppose that we can give and grant the property of the commons of America. This constitutional right has ever been exercised by the commons of America themselves, repre- sented in their own provincial assemblies ; and without it, they would have been slaves. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of legislative and commercial control, always possessed by this country, be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised ; and if it w^ere denied, / would not suffer even a nail for a horse-shoe to be manufactured in America. But the Americans do not deny it. We may, and they are willing that we shall, bind their trade, confine their- manufactures, and exercise every power ex- cept that of taking money out of their pockets without their consent. There I draw the line ; there are the bounds, Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum.''^ Nothing can be a stronger proof of the blinding influence of the political passions, than that the man who expressed such sentiments should have been hailed by the Americans as the liberal patron of their interests and generous defender of their Hberty. " My position is this," said Lord Camden ; " and I repeat it, and will maintain it to my last hour ; taxation and representation are inseparable. This position is founded on the laws of nature. It is more ; it is itself an eternal law of nature. For whatever is a man's own is absolutely his own. No one has a right to take it from him without his consent. Whoever attempts to do it commits an injury ; whoever does it commits a robbery." After debates more violent and protracted than had occurred since the British Revolution, the repeal bill passed the House of Commons at three o'clock of the morning [February 22], by the votes of two hundred and seventy-five against one hundred and sixty-seven members. Amidst general acclamations, it was soon after carried to the House of Lords by Conway, the mover, accompanied by more than two hundred members, — a larger con- course than was ever remembered to have accompanied the progress of any former bill. In the upper house, the feebler arguments of its opponents were reinforced by superior influence ; and Lords Strange and Bute scrupled not to declare that the private sentiments of the king were adverse to it. Nothing could be more unconstitutional than the promulgation of such in- telligence, whether it were true or false. The ministers ascertained by in- CHAP. I] REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. J^f quiry that it was true ; ^ but were neither deterred from prosecuting the measure which they had carried so far, nor prevented from conducting it to a successful issue. Notwithstanding much opposition and two protests, the bill was carried through the House of Lords ; and finally, receiving the royal assent, was passed into a law.^ [March 19.] The bare prospect of this change was hailed with the liveliest joy in London, where the church- bells were rung and the houses illuminated as soon as the progress of the bill through the House of Commons was made known. Similar demon- strations of public joy and gratulation attended the final completion of the measure. In America, where the people had been taught to regard the repeal as a hopeless proposition, the intelligence of its pohtical consummation and ac- tual prevalence produced a transport of mingled triumph, surprise, and gratitude. Loud and general was the exhibition of exulting sentiment ; but in the loudness of the clamor the distinctness of its accents was lost. In the provincial assemblies, it was impossible that even those members who sympathized not in the general flow of enthusiastic sentiment could decently refuse to unite in the expressions of it suggested by their col- leagues ; and among the people at large, many who had more or less de- liberately contemplated a perilous and sanguinary conflict were unfeignedly rejoiced to behold this terrible extremity averted or retarded. Amidst the first emotions of surprise and pleasure, the alarming terms of the Declara- tory Act were little heeded. The assembly of Massachusetts presented an address of grateful thanks to the king, in which they declared their appre- hension that the Americans had been greatly misrepresented to his Majesty, and injuriously reproached with aversion to the constitutional supremacy of the British legislature. Thanks were also voted to the royal ministers, and to Lord Camden, Pitt, Colonel Barre, and other individuals who had promoted the repeal or defended the Americans. Similar demonstrations occurred in New Hampshire. The assembly of Virginia voted that a statue of the king should be erected in this province ; and in a general meeting of the inhabitants of Philadelphia, it was unanimously resolved, "that, to demonstrate our zeal to Great Britain, and our gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, each of us will, on the 4th of June next, being the birthday of our gracious sovereign, dress ourselves in a new suit of the manufactures of England, and give what homespun clothes we have to the poor." Professions of joy, gratitude, and attachment to Britain, equally loud and' warm, and perhaps as sincere and deliberate, resounded through all the other American communities. And yet, even amidst the first warm gush of hope and exultation, was heard the warning voice of some enhghtened or stubborn patriots, whose moody, discontented souls were strangers to the general joy, and who accounted the triumph of their countrymen immoder- ate, disproportioned, and premature. Christopher Gadsden, of South Car- olina, in particular, who had been a delegate from this province to the late convention, and was afterwards distinguished as a civil and military leader ' All the peculiar favorites of the king were strongly opposed to every concession, substan- tial or apparent, to America. The lords of the bed-chamber, it was reported, and most of the bishops, urged that America should be rather desolated by fire and sword than pacified by con- cession. The Duke of Cumberland, the kings uncle, so famous for his military ravages in Scotland after the battle of Culloden, supported the same inhuman policy prior to his own death, which occurred on the 31st of October, 1765. In the House of Commons, all the Scot- tish members except two voted against the repeal of the Stamp Act. 2 6 Geo. HI, Cap 11. ^ 412 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. in the revolutionary struggle, hesitated not to assure his friends that the pub- lic hopes were fallacious ; that a permanent restoration of cordial friendship with Britain was impossible ; and that it was madness on the part of Amer- ica to remit her vigilance, or relax her preparation for a contest which must inevitably ensue. His views and sentiments were approved by those to whom they were communicated ; and a secret association was formed to watch every suitable opportunity of acting in conformity with them. May- hew, the Boston preacher, who has already attracted our notice, delivered a sermon in reference to the repeal of the Stamp Act, much more fraught with republican sentiment than with incitements to loyal or pacific considera- tion. '' Having been initiated in youth," said this political and polemical divine, " in the doctrines of civil liberty, as they were taught by such men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and other renowned persons among the ancients, and such as Sidney, Milton, Locke, and Hoadley, among the modern, — I liked them ; they seemed rational. And having learned from the Holy Scriptures that wise, brave, and virtuous men were always friends to liberty, that God gave the Israelites a king in his anger because they had not sense and virtue enough to like a free commonwealth, and that lib- erty always flourishes where the Spirit of the Lord is imparted, — this made me conclude that freedom was a great blessing. "^ Thus ended the first act of that grand historic drama, the American Revolution. That it was the first makes no slight addition to its impor- tance. It was on this account the more fitted to convey a lesson which Britain might have seasonably and advantageously appropriated ; as it showed thus early with what determined spirit the Americans cherished the princi- ples of liberty in unison with their still remaining attachment to the parent state and her authority and institutions. The folly she committed in to- tally neglecting the lesson may be palliated, perhaps, by the consideration of those efforts which were made both by friends and by enemies of the Americans to disguise its real character, and of the fluctuating state of the British cabinet at this period, which was very unfavorable to deliberate and consistent policy. CHAPTER II Sentiments of the Americans. — Leading Politicians in America. — Randolph — Jefferson — Adams — Hancock — Rutledge, and others. — Renewed Collision between British Preroga- tive and American Liberty. — New York resists the Act for quartering Troops. — Acts of Parliament taxing Tea and other Commodities in America — and suspending the Legis- lature of New York. — Policy of France. — Progress of American Discontent. — Circular Letter of the Massachusetts Assembly. — Governor Bernard's Misrepresentations. — Royal Censure of the Massachusetts Assembly. — Riot at Boston. — Firmness — and Dissolution •of the Massachusetts Assembly. — Convention in Massachusetts. — Occupation of Boston by British Troops. — Violence of the British Parliament. — Resolutions of the Virginian Assembly — and Concurrence of the other Provinces. — Remonstrance against British Troops in Massachusetts. — Miscellaneous Transactions — Dr. Witherspoon — Dartmouth College — Methodism in America — Origin of Kentucky — Daniel Boon. The controversy with regard to the Stamp Act concluded, as some pre- vious disputes between Britain and America had done, by an adjustment ^ Jinnual Register far 17^ and for 1766. Franklin's Jtfewiot>5. Belknap. Gordon. Bark's Virginia. Ramsay. Bradford. Eliot. Rogers. CHAP. II.] REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. 413 ill calculated to afford lasting satisfaction to either country, and leaving each in possession of pretensions denied by the other. It differed, indeed, from preceding disputes in this important circumstance, which was calculated to enhance the mischief of its imperfect adjustment, — that, instead of having been waged merely between a particular British cabinet or Board of Trade and a single American province, it had occupied the attention and aroused the interest of the great body of the people both in Britain and America. If Britain repealed the Stamp Act, it was not till after America had dis- obeyed it ; and if she proclaimed by the Declaratory Act her pretension to the prerogative of taxing America, this was no more than the Stamp Act had already assumed and tne resistance of America had practically refuted. Many persons in America considered the Declaratory Act as a mere empty homage to British pride, intended not to afford a handle for renewing the dispute, but to disguise the mortification of defeat ; and some proclaimed this conviction with a contemptuous openness that savored more of hardi- hood than of prudence and moderation. A wise and generous restraint of insolent triumph, though naturally improbable, was yet reasonably due to the balked lust of power and the wounded pride of the parent state. The parliament authoritatively condemned the independent sentiments expressed by the Americans, and the actual violence with which these sentiments were supported ; but the Americans were sensible that their language and con- duct had been substantially successful, and had rendered the Stamp Act inefficacious long before its formal repeal. Britain finally desisted from en- forcing this act, for reasons, real or pretended, of mercantile convenience ; but America had first resisted and prevented its enforcement, on totally different grounds. Some persons might be interested to maintain, and some might be willing to believe, that no actual resistance had been offered to the power of Britain, except by the transient rage of the poorest and most igno- rant inhabitants of America ; but no pretext or protestation could disguise the grand fact, that a British statute was deliberately disobeyed and ren- dered inoperative in the scene of its application ; and that, during the whole period of the subsistence of the Stamp Act, not a sheet of stamped paper was employed in America. The benefit conferred by the repeal of this statute was rather the deliverance from an impending and dangerous civil war, than the removal of an actual burden. And hence, as well as for other reasons, the grat- itude produced in America by the repeal was much more lively than lasting. Pitt's remarkable words, '' I rejoice that America has resisted," produced a far deeper and more permanent impression,^ which coincided with the reflection speedily arising, that Britain by the Declaratory Act reserved to herself a pretext for renewing the quarrel at the first convenient opportuni- ty, and affixed an opprobrious stigma on the exertions to which America was so g reatly beholden, and to which, in all probability, she must again, ' Yet the effect of this impression on the Americans was very much overvalued in England, where even the author of the celebrated Letters of Junius did not scruple to designate Pitt and Camden as the authors of American resistance. " Their declaration," says the first of these letters, which appeared in January, 1769, " gave spirit and argument to the colonies ; and while, perhaps, they meant' no more than the ruin of a minister, they in effect divided one half of the empire from the other." Junius ascribes Pitt's vehement opposition to the Stamp Act to a desire of driving Grenville from office. IBut Grenville had ceased to be minister before Pitt's opposition was exerted. Facts and dates may be less entertaining, but they are more instructive, than the most ingenious theories. Resistance was practised in America be- fore it was defended in England. II # 414 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. tBOOK XL at no distant period, be indebted for a similar deliverance. Besides, al- though the grievance of the commercial restrictions had been latterly, for politic reasons, but little insisted on by the Americans, the discontent oc- casioned by the aggravated pressure of these restrictions was deep and widely spread, and had greatly increased the acrimony with which the dispute respecting the Stamp Act was conducted. Much irritation that had been engendered by the commercial restrictions was vented in abuse of the Stamp Act ; and this measure, consequently, in addition to its own intrin- sic importance, acquired an adventitious interest, Which, in the eyes of con- siderate persons, did not long survive its repeal. As the excitement pro- duced by the sudden and unexpected cessation of peril subsided, the con- sideration arose, that the repeal of an act, which the Americans by their own spirit had previously rendered inoperative, was beneficial only to the resident population of Britain, by tending to restore the interrupted im- portation into America of British manufactures. All of pleasurable retro- spect that was left for the Americans was the exulting consciousness of the spirit they had exerted, and which, if a British parliament condemned, at least Pitt and Camden warmly applauded ; and this spirit, minghng with the discontent that was nourished by the commercial restrictions, gave to the general current of sentiment and opinion throughout America a bias very far from propitious to the authority of Great Britain. The intelligence of the Declaratory Act and the Act of Repeal was followed by a circular letter from Secretary Conway to the American gov- ernors [.Tune, 1766], in which "the lenity and tenderness, the moderation and forbearance, of the parliament towards the colonies " were celebrated in strains which touched no responsive chord in the bosoms of the Ameri- cans, who were farther required to show " their respectful gratitude and cheerful obedience in return for such a signal display of indulgence and af- fection." This letter also transmitted a directory resolution of the British parliament, adjudging " that those persons who had suffered any injury or damage, in consequence of their assisting to execute the late act, shall be compensated by the colonies in which such injuries were sustained." In conformity with this resolution, Hutchinson and his fellow -sufferers, whose solicitations to the British government had procured it, claimed compensa- tion for their losses from the assembly of Massachusetts ; and the governor, in a speech of the most dictatorial and unconclhating tone, recommended an immediate grant of public money for this purpose. It seemed as if Bernard, in the fervor of his zeal for British dignity, sought to repudiate every semblance of approach to courtesy or condescension towards the col- onists, both by the insolent terms in which he alluded to the modification of British policy, and by the invidious topics which he mixed with the de- mands for compensation. With censure equally haughty and unconstitution- al, he chid the assembly for not having included a single officer of the crown in their recent election of provincial counsellors, — a reprimand which they instantly replied to in terms of mingled resentment and disdain. The jus- tice of the demand of compensation preferred by Hutchinson and the other sufferers from the riots was unquestionable ; for every community is bound to protect its members from lawless violence, and to indemnify them for the injuries which they may sustain from the inefficiency of its police to afford such protection. But the assembly. Inspired with anger and scorn by the officious insolence and folly of the governor, indulged on the present occa- CHAP. II.] COMPENSATION TO SUFFERERS BY THE RIOTS. 4^5 sion the same temper that had recently prevailed in the British nation and parliament, and regarded with disgust an act of justice prescribed to them in a tone which seemed to encroach upon their dignity. To manifest their independence and gratify the people, they first refused any grant at all ; though they declared, doubtless with httle sincerity, their purpose to discov- er the rioters and cause them to make amends for the damage they had done ; and afterwards, when the governor addressed to them a renewed and more peremptory requisition, they postponed the consideration of it, till they had consulted their constituents. Fmally, having gratified their pride at some expense of justice, they performed, as a sacrifice to generosity, the act which from %e first they must have known to be unavoidable, and granted a liberal compensation by a bill, which, however, was passed only by a small majority, and in which farther homage was rendered to popular feeling by a clause assuring complete indemnity and obhvion to all persons who had been concerned in the riots. The temper by which they were actuated w^as significantly disclosed by a resolution which they passed, ^'that it was the indispensable duty of the sufferers to have applied first to the government here, instead of to the government at home.'^^ Though the bill was affirmed by the governor, its terms, and especially the provision of in- demnity to the rioters, gave much offence to the British court. It was sub- sequently annulled by the king ; but the annulment obtained little notice, and produced no effect. Hutchinson was so far from making any open objec- tion to accept the sum awarded to him, as a generous gift, instead of a just retribution, that, after the bill was passed, he desired leave to express his grateful thanks for it to the assembly. The parliamentary injunction of com- pensation to the sufferers from the riots was rendered still farther unpopular by mean and rapacious attempts of individuals to take unjust advantage of it. Messerve, in particular, who had resigned the office of distributer of stamps in New Hampshire, finding the approbation of his fellow-citizens a reward too unsubstantial for his appetite, claimed from the assembly of this province a pecuniary compensation for his losses. But the assembly, having ascertained that he had lost nothing but his office, disallowed his claim ; and he forthwith became a partisan of the British court, which re- warded him with an appointment in England.^ Among other important consequences which resulted from the Stamp Act quarrel and the dangerous extremity to which it was pushed, were, that it paved the way to a permanent union of the public councils and policy of all the American States ; and, in every one of them, discovered to the people the men who were best fitted to be their leaders, and on whose genius, courage, and patriotism they might most safely rely. When a fed- eral league between the provinces was proposed in the year 1754, the origi- nation of this project with the British government was sufficient to inspire the Americans with a suspicious aversion to it, w^hich combined with and was aided by the jealousies and dissensions that prevailed among them- selves. But during the late quarrel, their mutual jealousies had been swallowed up in the sense of common interest and danger ; and they saw that purposes of union were promoted by all the most considerate, as well as the most animated, asserters of American liberty, and thwarted only by the partisans of British prerogative. The quarrel was pushed so far, and America had so daringly rebelled, that, for some time, a revolutionary war Belknap. Bradford. HutcUinsoo. Gordon. Pitkin. Annual Register for 1766. 416 . HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. was contemplated by many, and the most violent and vindictive infliction of British force expected by all. This was a time that tried men's souls, and called forth those master spirits which in ordinary seasons have no percepti- ble existence, because no peculiar and appropriate sphere of action. Hith- erto the great bulk of the inhabitants of America had confined the exertion of their active and reflective powers to the cultivation of their territorial resources and the improvement of their domestic accommodations ; they had, indeed, often jealously watched and sometimes boldly questioned par- ticular restraints imposed on them by the parent state ; but, in the main, they submitted or deemed that they submitted peaceably to Jjer guidance and authority ; and so far their minds were accommodated to a state of national pupilage. But now, all at once, was the restraint of British authority sus- pended ; all the American communities were for the first time united in one common purpose and course of action which arrayed them in open defiance of the parent state ; and hopes the most elevated and ambitious, dangers at once awful and animating, and projects vast, unbounded, and interesting, combined to inflame the ardor, to rouse and collect the fortitude, and to nourish and elicit the genius and capacity of the American people. Re- publican governments and democratical interests, especially in the beginning of a revolutionary controversy with opposite principles, have a wonderful influence in uniting ambition with virtue, and in stimulating and diffusing the energy of their partisans. A rich and powerful spring of oratory, at once the fruit and the instrument of political agitation and republican senti- ment, now broke forth in America. Eloquence was warmed by bravery, and bravery exalted by eloquence. The orators, formed by the occasion, turned the occasion to their account. Their glowing language awakened in the bosoms of their countrymen feehngs long and deeply cherished, and which rushed into light and life, from the obscurity and silence to which they had been hitherto condemned, with the vigor of maturity and the vivacity of fresh existence. The most remarkable of the political leaders and orators who sprung up at this period were natives of Virginia, Massachusetts, and South Caro- lina. In Virginia, there were particularly distinguished, after Patrick Henry, whom we have already repeatedly noticed, and who hejd the first place as a popular champion and favorite, Edmund Pendleton, a graceful and per- suasive speaker, a subtle and dexterous politician, energetic and indefatiga- ble in the conduct of business ; Richard Bland, celebrated for the extent and accuracy of his knowledge, unrivalled among his contemporaries as a logician, and who published this year an Inquiry into the Rights of the Brit- ish Colonies^ in which the recent claims of America were defended with much cogency of reasoning ; George Wythe, not more admired for the strength of his capacity and the elegance of his wit, than respected for the simplicity and integrity of his character ; Peyton Randolph, whose high re- pule and influence with his countrymen, unaided by the captivation of elo- quence, was founded on qualities more honorable both to him and to them, the solid powers of his understanding and the sterling virtues of his heart ; and Richard Henry Lee, one of the most accomphshed scholars and orators in America, and who was commonly styled the Virginian Cicero. Wash- ington, who, since the reduction of Fort Duquesne in 1758, had withdrawn from military life, and never quitted his domestic scene but to discharge the duties of a member of the Virginian assembly, now calmly but firmly as- CHAP. II.] AMERICAN POPULAR LEADERS. 417 poused the cause of his native country in opposition to the pretensions of the British government ; nor was there an individual more respected in Virginia, or more generally known and esteemed by all America, than himself; but, devoid of oratorical powers, tranquil, sedate, prudent, digni- fied, and reserved, he was little qualified by genius or habit to make a bril- liant figure as a provincial politician, and waited the development of a grander scene of counsel and action, more adapted to the illustration of his majestic wisdom and superior sense. Various other individuals, who have gained renown as defenders of the liberty and founders of the independence of America, began, shortly after this period, to be distinguished in the list of Virginian politicians ; of whom the most remarkable was Thomas Jeffer- son,^ preeminent as a statesman, scholar, and philosopher ; a forcible, per- spicuous, and elegant writer ; an intrepid and enterprising patriot ; and an ardent and inflexible asserter of republican sentiments and the principles of purest democracy. None of his contemporaries exceeded him in politeness and benignity of manner ; and few approached him in earnestness of temper and firmness of purpose. This rare combination of moral qualities en- hanced the efficacy of his talent and genius, and greatly contributed to the ascendant he obtained over the minds of his countrymen. From the very dawn of the controversy between Britain and America, Jefferson, and his friend and patron, Wythe, outstripped the pohtical views of most of the con- temporary American patriots, and embraced the doctrine which ascribed in- deed to the crown some prerogative, but denied to the parliament any de- gree or species of legitimate control over America. Arthur, the brother of Richard Henry Lee, and afterwards ambassador from America to France, was at this time pursuing the study of the law in London, but more actively engaged, as a gratuitous coadjutor of Dr. Franklin, in watching the measures of the British government ; and rendered important service to his country- men by transmitting early intelligence of the ministerial plans and purposes. In Massachusetts, at the present epoch, the most distinguished popular leaders and champions of the cause of America were James Otis, who has already engaged our observation ; Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Thom- as Gushing, and James Bowdoin, merchants ; Samuel Cooper, a clergy- man ; Josiah Quincy, Jr., and Robert Treat Paine, lawyers ; and John Winthrop, Professor of Mathematics in Harvard College. Samuel Adams was one of the most perfect models of disinterested patriotism, and of re- pubHcan genius and character in all its severity and simplicity, that any age or country has ever produced. At Harvard College, in the year 1743, he made an early display of those political sentiments which he cherished through Hfe, by maintaining, in the thesis which gained him his literary de- gree, that " it is lawful to resist the supreme magistrate, if the common- wealth cannot otherwise be preserved." A sincere and devout Puritan in religion, grave in his manners, austerely pure in his morals, simple, frugal, and unambitious in his tastes, habits, and desires ; zealously and incorrupti- bly devoted to the defence of American liberty, and the improvement of American character ; endowed with a strong, manly understanding, an unre- laxing earnestness and inflexible firmness of will and purpose, a capacity of patient and intense application which no labor could exhaust, and a calm and determined courage which no danger could daunt and no disaster de- press, — he rendered his virtues more efficacious by the instrumentality of > In early youth he caused to be engraved the motto, Ab to llbertas^ a quo spiritus. VOL. II. 53 418 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. great powers of reasoning and eloquence, and altogether supported a part and exhibited a character of which every description, even the most frigid that has been preserved, wears the air of panegyric. He defended the lib- erty of his countrymen against the tyranny of England, and their religious principles against the impious sophistry of Paine. His moral sentiments ever mingled with his political views and opinions ; and his constant aim was rather to deserve the esteem of mankind by honesty and virtue, than to ob- tain it by supple compliance and flattery. Poor without desiring to be rich, he subsequently filled the highest offices in the State of Massachusetts with- out making the slightest augmentation to his fortune ; and after an active, useful, and illustrious life, in which all the interests of the individual were merged in regard and care for the community, he died without obtaining or desiring any other reward than the consciousness of virtue and integrity, the contemplation of his country's happiness, and the respect and veneration of his fellow-citizens. It has been censoriously remarked of him by the severer critics of his history, — and the censure is the more interesting from the rarity of its apphcation to the statesmen of modern times, — that his charac- ter was superior to his genius, and that his mind was much more elevated and firm than liberal and expansive. In all his sentiments, religious and political, no doubt, there appeared some tincture of those peculiar princi- ples and qualities which formed the original and distinctive character of the people of New England ; and he was much more impressed with the worth and piety, than sensible of or superior to the narrow, punctilious bigotry and stubborn self-will of his provincial ancestors. Hancock differed widely from Adams in manners, character, and condi- tion. He was possessed of an ample fortune, and maintained a splendid i^uipage ; yet he ruled the wealth which commonly rules its possessors ; for, while he indulged a gay disposition in elegant and expensive pleasures, he manifested a generous liberality in the most munificent contributions to every charitable and patriotic purpose ; insomuch that bis fellow-citizens declared of bira, that he plainly preferred their favor to great riches, and embarked hi? fortune in the cause of his country. Courteous and graceful in his ad- dress, eager ^nd enthusiastic in his disposition, endowed with a prompt and lively eloquence, which was supported by considerable abilities, though not united with brilliant genius or commanding capacity, he embraced the popu- lar cause with the most unbridled ardor ; and leaving to more philosophical patriots the guardianship of public virtue and the control of popular Hcense, he devoted himself exclusively to the promotion of whatever objects tended immediately to gratify the wishes of the majority of the people. He contin- ued to hope for a reconciliation with Britain much longer than Adams, who, after the promulgation of the Stamp Act, neither expected nor desired such an issue ; but when, in consequence of the final rupture between the two countries, and the overthrow of regal dominion in America, a republican con- stitution was to be composed, — Adams showed himself the more desirous to secure an energetic government, in which the magistrates, though appoint- ed by the choice of the people, should be invested with force enough to with- stand unreasonable or unrighteous movements of popular passion and ca- price, — while Hancock preferably advocated an unbounded scope to dem^ ocratical principle, or rather license, in a government pliable to every gust of popular will. Adams was termed the Cato^ and Hancock the Lucullus^ of New England. Among the first generations of the inhabitants of this CHAP. II.] AAfERICAN POPULAR LEADERS. 419 country, the severer virtue of Adams, in competition with the gayer character of Hancock, would have carried almost all the suffrages of their fellow- citizens ; and even at no distant date retrospective from the present era, the manners of Hancock would have been rather tolerated and pardoned, than generally approved. But a change, gradually arising in the taste and opinion of the public, had latterly been so widely developed, that Hancock was now by far the most popular character in Massachusetts. He was, indeed, the idol of the great mass of the people, and openly preferred to Adams by all but a small minority of the community, consisting of stanch Puritans and stem republicans.^ Gushing was less distinguished by energy or talent than by his descent from a family renowned in New England for ardent piety and hberal politics. He possessed respectable, though by no means splendid or even eminent abilities ; and, being long the speaker of the assembly of Massachusetts, ob- tained in England', from the number of bold, ingenious, and able compo- sitions to which his name was officially subscribed, a reputation very dis- proportioned in importance to that which he possessed in America, — where his countrymen generally regarded him rather as an honest and well meaning, than an able, or even ardent, friend of American liberty. But nothing is more common than to charge revolutionary leaders with producing the storm which in fact they conduct only as long as they consent to be car- ried forward by its impulse. Bowdoin, one of the wealthiest persons in Massachusetts, was also a man of great information and ability, regulated by strong good sense ; liberal, honorable, and upright ; a prudent and moderate, but firm and consistent patriot. Cooper, pious, eloquent, and accomplished, was first prompted to unite the character of a politician with the office of a minister of the gospel by the tidings of the Stamp Act, which suggested to him, he declared, that tyranny was opposed not more to civil than to religious liberty. From that period, he took an active part in behalf of the liberties of his country, both as a contributor of political essays to the peri- odical publications of Boston, and as a correspondent of Dr. Franklin. He was eminent as a scholar, and ardent as a patron and coadjutor of every institution for the advancement of learning, liberty, piety, or virtue ; and, doubtless, his previous character as a divine contributed to promote the effi* cacy of his exertions as a politician. Quincy, a distinguished lawyer and orator, the descendant of one of those English barons who extorted from King" John the signature of Magna Charta^ showed that the spirit displayed by his ancestor at Runnymede was transmitted to him, unimpaired by the eclipse of family grandeur and the lapse of five centuries. He was the' protomartyr of American liberty, in defence of which, both with his tongue and pen, he exerted an energy so disproportioned to his bodily strength, as to occasion his death a short time previous to the declaration of American independence.2 Robert Treat Paine, one of the most eminent lawyers in Massachusetts, held a high place in the public estimation for intelligence, firmness, and zeal. Ever prompt, active, and decided as a champion of Americ an liber ty,, he was universally admired for the brilliancy of his wit, * On the day when Hancock was first elected a member of the provincial legislature of Massachusetts, Samuel Adams, walking in the streets of Boston with John Adams, pointed to Hancock's dwelling and said, " This town has done a wise thing to-day. They have made that young mans fortune their own." Tudors Life of Otis. Quincy, in his History of Har- card Unirersity^ has too clearly proved that Hancock preferred the fame of generosity to the 'lignity of kisdce, and was readier to tnake oresents than to p&v debtee ^ He died a6th April, 1775. *^ *^^ 420 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI and respected even by his political opponents for his pure and inflexible up- rightness. Winthrop, who inherited one of the most venerable names in New England, revived its ancient honor and still farther embellished it by the highest attainments in science and .literature, by a character adorned with religion and virtue, and by a firm and courageous devotion to the liberty of his country. It was in the present year that the assembly of Massachu- setts, whether with a view of enhancing or of gratifying the popular interest in its proceedings, adopted a resolution, which was instantly carried into effect, that its debates should be open to the public, and that a gallery should be erected for the accommodation of the audience. The orators of the pop-, ular party derived new courage and animation from the looks of their listen- ing countrymen, who, in turn, were inspired with the generous ardor which their presence promoted. Eloquence, like music, is often more powerful than reason and honor in imparting the height of noblest temper to human courage and resolution. In South Carolina, among many bold and able champions of their coun- try's rights, the most notable were John Rutledge, a man endowed with ex- traordinary powers of mind, — prompt, penetrating, energetic, and decisive ; and, in oratory, the rival, or, as some accounted, the superior, of Patrick Henry; — Christopher Gadsden, a frank, fearless, intrepid, upright,^ and de- termined repubhcan ; — Henry Laurens, a zealous patriot and enlightened politician, afterwards highly distinguished by the dignity which he achieved, and the talent and fortitude which he exerted, in the service of America ; — Edward Rutledge, the brother of John, and whose eloquence was as graceful and insinuating as his brother's was impetuous and commanding ; — and David Ramsay, a learned and ingenious man, sincerely religious, austere- ly moral, and warmly patriotic, a forcible speaker, and an elegant writer. At an early stage of the controversy with Britain, Ramsay was an advocate for the immediate assertion of American independence ; and after bravely and ably contributing to the attainment of this object, he related the strug- gle by which it was won, in one of the best and most impartial histories that have been composed of the Revolutionary War.^ A few months after the repeal of the Stamp Act, there occurred a change in the composition of the British cabinet, which excited much surprise and regret among the liberal politicians of England, and some inquietude in America. [July 30, 1766.] The Marquis of Rockingham and several of his Whig col- leagues were dismissed from their employments, and succeeded by the Duke of Grafton, a Tory, who was placed at the head of the administration, — Charles Townshend, one of the promoters of the Stamp Act, who was ap- pointed chancellor of the exchequer, — Lord Shelburne, who as secretary of state occupied the department to which the management of American af- fairs peculiarly belonged, — Lord Camden, who was appointed lord chancel- lor, — and Pitt, now created Earl of Chatham, who accepted the office of lord privy seal. The tw^o latter appointments greatly displeased the Whigs and popular party in England, who beheld with disgust such men as Cam- den and Pitt (or, as he must now be called. Lord Chatham) contribute to * When the Revolutionary War broke out, Boone, the royal governor of South Carolina, observed, — " God knows how^ this unhappy contest will end, or what the popular leaders of South Carolina can be aiming at ; — but Gadsden I know to be an honest man, — he means well." * Wirt, § 2. Campbell's Virginia^ Appendix. Eliot. Rogers. Bradford. Gordon. Holmes. Jefferson's J^otes^ Q,uery 23. Garden's Anecdotes of the American Revolution. JeflTerBon's Memoirs and Correspondence. CilAP. II.] RESENTMENT AGAINST ABETTORS OF THE STAMP ACT. 421 strengthen a ministry raised on the downfall of Rockingham and his patriot friends. They were calculated, however, to give pleasure to the Ameri- cans, and to balance the apprehensions excited by the elevation of Town- shend ; and their tranquillizing influence in this quarter was aided by letters from the provincial agents at London [September, 1766], who reported that Lord Shelburne expressed to them a sincere regard for America, and desired them to assure their constituents that they had nothing to fear from the present administration. Whatever hopes might have been derived from these circumstances were completely disappointed. Lord Chatham, during almost the whole period of his continuance in office,^ was disabled by ill health from attending to business ; he had little or no influence with his colleagues, who were moreover at variance with one another ; and he reaped nothing more from his second elevation to ministerial dignity, than the dis- credit of forming part of an administration which acted in direct opposition to the policy he had advocated, and resumed the very measures he had most strongly condemned.^ Though the Stamp Act was repealed, the Americans still continued to manifest resentment against its promoters and abettors. Every dignity and advantage that popular favor or suffrage could bestow was conferred on those who had signalized themselves by the zeal or ability of their opposition to it ; and the reproach, even when unfounded, of being one of its parti- sans, was enough to blast any man's character and obstruct the success of any measure he proposed. Amiiversary processions and other ceremonies, commemorative of the Stamp Act, were instituted ; but all had triumphant reference to periods and particulars of American resistance, without the slightest symptom of thankful allusion to British repeal. Fitch, the govern- or of Connecticut, had shown a disposition to comply with the Stamp Act ; for which, at the annual election of their magistrates, his fellow-citizens now punished him by deprivation of the office to which he would otherwise have been reappointed. Pitkin was in the present year elected governor, and Trumbull lieutenant-governor, of this province, by the votes of all the inhab- itants except the adherents of the church of England, who unanimously supported Fitch, and thereby rendered both themselves and their favorite ecclesiastical institution highly obnoxious to the popular party in America. About ten years after, Pitkin was succeeded in office by his present deputy, Trumbull, descended from the earliest colonists of New England, a man uni- versally revered for his piety, wisdom, uprightness, and patriotism, and who, with distinguished prudence, firmness, and ability, occupied the helm of pub- lic affairs in his native province during all the agitations and convulsions that ensued from that critical period till the year 1783, when age and infirmity at length compelled him to decline any longer to administer the government of Connecticut.^ The renewal of disputes between Britain and America was occasioned > He continued to hold the privy seal till October, 1768. 2 Annual Register for 1766. Hutchinson. Franklin's Correspondence. ' Gordon. Eliot, ('hastellux, the French traveller, thus describes Governor Trumbull in the seventieth year of his age : — " He is governor par excellence ; for he has been so fifteen years without intermission ; and equally possessing the public esteem during the subsistence and after the overthrow of the British authority. His whole life is devoted to business, which he passionately loves, whether important or not ; or rather, in his eyes, there is none of the latter description. He has all the simplicity in his dress, all the importance, and even all the pedantry, becoming the great magistrate of a small republic. He brought to my mmd the burgomasters of Holland, the Heinsiuses and the Barneveldts." 422 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. partly by the operation of a measure devised by the same cabinet from which the Stamp Act had emanated, and partly by new measures embraced by the present administration. Nearly at the s?ime time, there occurred in both countries (so ripe were both for quarrel) transactions calculated to bring again the prerogative of the parent state into coUision with the rights which her colonies possessed or pretended. The first symptoms of re- newed controversy arose from the act of parliament which we have re- marked, in 1764, respecting the quarters and accommodations to be sup- plied to British troops stationed in America. In the close of the present year, several companies of royal artillery arrived in the harbour of Bos- ton ; and it was rumored that more were soon to follow. The provincial assembly being at this time adjourned, the governor by his own authority directed that provision should be made for the accommodation of the troops at the expense of the province ; an assumption of power, which the as- sembly was no sooner convoked than it called him to account for. [January, 1767.] He answered by pleading the necessity of the case, and referring to the act of parliament, whose requirement he had carried into effect at a time when the assembly, from the suspension of its functions, was incapable of demonstrating the necessary obedience. But this answer was by no means satisfactory to the assembly, who perceived that the enforcement of such a parliamentary requisition, without their concurrence, was an exer- tion of the very alithority against which they had contended in their resist- ance to the Stamp Act. They warmly protested, that with them alone, and not with the executive magistrate, resided the power of raising and ap- propriating supplies for public service ; and that, on any other supposition, the governor might load the province with an intolerable expense, which the assembly must afterwards provide the means of defraying, even though they should utterly disapprove its object and purpose. The general dis- content was increased by the prevalence of a report that more troops were speedily to arrive ; and the assembly demanded of Bernard if these tidings were authentic. He answered, that he had received no official in- telligence that warranted the pubhc alarm ; but it was suspected at the time, and ascertained not long after, that he himself had urgently solicited a nu- merous reinforcement of troops from the British ministry, and had obtained private information that his desire would be complied with. In the course of the summer, a small addition was made to the troops which had previ- ously arrived ; and on this occasion, Bernard applied directly to the assem- bly to make provision for their support in the Castle, where they were quartered. The assembly referred this application to a committee ; and finally, after several days' deliberation, resolved '' that such provision be made for the troops, while they remain here, as has been heretofore usually made for his Majesty's regular troops when occasionally in the province." But it was at New York that the operation of the act for quartering troops produced the most important consequences, and, indeed, provoked a direct impugnation of the authority of parliament. The assembly of this province had yielded a ready obedience to the parliamentary resolutions for mdemnifying the sufferers by the riots, and passed a bill for this purpose in the preceding year, without any of the scruples or delays by which Massa- chusetts thought proper to vindicate her dignity. But when they were now required by the new governor. Sir Henry Moore, to make provision for executing the act of parliament respecting the quartering of British troops, CHAP. II.] ACT IMPOSING DUTIES ON TEA, ETC. 4^3 they firmly refused to comply ; signifying, in a responsive address, " that, according to the construction put upon the act of parliament here, it is re- quired that all the forces which shall at any time enter this colony shall be quartered during the whole year in a very unusual and expensive manner ; that, by marching several regiments into the colony, this expense would be rendered insupportably heavy ; and that we cannot, therefore, consistently with our duty to our constituents, put it in the power of any person (what- ever confidence we may have in his prudence and integrity) to lay such a burden on them." ^ Thus again was the asserted prerogative of the parent state deliberately denied, and an act of parliament openly repudiated and disobeyed by an American province and its domestic government. Various new manufactories, at the same time (one, in particular, for the production of brass wire, and another for enamelling trinkets in the style practised at Birmingham and Sheffield), sprung up at New York. Meanwhile, the project of taxing America by act of parliament was re- sumed by the British cabinet and definitively embraced, notwithstanding the adverse opinions of Chatham, Camden, and Conway, who continued to strengthen by their adherence an administration which they were totally unable to guide by their counsels. A great change or reaction was already apparent in the opinion and temper of the parliament, — where the repeal of the Stamp Act was now as generally regretted as the act itself had been condemned only a year before. Ambition and pride again prevailed over the just and reasonable policy to whose control they had yielded a tempo- rary submission ; and, like the infatuated Egyptian monarch and his servants, the rulers of Britain repented the deliverance that had been conceded to a dependent people.^ All the courtiers protested that the king was in a hu- miliated state, and urged Townshend, the chancellor of the exchequer, to remember the language he formerly held, and to retrieve the dignity of the crown by some financial measure that would give a practical effect to the Declaratory Act.^ In conformity with these views and sentiments, a bill was introduced into the House of Commons by Townshend, imposing duties on all glass, lead, painters' colors, tea, and paper, imported into the x\mer- ican provinces. [May, 1767.] The preamble of the bill declared, that " it is expedient that a revenue should be raised in his Majesty's domin- ions in America, for making a more certain and adequate provision for defraying the charge of the administration of justice and the support of civil government in those provinces, where it shall be found necessary ; and towards farther defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said dominions. By one clause in the bill, the king was empowered to establish, by sign manual, a general civil list^ in every province of North America, to an indefinite extent, with salaries, pensions, and appointments to an unlimited amount ; and it was provided, that, after liquidation of the contents of the civil list, the residue of the revenue to be derived from America should abide the disposal of the British parliament. This bill met with hardly the shadow of opposition in parliament, where perhaps some members chose to regard it as a commercial regulation, and others more * Bradford. Hutchinson. Gordon. » " And they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us.? " Fxod. xiv. 5. 3 " America," says a vrarm partisan of the British government, " was at this time in such a state, that it would have been good policy to abstain from farther taies of any kind." Hutch- inson. Every new dispute was readily inoculated with the venow of the ancient quarrel. 424 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI or less willingly acknowledged that any discussion of its principle was pre- cluded by the terms of the Declaratory Act. Richard Jackson, a member of the House of Commons, opposed the clause authorizing a civil list. Its object, he said, was to render all the public officers and magistrates in Amer- ica independent of the people ; and although he admitted that the judges ought to be independent both of the people and the crown, yet he insisted that the dependence of the governors upon the provincial assemblies was just and expedient, as affording the only safeguard which the colonists pos- sessed against the perversion or abuse of the executive power. The royal governors sent to America, he observed, were often needy, unprincipled men, and always dependent for the duration of their functions on the pleasure of the crown ; and great mischief and injustice would arise from rendering them totally independent of the people. Only one other member of the house supported Jackson in this objection ; and without farther discussion or obstruction, the bill was passed into a law.^ Edmund Burke has asserted, and it seems no wise improbable, that Townshend expected that this act would be rendered palatable to the Americans, or at least far less unpal- atable than the Stamp Act, by the considerations, that the revenue it as- signed was derived from external or port duties, to which they had been represented as willing to submit, and that those duties were by no means heavy, and, excepting the tax upon tea, were not imposed on any of the grand articles of commerce. We shall find, indeed, that a very different impression from what Townshend anticipated was actually produced by the first of these considerations ; but before it had time to operate at all, any advantage which might have been gained from it, or from the other exten- uating suggestions, was more than counterbalanced by the contemporary pro- ceedings of the parliament with regard to America, which unhappily com- bined to inflame the discontent, great or small, which the measure we have remarked was of itself calculated to awaken. For, to insure the payment of the new taxes, as well as to promote a stricter execution of all the trade laws, an act was passed, immediately after, for establishing at Boston a board of commissioners of the customs for America, — an estabhshment, which, even independently of the new imposts with which it was associated, would have been regarded with aversion by the colonists. And while these measures were in progress through the houses of parlia- ment, another and still more offensive exertion of British authority was elicited by the tidings that arrived of the refusal of the New York assembly to make provision for the accommodation of British troops within their provincial territory. The wrathful impatience provoked by this intelli- gence was industriously fomented by Grenville and his adherents, who de- claimed in passionate and yet plausible strains on the progress of disobe- dience in America, where the people were now encouraged, by their recent triumph over the Stamp Act, to resist another parliamentary measure, against which they had not even observed the ceremony of petitioning. To pacify the clamor raised on this occasion, the ministers introduced into parliament an act,'-^ which was instantly passed, and which prohibited the assembly of New York from exercising any of the functions of legislation till they com- plied with the prior statute for providing quarters and accommodations to his Majesty's troops. [July.] No measure could have been devised more calculated to spread alarm throughout America, and rekindle the flames of » Stat. 7~Geo. III., Cap. 46. « Stat. 7 Geo. III., Cap. 59. ~^* 0»AP. II ] ACT SUSPENDING THE NEW YORK ASSEMBLY. 425 the Stamp. Act controversy. It was a blow which rendered their domestic legislation — the privilege most deeply cherished by the colonists, and for Vfhich they had recently contended with so much warmth, resolution, and unanimity — insecure and precarious ; at once depriving New York of this advantage^ and proclaiming, by inevitable inference, that every colonial as- sembly in America depended for its existence on the satisfaction which its Qonduct might afford to tlie royal ministers and the British parliament, and \ras liable to be suspended or abolished by an exertion of parhamentary p,Qwer. And thus, by a series of measures, which, occurring at the same time, seemed; but kindred branches of one scheme of policy, and mutually promoted the offensive impressions they were severally fitted to produce, 4id Britain at once revive and extend every cause of quarrel, jealousy, ^)d irritation, that had arisen between herself and her American colonies. 3y the act which we h^ve l^st remarked^ she assumed and exemphfied the fMiwer of depriving thenar of that institution behind which they had shielded themselves from the interference of parliament with their internal taxation. Py the establishment of a board of customs in America, she announced a ^nore rigid; execution of the trade laws. By the new duties which she im- po.sed under the guise of external taxes, she tempted the colonists to ques- tion, as, indeed, many of them had already done, the competency of sub- jecting them even to external taxation by parliament ; and by the estab- lishment of tlie civil list, she authoritatively determined in her own favor a point, which, after many disputes with the colonists, she had formerly aban- doned to them,i and deprived them of the control they had so long exer- cised over their provincial governors and magistrates. It is strange that the British government should have so blindly disre- garded or so inadequately appreciated the great and increasing danger of the predicament in which its colonial dominion was involved by these public and protracted disputes with the Americans. Every other nation in the world was tempted to desire the downfall of the British ascendency in America, as involving the destruction of that system of monopoly by which Britain reserved, or at least attempted to reserve, the whole of the Ameri- can trade to herself. So far, the interests of America manifestly cojiverged with those of many powerful states in opposition to British authority; and if the Americans were provoked to vindicate those interests by force of arms, it might easily be conjectured that they would not be left to wage the conflict unassisted by nations which had so deep a stake in its issue. The prin- ciples of good faith and honor might, indeed, operate more or less forcibly to deter other sovereign states, in amity or at peace with the British mon- arch, from seducing or encouraging his subjects to revolt ; but the emergent probability of such revolt, with the near prospect of its collateral advantages, was but too likely to overpower those self-denying considerations. All the late measures which had been employed for a stricter enforcement of the trade laws operated to the prejudice not merely of America, but of every nation that was restrained from trading with her ; drew the bands of com- mon interest between them and her closer than before ; and increased the earnest expectation and attention with which they regarded her conduct, and watched the progress of the disputes between her and her parent state. France, besides partaking the general interest of commercial nations in op- position to the British colonial e mpire and monopoly, was additionally in- » See ante. Book VXII., Chap. H. VOL. II. 64 JJ * 426 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. cited to desire the revolt of America, as an event that would avenge or countervail the loss of Canada, and divest Britain of that powerful branch of her naval force which America was likely to supply, and which in any future war that might arise would render the insular colonies of the French an easy conquest. i As France was induced by stronger motives than any other European nation to desire the separation of America from Britain, so was she less deterred by honorable scruples from attempting to promote it. On the very day on which the Duke de Choiseul (an implaca- ble enemy of the British empire) signed, as the minister of France, the preliminaries of the late treaty of peace concerted at Fontainebleau, he en- tered into a secret convention with Spain, by which it was agreed that the war should be renewed against England at the expiry of eight years, — a time which was thought sufficient to repair the exhausted strength of the two Bourbon monarchies ; and this perfidious design he continued secretly but steadily to cherish and promote, till its completion was intercepted by the dechne and fall of his own ministerial credit.^ Hardly a month after the last acts of parliament which we have remarked had been passed, the French ambassador at London addressed himself to Dr. Franklin in a style that discovered to this acute politician the wish of the French court to inflame the quarrel between Britain and America. [August, 1767.] But Franklin, though sincerely attached to the interests of his countrymen, still cherished the hope that the quarrel might be ac- commodated, and the grandeur of the British empire maintained in con- sistence with the preservation of American liberty. His son was at this time the royal governor of New Jersey ; he himself was the postmaster- general of America ; and so favorably was he regarded at the British court, that it was proposed, not long after, as he himself has related, to appoint him under-secretary of state for American affairs. It was also reported to him, and received with the credit willingly given to so flattering a commu- nication, that the king expressed a high esteem for his character. At the present period, and for some time after, he entertained a very favorable opin- ion of George the Third, whom^ in letters to his friends in America, he described as "the best king that any nation was ever blessed with"; nor had he yet survived the hostile feelings and views which he once cherished against France. His sentiments underwent at a later epoch a very great change ; but as yet, though at bottom the determined friend of America, he entertained as much respect and affection for Britain and her institutions and authority, as could consist with that preponderating attachment. Con- vinced that every degree of liberty which he deemed essential to human welfare and happiness must finally be secured to America, whether separated from or connected with the main trunk of the British empire, he was de- sirous to restrain his countrymen from precipitating their dispute with the parent state to an extremity ; and blamed their violence in his letters to America, while he endeavoured to palHate or disguise it in his representa- tions to the statesmen and authorities of England. On the present occa- sion, though awake to the drift of the French ambassador, he seems neither ' That great political writer, Gentz, in his treatise on the finances of Britain, remarks the pas- sionate prejudice by which French statesmen have been misled into the most erroneous esti- mate of the value of the American colonies to the British empire. Even now (says he, writing in 1799) French politicians seem incapable of perceiving the manifest truth, that the loss of the colonies has prodisriously augmented the wealth and strength of Britain. ^ The subsequent affair of Falkland Islands was a fragment of this design. CHAP. II.] FRENCH EMISSARIES. — DE KALB. 427 to have utterly extinguished the hopes nor to have encouraged a full disclos- ure of the views of this minister, who was probably content to hint the sen- timents of his court in a manner intelligible to Franklin's sagacity, without startling his honor as an officer of the British crown ; and though interested in the policy of France, both as an officer of the crown and a partisan of America, Franklin desired equally to conceal from the British government and from his countrymen the impression which he received on this sub- ject ; and communicated it only to his son, under a strict injunction of se- crecy.^ Nor was this the only, or even the most notable, attempt of the French court to animate the spirit and resistance of the Americans, and promote a total breach between them and the British nation. Both prior and subse- quent to the present period, various emissaries employed by the court of France travelled in disguise through the American States, examining in what points the British dominion was most vulnerable, and seizing every opportunity to fan the flame of discontent, and insinuate that revolt would be facilitated by foreign assistance. The most distinguished of these emis- saries was a German baron, named De Kalb, a brave and enterprising officer, who had long served in the French army, and afterwards held a commission from the revolutionary government of America. He was a devoted partisan and indefatigable agent of France, and retained this function even while employed as an officer in the American army ; maintaining, like some other French officers similarly circumstanced, a close correspondence in cipher with the cabinet of Versailles, both before and after the open es- pousal of the American cause by the French government. Though active, subtle, and adroit as an intriguer, De Kalb appears to have been but a superficial observer. He often complained of his want of success in stim- ulating the Americans to revolt ; and expressed his astonishment at the blundering folly with which the English government effaced the ardent and deep-rooted attachment which still (he was persuaded) linked the colonists to their parent state. It seems, indeed, highly probable that his sugges- tions at first (and he was employed from a very early period) neither were nor could be so acceptable as he desired to the Americans, whose jealousy of the British government not only was mixed with a great deal of affection for the British people, but could not readily coalesce with prospects of the aid and friendship of nations which, as the enemies of Britain, they had often regarded through the unfavorable medium of hostile relations u^th themselves. The idea, particularly, of French aid and favor was more likely at first to chill the ardor than to warm the courage of the Americans in a dispute with Britain ; for the French had been their enemies since the foundation of the colonial settlements ; and the most interesting portions of their his- tory and recollections consisted of dangers and sufferings entailed by the hostilities of France, or of triumph and advantage associated with the suc- cess of Britain over her rival. Though the honor and candor of De Kalb are far from unexceptionable, no good reason has been shown for taxing > After relating the extraordinary civilities and caresses of the French ambassador, and his inquisitiveness about the affairs of America, Franklin remarks, — "I fancy that intriguing nation would like very well to meddle on occasion, and blow up the coals between Britain and her colonies; but I hope we shall give them no opportunity. Yet he adds that he is setting off on a visit to Pans, furnished with letters of introduction from the French ambas- sador. 4^ tItSTORY or I^ORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL him (in the representatrons to which we have adverted) with want of sin* cerity, and still less for imputing to him gross and wilful falsehood. But he seems, in the account of his missions, and in his estimate of the senti- ments and dispositions of the Americans, to have been blinded by an en- thusiastic devotion to the interests of France, and an exclusive predilection for French character, temperament, and manners.^ The employment of De Kalb, and of other agetlts of France in America, is an indisputable fact ; the success of 'their exertions is a point controverted and controverti- ble. A recent European historian of the American Revolution has been betrayed into exaggeration in describing the intrigues of France as the main cause of that catastrojihe ; and some American writers have been transported by patriotic zeal and indignation into an opposite error, and too hastily denied that *^he intrigues of Frarice exerted any influence at all on the senti- ments of their countrymen.^ It Would require more than mortal discern- merit to ascertain 'how far either of these disputants is wrong or both of them ate right. It is certaiti, that, at an early period of the Revolutionary 'VV'ar, and before France had ventured openly to support America, several bf the agents df the French ministers obtained commands in the American army ; and that, even before this army was formed, some of the leaders of the ;pdpular party in America confidently relied on the assistance of ^I'ance, Holland, and Spain, in case of a final rupture with Britain.^ ^lie act df parliament which imposed duties on tea and other articles imported into America excited as much concern and anxiety, and experi- eticed an opposition as determined, though not as violent, as the Stamp Act had done. Instead of the aversion with which the colonists regarded the recent act being diminished by the consideration that the duties which it imposed wel*e. Strictly speaking, external taxes, the imposition of these duties, and the sanction which they received from an extension of the prin- ciple of extei'nal taxation, tended to destroy all the respect or acquiescence ' " There is," saysDe Kalb, in one of his letters, "a hundred times more enthusiasm for the American RcTolutioh in any one of our coffee-houses of Paris than in all the thirteen provinces of America united." La Fayette, who was more intimately acquainted with the Americans than De Kalb, formed a juster estimate of the calm, yet firm and determined, pur- pose of liberty which they cherished. That great and good man assured me, that, very shortly after his first arrival in America, he clearly perceived that the Americans, even though wholly unassisted in the struggle with Britain, would never lay down their arms till they achieved their independence, and that this impression was confirmed by all his subsequent ex- f»6rience. That most penetrating and intelligent of observers, Talleyrand, in his Mimoire svr fis Relations Comint.rciates des Etats IMis avec VJinghterre., declares it impossible that the French should ever transcend, or even equal, the British in the friendship and regard of the Americans. 2 'Garden, in particular, has passed a severe censure on Botta for exaggerating the influence of the French intrigues. But, in order to support his own equally inadmissible assertion, that these intrigues were totally inefiicacious, he appeals only to De Kalb, whom he had previously denounced as a perfidious calumniator of America. La Fayette informed me that De Kalb was employed by the French minister, Choiseul, who •rewarded his services, but kept aloof from direct intercourse with him, and retained the power of disavowing his agency; and that both De Kalb and other agents of France indulged themselves in mUch exaggeration, dnd far outstepped the limits of their instructions, in the representations and overtures which they addressed to the Americans. The conduct of the French court, in isolation to the quarrel between Britain and her colonies, was exceedingly fluctuating, and its purposes long unfixed. David ilume whs at this period one of the secretaries of the British embassy at Paris ; but, 'with all his sagacity and penetration, he neither discovered nor seems even to have suspected the insidious and vindictive policy of the French government. ^ Annual Reerister for 1767 and for 1775. Hutchinson. Bradford. Gordon. Franklin's Memmrs. Botta's History of the War of the Independence of America. Stedman's History of the American War. Garden. Wirt. Ferrand's History of the three Partitions of Poland. CHAP. li:j NON-IiMPORTATlON AGHEEMENT RENEWED. 429 which this prerogative had ever obtained in America. That there was no solid distinction between internal and external taxation had been main- tained by Otis, in America, and by Grenville, in the British parhament ; it was a deduction that manifestly followed from the reasonings of Pitt and Camden ; and \^s a tenet embraced and avowed by many other politicians, both among the friends of America and the partisans of Britain. It was now supported in an able and spirited treatise entitled Letters of a Penn- sylvaninn !Parmcr, — the production of John Dickinson, a citizen of Penn- sylvania, which obtained a prodigious circulation and high popularity in America, and gained its author the thanks of the assembly of Massa- chusetts. He warned his countrymen not to be deluded by the moderate rate of the new duties, — a circumstance which he characterized as artfully intended to;prepare their necks for tlie reception of a collar whose increas- ing weight would gradually bow them to the ground ; and he encouraged them to hope that a deliverance from this evil would be obtained by a re- sumption of the same general and animated opposition which had procured the repeal of the Stamp Act. These Letters^ gave so strong an impulse to the spirit of discontent and resistance in America, that they would probably have incited the people to some violent and tumultuary proceedings, if the public attention had n©t been previously directed to a system of opposition at once more effectual, prudent, and magnanimous. Some of the leading politicians in Massachu- setts, having suggested that the last of the defensive measures employed against the Stamp Act, the non-importation agreement, had been more effi- cient than all the others, and was peculiarly applicable to the present emer- gency, the notion was eagerly embraced ; and, at a general meeting of the inhabitants of Boston [October 28, 1767], resolutions were proposed and adopted to discontinue the importation of commodities from England, and especially of all those on which the new duties were laid, until not only the act imposing them, but all the late revenue acts, likewise, should be re- pealed ; — and, as a subsidiary measure, to promote by every possible effort the growth of domestic manufactures and the practice of industry and econ- omy. These resolutions were propagated throughout America, and from the first zealously executed in New England, where a considerable change of manners now began to appear. Of late years a taste for gay and ex- pensive pleasures had been gaining ground among the descendants of the Puritans, especially in Massachusetts ; and several attempts were made, though ineffectually, to procure a repeal of the law which prohibited theat- rical entertainments. But now a general simplicity of dress and living was diligently cultivated ; and even the taste for expensive funerals, which the law had vainly attempted to restrain, was sacrificed to the practice of habits which were justly accounted the firmest as well as the most respectable ' They were attributed, in England, to Dr. Franklin, whom, in fact, they were the means of converting from the opinion which he had recently expressed of the legitimacy of external taxes imposed by the parliament on America. In a letter written in the spring of the following year, aft^r alluding to Dickinson's work, he says, — "^he more I have thought and read on the subject, the more I find myself confirmed in opinion that no middle doctrine can be well maintamed ; I mean not clearly with intelligible arguments. Something might be made of either of the extremes; that parliament has power to make aJl laws for us, or that it has power to make no layrs for us ; and I think the arguments for the latter more numerous and weighty than those for the former." — "I know not," he adds, "what the Boston people mean by the subordination they acknowledge in their assembly to parliament, whil^ ♦Key de- ny its p'oweT to make laws for them," — ^nd doubtless the Boston peopte attached to this plbraso as httle of definite import as he was able to discern- in it. 430 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. bulwarks of American freedom. But it is easier to induce mankind in gen- eral to pursue liberty with passionate zeal, than to merit and secure it by- patient fortitude and virtue. In other parts of America, some disinclination was shown at first to imi- tate the austere example of New England ; and the merchants of New York and Philadelphia, in particular, more impressed with the inconvenience they had endured than with the advantage they had gained from the former non-importation agreement, declined, for a while, to repeat the experiment. They remembered (said their sturdier countrymen) and longed for the flesh- pots of Egypt. Nothing could be more discouraging to the New Engend- ers ; for the efficacy of the measure depended on its general adoption. Yet they persisted with a firm and stubborn determination, which even those who refused to imitate could not forbear to praise ; and it was generally declared in the provinces, that, "if America be saved from the impending danger, New England will be her acknowledged guardian." By degrees, however, the example of this people obtained imitation as well as applause. The political clubs, which began to resume their functions and activity, em- ployed every art of persuasion and even intimidation to induce their countrymen to embrace the non-importation agreement, which, by their aid ayd other auxiliary circumstances, obtained a general, though not till two years after the present period a universal, prevalence in America.^ In several of the provinces, meanwhile, and especially in New England, there was published in pamphlets and newspapers a great variety of political es- says, inquiries, strictures, and arguments, many of which impugned and vilified the sovereign authority of the parent state with a boldness of freedom unknown before. America, it was said, had now passed her na- tional minority ; and with the age came the right and the capacity of inde- pendence. It was maintained that freemen were not to be governed, any more than taxed, but by their own consent, signified by their own representa- tives ; and that the British parliament was no more entitled to derive present authority from the past exercise or abuse of power over America, than a private trustee or guardian was entitled to retain his government of a ward advanced to manhood, on the plea of having ruled him in his nonage and pillaged his estate.^ The longer the controversy between Britain and her colonies endured, the larger became the view^s, the stouter the im- portunity, and the more violent the language of American writers and poli- ticians. The more narrowly the foundations of sovereign authority were explored, the more fatally were the pillars of British domination shaken and undermined.^ Although the act of parliament suspending the functions of the assembly of New York excited much alarm and indignation among the x\merican peo- ple, and was stigmatized in all their newspapers as a measure fraught with general danger, yet the several provincial governments were so completely * Yet, between 1764 and 1767, the annual exports from Britain to America are said to have sustained a diminution of £ 1,500,000 sterling. Political Register for 1767. Many Americans were disheartened in consequence of having prospectively overrated the effects of their hostile commercial policy. " Events proved," says Ramsay, " that young nations, like young people, are prone to overrate their own importance." 2 Jlvnual Register for 1768. Franklin's Memoirs and Carrespondence. Bradford. Gordon. ^ " The whole science of politics, in its most extended signification, was freely debated in pub- lic and private assemblages, and discussed through the medium of the press. There were here few of those prejudices which elsewhere are engrafted by habit upon the intellect, and which assume the aspect of established principles. Many a received dogma was swept away Hrith contempt." General Cass's Discourse. CHAP. II.] CIRCULAR LETTER OF MASSACHUSETTS. 43 ^ disconnected by any legal or formal tie, that censure, complaint, or even public notice of that measure by any of the other States or their representa- tive assemblies seemed an irregular and incompetent proceeding. The as- sembly of Virginia, nevertheless, was not deterred by this consideration from passing a resolution in which it denounced, as grievous encroach- ments upon American liberty, not only the act which was confined to New York, but the previous and more general statute, for disobedience to which New York was punished. If the parliament, it was warmly declared, can lawfully compel the colonies to furnish a single article of accommodation to the troops sent from England, it may by parity of reason oblige them to furnish clothes, arms, and every necessary, even including the pay of the officers and soldiers ; a doctrine totally incompatible with the existence of liberty or the security of property in America. Massachusetts, which had suggested the convention of 1765, again took the lead in proposing by united counsels to surmount or diminish the grand impediment by which the interests of American liberty were obstruct- ed. The assembly of this province now addressed to all the sister colonies a circular letter [February 11, 1768], signifying that they had seriously considered the great evils to which the inhabitants of America were subjected from the operation of several acts of parliament imposing taxes upon them, and requesting the other colonies to unite in suitable measures to obtain redress. The letter concluded with warm expressions of loyalty to the king, and " of firm confidence that the united and dutiful supplications of his distressed American subjects will meet with his royal and favorable accept- ance." The assembly were deterred from proposing a repetition of the national convention which had taken place three years before by the in- telligence they had received of the jealousy and alarm with which that measure was regarded by the British government ; and, on the present oc- casion, they were contented with proposing mutual correspondence between the colonies, and uniformity of language in their addresses to the crown. Along with their circular letter they despatched copies of a petition to the king, a representation to the royal ministers, and a letter of instructions to their provincial agent at London, which they had composed and transmitted to England. In these compositions, they declared that the parliament doubt- less possessed supreme legislative power over the whole empire, but that, as it derived its authority from the political system or constitution of the state, it could not overleap the bounds of constitutional principles without de- stroying its own foundation ; that, in conformity with the principles of the British constitution, the American colonists enjoyed the right of being taxed by their own representatives alone, and had hitherto exercised it by the in- strumentality of their subordinate legislatures ; that they were therefore enti- tled (exclusive of any consideration of charter franchises), with a decent firmness becoming the character of freemen and subjects, to assert their natural and constitutional right ; and that it was their humble opinion that this right was violated by the acts of parliament imposing taxes upon them for the express purpose of raising a revenue ; that the American judges were not, like the judges of England, independent of the crown ; and that freedom and justice were not secured to a people deprived of all con trol over governors and judges holding their commissions by the tenure of royal will and pleasure ; that the creation of a civil list with an indefinite number of public officers, who?e salaries were to be fixed and allotted by 432 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [900K XI. the king and paid by the colonists, and the statute requiring the colonists to furnish provisions to the British troops, were burdensome and oppressive ; that they had reason to believe that the enemies of the colonists had rep- resented them to the king as factious, disloyal, and aiming at independence ; but that this assembly could assure his Majesty, w^ith regard to the people of Massachusetts, and as they also beheved of* all his American territories, that the charge was unjust. The circular letter, and other relative compo- sitions of the Massachusetts assembly, produced a strong sensation through- out America. Notwithstanding all the caution and moderation with which this measure was conducted, its great importance was clearly perceived. The assembly of New Hampshire, while they expressed approbation of the conduct of Massachusetts, timidly declined to imitate it, under pre- tence that their session was near its close, and that such a period was unsuitable to the transaction of important business ; a behaviour for which they received the commendations of the king in the following year. But most of the other provincial assemblies acceded zealously and promptly to the overture of Massachusetts, and adopted petitions and representations of the same tenor with those of which copies were transmitted to them. The Vkginian assembly warmly applauded the generous concern manifested by Massachusetts for American liberty. Important and formidable to British authority as this measure undoubt- edly was, it seems not more, nay, rather less, properly obnoxious to the censure of the British government than the proposition of a general con- vention in 1765, upon which no pubhc censure had been passed. But the conduct of Massachusetts was now to be judged by a ministerial con- clave much less liberal and indulgent than that which existed at the former epoch. The British cabinet, in the close of the last year, underwent a considerable change, of which every particular was unpropitious to a gener- ous or conciliating policy towards America. Townshend, the chancellor of the exchequer, dying, was succeeded by Lord North, a man devoted to royal prerogative. The management of American affairs was withdrawn from Lord Shelburne, and committed to Lord Hillsborough, a determined partisan of the highest pretensions and largest authority of the parent state over her colonies. Conway had resigned ; other changes of similar char^ acter and import had taken place ; and though Lord Chatham continued to hold office till the autumn of the present year, he was rendered quite in- significant in tlie cabinet by ill health and the disregard of his colleagues, Bernard, besides, who was the object of general dislike in Massachusetts, and engaged in continual altercations with the assembly, where he was as eager to extend the special prerogative of the governor as to support the general prerogative of the parent state, sought to revenge himself upon his antagonists by exciting prepossessions in the British cabinet against the whole provincial population. For this purpose, he industriously collected and transmitted all the most violent publications that had recently appeared at Boston ; assuring the ministry that these compositions faithfully repre- sented the sentiments by which the whole province was actuated, and that he daily expected a rebellion. He afterwards endeavoured to correct this hasty expression, and rushed into the opposite extreme of declaring that he bad completely misunderstood the sentiments of the people, which were, he said, almost universally opposed to the pubhcations which he had been led 10 believe congenial to them. He even extolled with elaborate commenda- CHAP. II.] RIGOROUS ENFORCEMEXT OF THE TRADE LAWS. 433 tion the prudence, moderation, and conciliating temper of the assembly, in communications to the ministry dated only a lew days before the petition to the king, the representation to the ministers, and the circular letter to the other colonies were despatched. Provoked and astonished by this occurrence, and eager to justify himself, he conveyed a false and irritating account of the whole transaction to Britain, which unfortunately found too much credit with the royal cabinet. The tenor of his misrepresentations appears from a despatch which Lord Hillsborough instantly addressed to him [April 22, 1768], reprobating the vote in favor of the circular letter as '' unfair, contrary to the real sense of the assembly, and procured by surprise " ; and instructing him to require the assembly to rescind the surreptitious resolve which had given birth to the circular letter, and to declare their disapprobation of that rash and hasty transaction. In case of their refusal to comply with this requisition, h« was directed to dissolve the assembly and transmit to England an account of its behaviour. Circular letters were at the same time addressed by Lord Hillsborough to the governors of all the American provinces, inclos- ing copies of the obnoxious composition of the Massachusetts assembly, and signifying, that, " As his Majesty considers this measure to be of the most dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the minds of his good subjects in the colonies, and promote an unwarrantable combination, and to exhibit an open opposition to and denial of the authority of parliament, and to subvert the true principles of the constitution, it is his Majesty's pleasure that you should, immediately upon the receipt hereof, exert your utmost influence to defeat this flagitious attempt to disturb the public peace, by prevailing upon the assembly of your province to take no notice of it, — which will be treating it with the contempt it deserves." Such an amazing effusion of spleen, insolence, and folly, perhaps, never before disgraced the councils of a civilized community. It excited general disgust in Amer- ica, and served only to induce the other provinces to afford new symptoms of their willingness to make common cause with Massachusetts. Greatly lowered, indeed, 'was the language of England, both in dignity of sentiment and majesty of tone, since Hillsborough succeeded Pitt as the interpreter of her will to America. Additional cause of offence and quarrel arose in America from the op- eration of the act by which a board of customs was established at Boston. Paxton, one of the commissioners, had long been an object of general dis- like to the peo}3le of Massachusetts, on account of the zeal with which he seconded all the pretensions of British prerogative ; and only his absence from the province during the Stamp Act riots had saved him from a share of the popular vengeance on that occasion. He and his colleagues now en- forced the trade laws with a rigor hitherto unknown, and which contributed not a little to increase the prevailing inquietude and irritation. At New York there was printed and circulated a manifesto or proclamation, assuring the inhabitants that commissioners of customs would soon be established there ab well as at Boston, and summoning every friend of liberty to hold himself in readiness to receive them with the same treatment which had been be- stowed upon "a set of miscreants under the name of stamp-masters, in the year 1765." All the efforts of the governor to discover the authors of this inflammatory publication proved ineffectual. In this province the spirit of liberty was no way depressed, nor was even the conduct of public business VOL. II. 55 KK 434 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL obstructed, by the act of parliament restraining the assembly from the exer- cise of legislative functions. With a plausible show of obedience to the letter of the statute, the assembly forbore to enact formal laws ; but when- ever money was needed for public purposes, they passed resolutions, to which the people lent a prompt and cheerful obedience ; and thus the act, though sufficient to exasperate, proved quite impotent to punish. It had been the practice in every quarter of British America for the officers of the customs to allow merchants and shipmasters to enter in the custom-house books only a part of their imported cargoes, and to land the remainder duty-free. To this practice, which became so inveterate that the colonists regarded the advantage accruing from it as a right rather than an indulgence, the commissioners now resolved to put a stop. A sloop called the Liberty, belonging to Hancock, having arrived at Boston laden with wine from Madeira [June 10, 1768], the captain, as usual, proposed to the tidewaiter who came to inspect the cargo, that part of it should be landed duty-free ; but, meeting a refusal, laid violent hands upon him, and, with the assistance of the crew, locked him up in the cabin till the whole cargo was carried ashore. The next morning he entered a few pipes of the wine at the custom-house, as having formed all his lading ; but the commissioners of the customs, insisting that the entry was deceptive, caused the sloop to be arrested. To secure the capture, it was proposed that the vessel should be removed from the wharf and towed under the guns of the Romney man-of-war ; and, by the assistance of the Romney's boats, this was accordingly performed, in spite of the opposition of a great assemblage of people, who, finding their remonstrances disregarded, as- saulted the custom-house officers with a violence that had nearly proved fatal to their lives. [June 12.] On the following day, the populace, again assembling before the houses of the collector, comptroller, and inspector- general of the customs, broke their windows, and then, seizing the collect- or's boat, dragged it through the town and burned it on the common. Their violence, whether satiated or not, was checked at this point by the flight of the commissioners and other officers of the customs, who, learning that renewed assemblages of the people were expected, and believing or affecting to believe that farther outrages were meditated against themselves, hastily left the place, and took refuge, first on board the ship of war, and afterwards in Castle William. [June 13.] The city, meanwhile, resounded with com- plaints of the insult that was ofl^ered to the inhabitants in removing the sloop from the wharf, and thus proclaiming apprehensions of a rescue. These complaints were sanctioned by the assembly, who declared that the crimi- nality of the rioters was extenuated by the irritating and unprecedented circumstance of the seizure ; but added, nevertheless, that, as the rioters deserved severe punishment, they must beseech the governor to direct that they should be prosecuted, and to proclaim a reward for their discovery. The rioters, however, had nothing to fear ; nor was any one of them ever molested. A suit for penalties was afterwards instituted against Hancock in the Court of Admiralty ; but the officers of the crown, finding it beyond their power to adduce sufficient evidence of facts, which, though every body knew, nobody would attest, abandoned the prosecution and restored the vessel. The conduct of the officers in taxing the people, by implica- tion, with the purpose of rescue was generally condemned. It was, indeed, remarked by the few who ventured to defend it, that a rescue had actually CHAP. IL] MASSACHUSETTS REFUSES TO RESCIND HER CIRCULAR. 435 taken place eighteen months before. But to this the advocates of the people replied, that the popular temper had undergone a change since then, — as was verified by the fact that no subsequent rescue had been attempted ; — a fact the more certain, though the less significant, as in reality no seizure in the interim had been made. Unluckily, about a month after the arrest of Hancock's vessel, a schooner, which was seized with a smuggled cargo of molasses, and left at the wharf under the care of the custom-house officers, was boarded during the night by a numerous body of men, who easily overpowered and confined the officers, and carried the cargo on shore. The inhabitants in general were greatly scandalized to find their recent declarations so completely falsified ; and the selectmen of Boston, sending for the master of the schooner, ordered him to surrender the molasses di- rectly under pain of the displeasure of the town. He obeyed this injunction without a moment's hesitation. In the midst of the ferment produced by the seizure of Hancock's vessel, Bernard acquainted the assembly of Massachusetts with the communication which he had received from Lord Hillsborough. [June 21.] The patriotic spirit of this body was additionally roused and invigorated, instead of being depressed, by the intelligence ; and it was farther sustained by the arrival of friendly and approving letters from the assemblies of Virginia, Connecti- cut, New Jersey, and Georgia.^ They easily repelled the charges levelled against the conduct of the former assembly, and by a great majority of voices refused to rescind its proceedings. " When Lord Hillsborough knows that we will not rescind our acts," said Otis, in a speech which was highly extolled by the popular party, and denounced as a treasonable effu- sion by the partisans of Britain, '' he should apply to parliament to rescind theirs. Let Britain rescind her measures^ or her authority is lost for ever.'''' ^ Several members, who had in the former session opposed the resolution for the circular letter, now voted against rescinding it, protesting that they would not submit even to royal dictation in the discharge of their legislative functions. The assembly addressed a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, recapitulating the several votes and resolutions which had passed in the former session relative to the circular letter, — showing that this matter was transacted in the meridian of the session, in full convocation, and in conformity with the sentiments of a large majority of the members, — and defending, in terms forcible and manly, yet decent and respectful, the trans- action which was said to have given so much offence to the king. To the governor they finally voted an, address, of which the tenor was so firm and spirited that it merits more particular commemoration. [June 30.] " It is to us incomprehensible," they declared, " that we should be required imder peril of dissolution to rescind the resolve of a former house, when it is evident that that resolve has no existence but as a mere historical fact. Your Excellency must know that the resolve is, to speak in the language of the common law, not now executory, but to all intents and purposes ex- ecuted. If, as is most probable, by the word rescinding is intended the passing a vote in direct and express disapprobation of the measure taken by the former house, as illegal, inflammatory, and tending to promote un- justifiable combinations against his Majesty's peace, crown, and dignity, ' The assembly of tRis province was dissolved by the governor, Sir James Wright, on ac- count of its letter to Massachusetts. Annual Register for 1769. ' So much had Otis's courage increased since the year 1765, when, on first reading the Vir- ginian resolutions, he declared them a treasonable composition. -.^ „v^,,,^,;^ivV; ,/^, r^vx^ ^^s^■^ 4J5 msfoRY or north America. [book xi. we ttMSt take the liberty to testify and pubKcly to declare that we hold it to he the native, inherent, indefeasible right of the subjects, jointly or several- ly, to petition the king for the redress of grievances, provided that the same be done in a decern, dutiful, loyal, and constitutional vi^ay, without tumuh, disorder, and confusion. If the votes of this house are to be controlled by the direction of a minister, we have left to us but a vain semblance of liberty. We have now only to inform you that this house have voted not to rescind ; and that, on a division on the question, there were ninety-two nays, and seventeen yeas.'* That the people might know their friends, the assembly ond'ered at the same time that the names of the voters on both sides of the (Question should be printed and puhlished. The list of the majority was circulated with 'demonstrations of honor and applause ; the list of the mi- nority * was placarded with testimonies of contempt and derision. On the following day the governor dissolved the assembly. [July 1.] Partly for this acft of power, which, though enjoined to him by a royal mandate, was produced by his own misrepresentations, and partly on account of the in- telligence which was received fi'om England of his continual solicitations thfat a military fofree s^hould be despatched to Massachusetts, most of the towns and oorporations in this province united in declarations, which were published in the newspapers, denouncing Bernard as a traitor and enemy of the country.^ It seemed as if every attempt to vindicate the newly extended prerogative bf the parent state was fated to produce only a responsive and more suc- cessful effort of the colonists to assume an attitude more and more nearly realizing a practical independence of British authority. The Stamp Act, among other consequences, produced, in the convention at New York, the first demonstration <^ the readiness of the provinces to unite in opposition to the prerogative of Britain ; the act of parliament which professed to re- strain the powers and functions of the New York assembly served in effect to enlarge them ; the act imposing duties on tea and other articles elicited the remarkable proceedings which we have witnessed in Massachusetts ; and now the arbitrary dissolution of the Massachusetts assembly, by the command of a minister, who ignorantly or wilfully misrepresented its trans- actions, produced a measure still bolder and more decided. Governor Ber- nard having, in answer to several applications, declared that he would not without his Majesty's command again assemble the representatives of the people till the month of May in the following year, when, in conformity with the provincial charter, a new assembly must necessarily be convoked, -^a strong desire was manifested by the people to counteract this arbitrary suspension of democratical authority by an irregular exertion of it. In compliance with the wishes of their fellow-citizens, the selectmen of Boston proposed to all the corporations and parishes in Massachusetts a convention of committees of their members to deliberate on constitutional measures for obtaining a redress of their grievances. This project of an assembly of popular representatives, convened without the express authority of law and simply by virtue of the inherent rights of the people, was countenanced by the w^ealthier inhabitants of the province, who were sensible alike of the •* "Like the list of the Straffordians at London, in the preceding century." Hutchinson. * Annual Re.aister fttr 1763. Franklin's Private Correspondence. Bradford. Gordon. Hutchinson. Eliot. Political Re jester for 1768, — where some curious extracts from the American wewsparpers are prerserviCTi. J9w Appeal to the World, or Vindication of the Town of Boston from the Aspersions of Q ove n i or Bernard. 7%b Triie Sentiments of America. CHA-P. If;j CONVENTION IN MASSACHITSETTS. 43^ dangers of chitlFing or stimulating the ardor by opposing the desires of their cpiintrynfien, and were witling to court their sufirages to sit in the convention, m order to reta-in in their awn hands the management of this new and untried political organ. To what extremity the present temper of the people was capable of precipitating them was strikingly betokened at a general meeting of ihe citizens of Boston in the beginning of September, at which it was resolved, tbaft, ,as there is a prevaiting apprehension in the minds of many of a war with France, all the inhabitants of the province should be warned forthwith to provide themselves witi) airms and ammunition, in order to be ready to repel sudden danger. ^ In consequence of the applications of the selectmen, a convention of committees, chosen by ninety-six towns and eight districts of Massachusetts, assembled at Boston. [September 22, 1768.] Many persons regarded this proceeding wi^h alarm ; and some considered it tantamount to an act of high treason. The members of the convention were sensible of the arduous and delicate predicament in which they were placed, and of the expe- diency of strict and guarded moderation in the exercise of undefined functions and authority. They began by disclaiming all power or pretext of legislation. In resolutions which they framed and pubhshed, and in a petition which tliey presented to the governor for the convocation of an as- senibly, they made warm professions of loyalty to the king, expressed their aversion to standing armies, and also to popular tumults and disorders, and their readiness to assist in suppressing riots and preserving peace ; and strongly recommended patience and good order to their countrymen. The governor refused to receive their petition, or otherwise recognize them as a legitimate assemblage .; adding, that, as a friend of the province, he coun- selled them to desist from the dangerous and criminal course in which they (Were engaged. The convention, having prepared and transmitted a petition to the king, expressed in the most temperate and respectful language, after a short session, dissolved itself. The British ministers, agreeing with Ber- nard in regarding the convention as a criminal association, refused to permit the petition from it to be presented to the king, who was thus confined to the knowledge merely that such a convention had been held, without being ■made acquainted with its actual language and demeanour. Bernard, Hutchinson, the commissioners of the customs, and other parti- ■Bans of royal prerogative, had for some time urgently solicited from the British government the detachment of a strong military force, which they represented as absolutely necessary to the vigor and even the existence of legitimate executive power in Massachusetts. [September 27, 1768.] It was supposed or pretended by some of the leading popular politicians, that the flight of the commissioners of the customs from Boston was a mere politic device to reinforce this solicitation. In effect, the very day after the Massachusetts convention was dissolved [September 28], two British regiments, escorted by seven armed vessels, arrived at Boston from Hali- fax. The first operation of the fleet was to assume a position which com- manded the town ; and, presently after, the troops, amounting to upwards of seven hundred men, under cover of the guns of the ships, landed without opposition, and marched, with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, and every • Several of the stanchest patriots in America expressed much disapprobation of the irri- tating menace implied in this invitation to take arms, and of the disingenuous pretence on which it was founded. 438 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. Other symptom of martial preparation, into the common. In the evening, the selectmen of Boston were required by the royal functionaries to pro- vide quarters in the town for the two regiments ; but they peremptorily re- fused. A temporary shelter in Faneuil Hall was, however, permitted to one regiment which was destitute of camp equipage. On the following day, the State-house, by order of the governor, was opened for the reception of the soldiers, and two field-pieces, along with the main-guard, were stationed in its front. Boston presented the appearance of a garrisoned town. An ostentatious display was made of the presence and alertness of a mihtary force ; and every arrangement in the distribution of this force seemed to be studiously calculated to provoke the indignation of the citizens, whose tem- per, never remarkable for tolerance, was already chafed into a very keen sus- ceptibility of provocation. The lower apartments of the State-house, which had been used by the merchants as an exchange, the chamber of the as- sembly, the court-house, Faneuil Hall, — places which were hitherto the seats and organs of justice, freedom, and commercial convenience, — were now converted into a military citadel. Though the assembly was dissolved, the council continued its sittings ; and it was not without disgust, that, in repairing to their chamber, the counsellors found themselves compelled to pass the guards placed at the door of the State-house. The common was covered with tents ; soldiers were continually marching and countermarching to relieve the guards ; and the sentinels challenged the inhabitants, as they passed at night in the streets. The votaries of hberty resented this vexa- tious obtrusion of military power ; and all devout persons were shocked to see the solemnity of Sunday profaned, and the religious exercises of the people disturbed, by the exhibition of military parade and the unholy clangor of drums and other martial music. After the troops had obtained quarters, the council were required to provide barracks for them in conformity with the act of parliament ; but they resolutely declined to lend any assistance to the execution of that obnoxious statute. General Gage, the commander-in- chief of the British forces in America, leaving his head-quarters at New York, came for a while to Boston to support the requisition of the governor to the council [October] ; but, finding his urgency fruitless, he contented himself with hiring the houses of individual inhabitants for the accommo- dation of the troops. The people in general were disgusted and offended, but not overawed, by the presence of the soldiers ; nor were their senti- ments altered by the large additions soon after [November 10] made to the military force at Boston, which, before the close of the year, amounted to four thousand men.^ By this impolitic demonstration did the British ministers attempt to in- vigorate the force of government at the extremity of the empire, while di- visions and frequent fluctuations in the cabinet weakened its influence at home, and while England itself was a scene of riot, disorder, and violent opposition to established authority. Of the disorders which arose at this time in England the chief ostensible cause was the persecution waged by the ministers against the celebrated John Wilkes, a profligate, unprincipled man, who, in a season of public ferment and agitation, usurping the all- atoning tide of a patriot, performed this part with such spirit and ability as to render him the idol of the people, and to provoke the government to vin- dictive measures so unworthy and illegal as still farther to animate the gen- * Bradford. Gordon. Hutchinson. Holmes.. Annual Register for 1768. CHAP. II.] VIOLENT PROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT. 439 eral affection for Wilkes and the corresponding rage against his adversaries. The cry of " Wilkes and liberty," with which all England now resounded and continued for some years after to resound, was reechoed by numerous voices in the colonies ; ^ and the accounts of the embarrassed situation of the ministry and the convulsions in the parent state, transmitted by the colonial agents to their countrymen, doubtless tended to fortify the spirit of American resistance.^ All the rigorous measures of the ministry with regard to the colonies re- ceived the sanction of the parliament. In the close of this year, the House of Lords passed a censure on the non-importation agreements lately resumed in New England, as factious and menacing combinations, — which had no other effect than to render this engine of resistance more popular in Ameri- ca. In the commencement of the following year [1769] the same aristo- cratical branch of the British legislature embraced resolutions condemning all the recent proceedings of the people of Massachusetts ; and particularly declaring the election of deputies to a popular convention, and the assem- bling of that convention, daring insults offered to his Majesty's authority and audacious usurpations of the powers of government, for which it was requi- site that the principal actors should be brought to condign and exemplary punishment. These resolutions were communicated to the House of Com- mons, whose accession to them was demanded by the Lords. This was op- posed by several members, and among others by Pownall, who had formerly been governor of Massachusetts, by Colonel Barre, and by Edmund Burke, who had recently commenced in public life a career on which his large ca- pacity and fervid genius have shed a briUiant and dazzhng lustre.' They warmly censured the late severities employed by the ministry against Massa- chusetts, and declared their conviction that the people of this province were unjustly treated. " Away with these partial, resentful trifles," said Barre, addressing himself to the ministers, " calculated to irritate, not to quell or appease, — inadequate to their purpose, unworthy of us ! Why will you endeavour to deceive yourselves and us ? You know that it is not Mas- sachusetts only that disputes your right ; but every part of America. From one end of the continent to the other, they tell you that you have no right to tax them. My sentiments of this matter you well know. Consider well what you are doing. Act openly and honestly. Tell them you will tax them ; and that they must submit. Do not adopt this little, insidious, futile plan. They will despise you for it." Pownall declared, that, from his * Wilkes rewarded his American partisans, and embarrassed liis enemies in the British cab- inet, by warmly defending and applauding the conduct of the Americans. In a speech to the livery of London at Guildhall, in 1776, he said : — " All public spirit is here visibly decaying, and that stern, manly virtue of our fathers, which drove from this land of freedom the last Stuart tyrant, is held in contempt by their abandoned offspring. A dissolution of the empire, ruin, and slavery are advancing rapidly upon us, and we are ripe for destruction. If we are saved, it will be almost solely by the courage and noble spirit of our American brethren, whom neither the luxuries of a court, nor the sordid lust of avarice in a rapacious and venal metrop- olis, have hitherto corrupted." Annual Register for 1776. This was mere factious cant. From Stephens's Life of Horne Tooke it appears that Wilkes heartily hated and despised the Ameri- cans, who, in these sentiments, received the only compliment that such a man was competent to bestow. » Jinnual Register for 1768. Hutchinson. Franklin's Private Correspondence. See Note XXX., at the end of the volume. ^ Of Burke it has been, I think, justly remarked by a writer in the Annual Review^ thai, * while vague rhapsodies about liberty decorated his harangues, his object was to introduce hii party to power, and, by equivocal concessions to the American people, and flattering patron- age of the American chieflains, to purchase a pacific reconciliation capable of being corrupted afresh into dependence." 440 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. acquaiiitance with the character, sentiments, and resources of the Ameri- cans, he was conFinced that they could not be coerced into submission to oppressive laws ; that, although tliey were a sober, patient, and loyal people, especially in Massachusetts, where he had resided, they might be exasperated beyond farther endurance ; and that they would undoubtedly contend for their rights recognized by charter and inherited by them as British subjects, till either they recovered them or were annihilated by superior force. *' That spirit," said he, "^ which led their ancestors to break off from every thing which is near and dear to the human heart, has but a slight and trifling sacrifice to make at this time ; they have not to quit their native country, but to defend it ; not to forsake their friends and relations, but to unite with and stand by them in one common union." The House of Commons, however, sanctioned and espoused the resolutions of the Lords ; and both houses, in a joint address to the king, expressed their perfect satisfaction with the meas- ures he had pursued ; tendered the strongest assurances of effectual support to him in such farther measures as might be found necessary to maintain a due execution of the laws in Massachusetts ; and besought him to direct the governor to take the most effectual methods for procuring information of all treasonable offences committed within the province since the 30th of December, 1767, and to transmit the names of the offenders to one of the secretaries of state, in order that his Majesty might issue a special commis- sion for bringing them to trial in England, in conformity with the provisions of the statute of the thirty-fifth of Henry the Eighth.^ The last part of this address, which proposed the transportation from Massachusetts of persons whom the government might reckon offenders, to be tried before a tribunal in England, gave the highest offence to the colonists and provoked their severest animadversions. When the intelligence of these transactions in the British senate arrived in America, the assembly of Massachusetts had not yet been convoked. The earliest as well as the most important measures to which they gave rise occurred in Virginia. This province had witnessed, in the autumn of the previous year, the arrival of the last popular governor whom she was to receive from Britain, Lord Botetourt, an upright, honorable, benevolent, and accomplished man, a sincere and zealous friend of rehgion and virtue, and a liberal patron of science and literature in Virginia. His desire to promote the welfare and happiness of the people whom he governed, though not wholly inefficacious, was counteracted by his principles of duty to the parent state, and the strain and tendency of that course of policy which for some time past she had pursued ; and it was perhaps happy for his fame that a sudden death closed his administration, after an endurance of only two years. 2 Some offence was given by the pompous parade ^ with which he repaired to meet and open the first assembly convoked since his arrival [May 8], when he was drawn by eight milk-white horses, in a state- coach presented to him by the king for the purpose of increasing his au- thority by adding splendor to his dignity ; and the same formalities were ob- served which attend the opening of parliament by the British monarch. The sterner and more jealous abettors of American freedom and resist- ' We have witnessed only one instance of the application of this statute to America, in the trial of Culpepper, in 1680, ante, Book IV., Chap. I. * He di*^d lit Williamsburg, in October, 1770. ' A good deal of state was always affected by the royal ^vernorsin America, and especially in Vii^inia, where the governor's'mansion at the provincial metropolis was styled the valace. Tucker s Uff cf Jefferson. CHAP. IL] RESOLUTIONS OF THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY. 44] ance were displeased with this pageantry, which they perceived was designed to captivate the senses of the people and impress them with reverence and abasement. The governor's speech to the assembly, however, breathed such unaffected good-will and conciliation as to dissipate every sentiment of jealousy against himself, and elicited in reply an address in the highest de- gree respectful and complimentary. But the members of the assembly had not been heedless or indifferent spectators of the progressive measures of the parent state, to the consideration of which, beginning with the last parlia- mentary taxes, and ending with the recent parliamentary declarations, they promptly yet deliberately addressed their attention. Their consultations were no longer embarrassed by division of sentiment, — all shades and dis- tinctions of opinion being absorbed by one common and earnest solicitude for American liberty And the most determined purpose of opposition to Brit- ish encroachment. In this spirit, they embraced unanimously a series of resolutions [May 16, 1769], which they directed their speaker forthwith to transmit to all the houses of assembly in America, with a request that they would unite in corresponding measures. It was declared in these resolu- tions that the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is now, and ever has been, legally and constitutionally vested in the provin- cial assembly ; that it is the privilege of the inhabitants to petition their sovereign for redress of grievances, and that it is lawful to procure the con- currence of his Majesty's other colonies in dutiful addresses praying the royal interposition in behalf of the violated rights of America ; that all trials for treason or any other crime, committed or alleged to have been committed in this colony, ought to be conducted before his Majesty's col- onial courts ; and that the transportation of any person, suspected or accused of any crime whatsoever committed in the colony, for trial in another coun- try, is derogatory to the rights of British subjects, inasmuch as the ac- cused is thereby deprived of the inestimable privilege of being tried by a jury of his vicinity, as well as of the power of producing witnesses at his trial. The assembly at the same time framed an address to the king, in which, amidst assurances of loyalty to his crown and attachment to his person, they expressed a deep conviction that the complaints of all his American subjects were well founded. Lord Botetourt, alarmed by the intelligence of these transactions, suddenly presented himself on the following day [May 17] to the assembly, which he thus briefly addressed: — ''Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen, I have heard of your resolutions, and augur ill of their effects. You have made It my duty to dissolve you ; and you are dissolved accordingly." This, hke the other vindictive measures which we have previously remarked, served only to give an additional shock to the British authority which it was designed to support. The members promptly obeyed the governor's mandate ; but instantly reassembled in a dwelHng-house, where, professing to assume no other capacity than that of an association of private citizens and freeholders, they chose their late speaker^ Peyton Randolph, to be their moderator ; and, in defiance of the censorious resolution of the House of Lords, unan- imously signed an agreement to import no more goods from Britain, and or- dered copies of it to be dispersed for accessory signatures throughout the colony. The people acceded to this ordinance with an eagerness which perhaps the strongest recommendation of its authors, convoked as an as- sembly sanctioned by British authority, would have been unable to produce. VOL. II. 56 442 HISTORY OJ NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL ■■ The influence of this brave and generous stand in defence of American liberty was extensively propagated through the other provinces, and the conduct of Virginia became the theme of general praise and imitation. In- spired by this example, the assembly of South Carolina refused obedience to the act for providing accommodations to British troops, and passed re- solves corresponding to those of Virginia. This assembly also voted and remitted, in the course of the present year, the sum of fifteen hundred pounds to a political society established at London under the title of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, which was understood to be friendly to the interests and claims of America.^ The assemblies of Maryland, Dela- ware, and Georgia adopted the Virginian resolutions. The same policy was espoused by the assembly of North Carohna, which was straightway dissolved by Tryon, the governor ; whereupon the mefnbers, with additional conformity to the example of Virginia, reassembled on the footing of a private association, and unitedly embraced a resolution against importing goods from Britain. Before the close of the year, the assembly of New York also passed resolves in harmony with those of Virginia. It was now that the non-importation agreement, revived by Massachusetts, was gen- erally adopted throughout America. Inspectors were appointed by the po- litical clubs or other popular associations to search all vessels arriving from England, and pubhsh the names of any Americans who should presume to disregard that agreement ; and all the power of the British government was Insufficient to protect individuals thus denounced from the storm of popular hatred and indignation. Animated with the spirit of the measure, the colo- nists even extended the interruption of intercourse which it defined far beyond the limits of its express requisitions ; and refrained from or cur- tailed every expenditure from which the people or the government of Britain were supposed to derive advantage. The Americans had been accustomed annually to purchase at least an eighth part of the whole number of tickets in the British lottery ; but in the present year the orders from all the colonies did not amount to one hundred tickets. To supply the articles formerly imported, various manufactures now began to spring up in America. In the following year, all the candidates for the degree of bachelor of arts at Harvard College presented themselves in suits of black cloth, the man- ufacture of New England. The authorities of this college afforded a proof at the same time of the prevalence of repubhcan principles in the province, by abolishing the practice that had hitherto prevailed of arranging the students in each class according to the supposed rank of the families to which they belonged, and ordaining that they should in future be ranged in the alphabetical order of their names. ^ When the assembly of Massachusetts w^as at length necessarily convoked, in conformity with the directions of the provincial charter [May 31, 1769], ' Some time after, the provincial governor, in obedience to the king's commands, signified to the assembly the high displeasure with which his Majesty had learned this transaction. The assembly, resenting or contemning the governor's communication, were gratified and embold- ened by the letter of acknowledgment which they received from a committee of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights. This letter, subscribed by Sergeant Glynn and other distinguished British patriots, .expressed at once the profoundest contempt and the liveliest abhorrence of the policy of the British government, and warmly declared that the people of England would never be accessory to the manifest design of enslaving their fellow-subjects in America, jin- nual Register for 1770. 2 Annual Register for 1769 and for 1770. Burk's Virginia: Campbell. Bradford. Gor- don. Ramsay. Holmes. Williamson. QMincy's History of Harvard University. Collections of the Georgia Historical Society. CHAP. II.] RESOLUTIONS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS ASSEMBLY. 443 it plainly appeared how little the interests of British prerogative had gained from the penal dissolution by which the functions of that body were so long suspended. In the frequent town-meetings convoked by mere popular will during the abeyance of the assembly, little restraint or moderation pre- vailed ; the increased force of passionate currents in more numerous con- gregations of men was strikingly illustrated ; and the spirit of liberty, freely indulged, had largely expanded. Men were now accustomed to hear that the rights of the American legislatures superseded all claim of the British par- liament to legislative authority over America ; and the longer this doctrine was uttered, the more generally acceptable it became. In one of those meetings, an objection having been urged against a particular motion, on the ground that it imphed a general independence of parliament, Samuel Adams warmly combated the objection ip a speech, which he concluded by declaring, that *' Independent we are, and independent we will 6e." Fa- miliarized with such sentiments, even the most timorous and prudential poli- ticians ceased to regard them with alarm. Such was the state of the public mind in Massachusetts, when the representative assembly was again convoked. Their first transaction w^as the appointment of a committee, who signified to the governor, that an armament investing Boston by sea and land, and a military guard with cannon mounted at the door of the State-house where the representatives of the people assembled, were inconsistent with the dig- nity and freedom of their deliberations ; and that they expected that his Ex- cellency, as the king's representative, would order both the naval and the military force to be withdrawn during the legislative session. The governor answered to this application, that he possessed no authority over either the ships or the troops of the king ; and as the assembly, with reiterated com- plaint,* firmly declined to transact business while surrounded with an armed force, he adjourned the session to the town of Cambridge. [July 6.] There he transmitted to them the accounts of the expense already incurred in quartering the British troops, with a message requiring that funds should be appropriated to its liquidation, and a provision made for the future quar- tering of the forces in Boston and Castle Island according to act of parlia- ment. The assembly, on the following day [July 7] , without returning any direct answer to this message, embraced and recorded a series of resolutions equalling in spirit the resolves of Virginia, and as boldly gainsaying the re- cent parliamentary declarations. Besides reiterating every claim and com- plaint on which the Virginian assembly had insisted, they declared, that a general discontent on account of the revenue acts, the expectation of the sudden approach of military power to enforce these acts, and the dissolu- tion of the assembly, were circumstances which justified the people in as- sembling by a convention of committees, to consult for the promotion of peace and good order, and to present their united complaints to the throne ; that the convention could not possibly be illegal, as its members disclaimed all powers of government ; that the estabhshment of a standing army in the province in time of peace was an invasion of the undoubted rights of its • " The use of the military power to enforce the execution of the laws," they declared in a remonstrance to the governor, " is, in our opinion, inconsistent with the spirit of a free constitution and the very theory of government, — that the body of the people, the posse cnrrtitatus, will always aid the magistrate in the execution of such laws as ought to be executed. The very supposition of an unwillingness in the people in general that a law should be exe- cuted carries with it the strongest presumption that it is an unjust law, at least that it is un« salutary. If. cannot be their law ; for, by the nature of a free constitution, the people must con^ sent to laws before they ccui be obliged in conscience to obey them." 444 HISTORY OF north AMERICA. [BOOK XI. inhabitants ; that a standing army was not known as a branch of the British constitutional government ; that sending armed troops into the colony, under pretence of assisting the civil authority, was unprecedented, illegal, and highly dangerous to the liberties of the people; that this measure was occasioned by the counsels and misrepresentations of Governor Bernard to the British ministry ; and that the arrangement, in conformity with which the troops were distributed in Boston, and the injunction laid on the assembly to make way for them by retiring to Cambridge, were deep and studied affronts to the province, and insulting indications that the civil power was overmastered by military force. It was no small addition to the general discontent, that Bernard, in proportion as he became odious to the people, seemed to rise in favor with the British court, from which he now received the title of a baronet. Undismayed and perhaps rather incited by this circumstance, the assembly unanimously voted a petition to the king that he might be re- moved for ever from the government of the province ; but their petition, whether it really exerted any influence or not, was treated with the sem- blance of contemptuous disregard. Bernard, having again [July 12] urgent- ly required the assembly to inform him whether they would or would not make provision for the troops, and receiving for answer that their honor, their interest, and their duty to their constituents forbade them to grant any such provision, prorogued them till the commencement of the following year, when he appointed them to meet at Boston. This was the last act of his illiberal and unhappy administration of the government of Massachusetts ; for he departed shortly after to England [August, 1769], where the ministers desired a personal consultation with him on the state of affairs in America ; and never returned, though he continued for two years longer to hold the title of governor of Massachusetts. His official functions during this inter- val were executed by Hutchinson, the heutenant-governor.^ Amidst these agitating scenes of passion, contention, and violence, and the thickening, stormy aspect of the political horizon of America, there occurred at this period some transactions, memorable, yet of milder inter- est, and illustrative or promotive of the excellence and improvement of American character. We have alluded to the generous efforts of Lord Botetourt, by which knowledge and piety were promoted in Virginia. A more powerful impulse was imparted to these pursuits, and a signal advan- tage conferred also on the cause of civil Hberty, by the resort to America of Dr. John Witherspoon, one of the greatest divines that the church of Scotland has ever produced, — pious, pure, upright, sincere, and dauntless in his character and conduct, — endowed with a vigorous and comprehen- sive mind, — an accomphshed scholar, and second to none of his contem- poraries either in the attainments of ethical philosophy or in the felicities of graceful and perspicuous eloquence. Harassed by long persecution from a numerous party both among the clergy ^ and the laity of his native coun- try, against whom he vainly strove to restore the primitive strictness of ecclesiastical discipline, and to defend the popular election of ministers in opposition to the pretensions of royal and aristocratical patronage in the ' Bradford. Gordon. Hutchinson. Eliot. Pitkin. Among other friends of America by whom Bernard was loaded with opprobrium on his return to England, old General Ogle- thorpe is said to have personally expressed to him the utmost disgust and abhorrence at his conduct. Wirt. When he was asked if he had not been afraid to ride or walk out alone in a province where he was so generally detested, he answered, " No ; they are not a l^loodthirsty people." ■ • ' 2 Of whom the principal leader was Dr. Robertson, the historian. CHAP. II.J RHODE ISLAND COLLEGE.— DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. 445 church of Scotland, he at length accepted an invitation to preside over the College of New Jersey, and for this purpose repaired in the foregoing year to Princeton, — sacrificing to his hopes of usefulness in this sphere a valuable estate which one of his relations offered to settle upon him if he would remain in Scotland. He produced an important change in the sys- tem of education both of the New Jersey College and of other American seminaries ; extending the study of mathematical science, and introducing into the course of instruction in natural philosophy many improvements which were previously but little known. The system of tuition in moral philosophy he placed on a new and improved basis ; and he is cited as the first teacher in America of the substance of those doctrines of the philos- ophy of the human mind which the Scottish metaphysician, Dr. Reid, after- wards more fully developed. Under his presidency, more attention was paid than before to the principles of taste and composition, and to the study of elegant literature. Witherspoon cordially espoused the cause of America in the controversy with Britain ; defending it with admirable vigor and sim- plicity by his pen ; exalting it in the pulpit by associating the interests of civil and religious truth and freedom ; and zealously cooperating in its ac- tive vindication by his counsels and labors in the revolutionary senate. He was accompanied from Scotland by a number of his countrymen, who formed a settlement which long continued honorably to reflect the piety and good morals, the industry, simphcity, and moderation of its founders.^ The present year was signalized in Rhode Island by the commence- ment of a course of collegiate instruction at Warren, in the county of Bristol. In consequence of the petition of a number of respectable inhabitants of this province, the fundamental charter of the college was granted by the provincial assembly in 1764. By this charter there were incorporated thirty-six trustees, of whom twenty-two were Baptists, five were Quakers, five Episcopalians, and four Congregationalists ; and it was provided that this proportion should be perpetually preserved ! a provision which will be de- rided or applauded, according as it is regarded as an attempt to perpetuate existing diversities, or to defend and secure the liberty of religious opin- ion. In conformity with the spirit of all the other institutions of the prov- ince, it was farther decreed by the collegiate charter that all the members of the,pollege should for ever enjoy free, absolute, and uninterrupted liberty of conscience ; and that Protestants of any denomination whatever should be eligible to all the official appointments, except that of president of the trus- tees, which was reserved exclusively for an individual of the Baptist persua- sion. In 1770, this college was removed to Providence.^ Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, was also founded in the present year. It derived its name from William, Earl of Dartmouth, one of its most considerable benefactors, and owed its existence to the active piety and benevolence of Eleazer Wheelock, minister of the parish of Lebanon, in Connecticut. At Lebanon, Wheelock had many years before founded and assisted in conducting an academy devoted especially to the instruction of missionaries designed to spread the gospel among the Indian tribes. Many of the children of the Indians themselves received education at this school with so much apparent advantage, that sanguine expectations were formed * L/Jfi of IVltherspoon, prefixed to his fVorks. MS. account of him. Miller's Retrospect. Dwight's Travels. ^ Morse, Art. Rhode Island. » i LL 446 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL of the efficacy of their assistance in persuading their countrymen to em- brace Christianity. Some of them displayed considerable genius, and ac- quired the elements of hterature and science with as much facility as any of their white companions ; but, in the end, almost all of them renounced the advantages they had gained, and returned to the rudeness and freedom, as they esteemed it, of savage life. One of them, however, Sampson Occom, a Mohican, persisting in his altered manners, advanced so far in learning, and conducted himself with so much propriety, that he received a regular ordi- nation to ministerial functions from the presbytery of Suffolk in Long Island. Shortly after, he became a missionary, and preached for a while to the Indians ; but soon quitting a sphere where his change of manners exposed him to contempt and aversion, for one where it rendered him the object of interest and admiration, he began to preach among the European colo- nists to crowded and astonished audiences. Few persons had believed that an Indian was capable of preaching with inteUigence and propriety ; and multitudes regarded the fact with as much rapture as if it had been a mir- acle. Wheelock, who had been for some time contemplating an enlargement of the plan of his academy, perceiving the impression that Occom produced, was struck with the idea of sending him along with another friend of his own, of European extraction, to England, in order to solicit benefactions for a college to be erected in the wilderness, and devoted principally to the ed- ucation of Indian youths. This well devised project was executed in the year 1766, when the appearance of Occom in England excited a hvely sen- sation in the minds of people of all ranks. ^ Here was demonstrative proof that attempts to convert the Indians were not misapplied ; that an Indian could even maintain a life so blameless, display so much piety, and acquire so much knowledge, as to be judged worthy of receiving clerical ordination ; and that (which, indeed, was no very significant circumstance) he could preach in such a manner as to engage the attention of a polite English audi- ence. All diffidence of the propriety of Indian missions was now dispelled, and the most obstinate disbelief put to silence. Occom, indeed, pos- sessed respectable, but not superior talents, sincere religious impressions, and an eloquence, of which the efficacy was aided by the peculiarity of his appearance and the simplicity of his manners. The deficiencies in his dis- courses, to which persons of profound and enlightened piety might have ob- jected, were more than atoned in their eyes by consideration of his savage extraction ; and the plainness with which he stated the most humihating truths of the gospel was stripped of much of its offisnce to worldly and aristocratic hearers by a manner which it was impossible to tax with vul- garity. In such circumstances, benefactions to the projected college were solicited with a success which exceeded the most sanguine expectations of Wheelock and his friends. The king declared himself a patron of the in- stitution ; his example was followed by many persons of distinction ; and large sums of money in aid of its design were subscribed in England, Scotland, and America. The money collected in England was placed in the hands of certain trustees, of whom the Earl of Dartmouth, president of the Board of Trade, and himself a considerable subscriber, was at the head ; and the funds contributed in Scotland were committed to the So- ciety for promoting Christian Knowledge. * " 14th April, 1766. Yesterday a North American Indian, a convert to the Christian re- ligion, preached a sermon at the Rev. Dr. Chandler's meeting, in the Old Jewry, to a very numerous and polite audience." Chronicle of the Annual Register for 1766. CHAP. II.] DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. — GEORGE WHITEFIELD. 447 As an improvement on the original plan, it was determined to increase the number of youths of European extraction to be educated with the In- dians both in literary and in agricultural exercises ; that the Indians might be the more strongly invited to these employments by the prevalence of example, and weaned from the prejudice they had universally imbibed, that to delve the earth was a pursuit beneath the dignity of man. When, in the present year, the design of withdrawing the college from Connecticut was finally announced, various offers of land for the reception of the trans- planted establishment were made by the neighbouring provinces. Wheelock, with the approbation of the trustees in England, accepted the invitation of New Hampshire ; and the township of Hanover, on the eastern bank of Connecticut River, was finally appropriated as the most convenient site of the institution. In a charter of incorporation afterwards granted by the governor of New Hampshire, Wheelock was declared the founder and pres- ident of Dartmouth College; a board of twelve trustees was constituted with perpetual succession ; and the college was endowed with a landed es- tate of forty-four thousand acres in extent. The establishment proved advantageous to the European colonists of America ; but its primary design of educating Indians and missionaries to the Indians was completely frus- trated and abandoned in despair.^ The number of Indian students and missionaries progressively decreased ; but the number of lay students of European extraction was progressively augmented.^ We have already re- marked the high consideration which has been always most justly attached to the instruction and the instructors of youth in America, and especially in the States of New England. The annals of these provinces, during the eighteenth century, present us with many instances of men, who, after gaining distinguished eminence in the civil or military service of their coun- try, devoted a large proportion of their fortunes to the erection of seminaries of education, and who in some instances assumed a personal share in the labors of tuition. The instruction of mankind is doubtless a more inter- esting task, and the beneficial influence of education on the mass of the community more visible and decisive, in American than in European states. The connection between moral improvement and temporal prosperity is pe- culiarly close in America, where the field of exertion is boundless, and the competition of talent is free ; and where every new fountain of knowl- edge sees the benefit of its streams reflected from an immediate expanse of public prosperity and private happiness. Dr. Lionel Chalmers, a native of Carapbelltown, in Scotland, who had emigrated in early youth to America, where he attained very high repute as a physician, began about this time to distinguish himself by a series of useful and excellent disquisitions on the soil, climate, and diseases of South Carolina.^ The exertions of George Whitefield, the Methodist, in America, have already engaged our attention. In this country, Whitefield was more de- sirous to awaken a general concern for religion, and to promote exertions of charity and benevolence on rehgious principles, than to found a distinct religious sect or association. Though originally the pupil of Wesley, he ' " You are not to suppose that any blame is on that account to be attached either to Dr. Wheelock, or to any others intrusted with this concern. An Indian student cannot be ob- tained, ordinarily, without extreme difficulty. What is at least as unfortunate, his habits are in a great measure fixed before he can be brought to a place of education, and more resemble those of a deer or a fox than those of a civilized youth. In the literal sense, he must be tamed ; and to tame him is scarcely possible." Dwight. * Belknap. Holmes. Dwight. " Ramsay. 448 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL was, shortly after his first visit to America, completely and even passion- ately estranged from the peculiar creed and the friendship of his spiritual preceptor. But farther experience of the world, and of each other's char- acters and views, substantially reunited these illustrious men ; and though Whitefield to the last condemned the logical unsoundness of part of Wes- ley's doctrine, yet he regarded him with the warmest love and veneration, and in his last illness desired that Wesley might preach his funeral sermon. Whitefield died in New England, about a year after the present period. During the greater part of his career in America, Wesley, resigning this sphere of exertion to him, made no attempt to interfere with or disturb his labors. But in the present year, Wesley, animated by the success he had obtained in England, and accounting farther forbearance unnecessary, de- spatched for the first time two of the preachers of his peculiar doctrines and ordinances to America, — where their exertions, aided by subsequent coad- jutors, were so successful, that, within twenty-four years after, the Wes- leyan Methodists in America amounted in number to more than sixty thou- sand persons, of whom about sixteen thousand were people of color. ^ Meth- odism, from this epoch, spread widely in America ; and piety and virtue, gravity and industry, moderation and contentment, were the fruits which invariably attended its progress. A great many slaveholders were induced by the Methodist preachers to give liberty to their negroes. A transit of the planet Venus across the sun's disk, occurring this year, was surveyed from Harvard College by Winthrop, with science truly so called, because blended with religion. He was desirous to arrest the at- tention of the existing generation of his countrymen by the consideration of a celestial phenomenon which they could never again behold ; and de- livered two lectures on the subject in the college chapel, which, at the request of his audience, he afterwards published.^ This excellent and ac- complished man successfully defended the employment of electrical con- ductors against the opposition of some ignorant fanatics, who maintained, that, as thunder and lightning are tokens and instruments of divine displeas- ure, it must be impious to attempt any restraint of their vindictive efficacy.^ It was in the present year, also, that the celebrated Daniel Boon, of North Carolina, a colonel of militia, but more commonly known by his sub- sequent tide of General in the service of America, commenced that course of adventurous and exploratory labor from which originated the plantation and establishment of the province of Kentucky. This territory was first visited in 1767 by John Finlay, an inhabitant of North Carolina, and some fellow-travellers, who circulated the most flattering accounts of it in Amer- ica. In the present year, it was visited by Boon, who, with Finlay and some other hunting associates, remained two years in the country, and com- pletely explored it. In the following year, it was again visited and sur- veyed by James Knox and forty other Virginian hunters. The first per- manent settlement in Kentucky was made by Boon and his family, ac- companied by certain of their Virginian and Carolinian friends, in the year * Holmes. 2 Eliot. Winthrop prefixed this motto to the publication of his lectures : — ^gite^ mortales ! et oculos in spectaculum vertite, quod hue usque spectaverunt perpavxissimi : spectaturi iterum sunt nulli. David Rittenhouse also made a scientific observation of the same celestial phenomenon, and at one stage of the spectacle is reported to have fainted from excess of delight and admira- tion. Dr. Rush. ^ Q,uincy'8 History of Harvard University. CftAP. lU] IMPOWCY or THE BRITJftH MEASURES. 4^. 1773. This occupation was reckoned an iafriagement of the rights of the: Cherokee Indians, whose claim to the territory had been recently recog- nized in a treaty between tliem and the British government ; but it was legitimated about two years afterwards, by an extensive purchase of the land adjacent to Kentucky River, which was transacted with the Cherokees by Richard Henderson, of Virginia. The colonization of the new territory was gradually extended by the resort of emigrants to it from several of the American States. Of all the early settlers the most renowned was Dan- iel Boon. He was a native of Virginia, and a very remarkable specimen of human character and taste ; contemplative, sagacious, and though httle: conversant, yet not wholly untinctured, with letters ;^ ardent and enterpris- ing, yet enamoured of solitude ; and no less distinguished by the strength- ^nd vigor of his frame, and the courage and constancy of his soul, than by the tenderness of his heart and the mildness of his manners. He first re- oaoved from his native province to a desert part of North Carolina ; and thence^ accompanied by a sjuall band of friends who partook his tastes and depended on his geioius, he performed his more famous migration to Ken- tucky. These adventurers, attached to hunting and solitude, served as aa: advanced guard or body of pioneers to a race of more stationary colonists i commencing settlements at a great variety of spots, which they successively abandoned to other emigrants, from whose approaches and vicinity thejr invariably receded. Bravely persisting in a course of hfe fraught with labor and danger, and yet attended with health, strength, and happiness unstained: by guilt,^ they laid the foundation of a great and flourishing State, which, only fifteen years after its colonization began, contained a population of CDore than eighty thousand souls.^ CHAPTER III Impolicy of the British Measures. — Affiray betweea the Troops and the Feopfe of Boston. — Partial Repeal of the Tea-duty Act — unsatisfactory to the Americana. — Perplexity of the; British Ministry. — Tucker's Scheme. — Writers on the American Controversy. — Insur- rection of the Regulators in North Carolina. — Resistance in Rhode Island. — Governor Hutchmson. — Proceedings in Massachusetts — and in Virginia. — Attempt of Massachu- setts to abolish the Slave-trade ^- resisted by the British Government. — British Attempt to exact the Tea-duty — successfully resisted in America — tumultuously defeated at Bos- ton. — Disclosure of Hutchinson's Letters. — Dismissal of Franklin from the British Service. — Taunting Language in England. — The Shakers. — European Emigrations to America. /-Nothing could be more unwise or illiberal than the plan, if plan it may be called, of policy pursued by the British government in the controversy with America. It was varied only by alternations of unjust encroachment, haughty menace, and concession so tardily yielded and so insolently ex- pressed, as to be always inefficacious, and generally affronting. Where it ' All the accounts of him that I have seen agree in representing him as wholly illiterate ; and yet, many years after this period, he wrote an interesting and even elegant narrative of his early adventures in Kentucky, wliich is published in Imlay's Topographical Description of the Western Territory nf JVortfi America^ and also prefixed to MeteaJf's Collection of J^arra- tives of Indian Warfare in the West. ..,-,.♦ -..• '» ,» ■:. 2 See Note XXXI , at the end of the volume. v~ - r ^^ • =- 3 Humphrey Marshall's History t^ KetUucky. Xarralivt af tki JUvmturta of Daniel Boen, from his first Arrival in Kentucky., in 1769, to the End of the Year 1782. Holmes. Warden. VOL. II. 57 LL* 450 ■ HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. announced vigor, it served to rouse and exasperate the Americans ; where it affected lenity, it encouraged without conciliating them.^ Its illiberahty arose from the character of the king and the temper of the British parha- ment and nation ; its incoherence and imbecility may be traced partly to the composition, and partly to the fluctuations, of the British cabinet.^ Each successive administration, inheriting the sprrit of its predecessors, or con- trolled by the temper of the court or nation, but regardless of the credit of the measures of former cabinets, and willing to evade any share of their unpopularity, repealed them with a readiness that inspirited, and yet with an insolence that provoked, the colonists ; assigning as the sole reasons of repeal motives of English interest and convenience, which arraigned the wisdom of the authors of those measures, guarded the dignity of the re- pealing cabinet, and soothed the pride of the nation. The lessons so plain- ly taught by the introduction and the repeal of the Stamp Act, instead of operating as a warning, were perversely used as a model, to which the British government with steadfast pride continued ever after to accommodate its policy, which was always wise too late, and vibrated between the opposite traits of rashness in repeating irritating measures, and delay in applying remedial ones, which were invariably deferred till the relative evils had be- come incurable. It seemed as if the first false step made by Grenville had pledged his country to persist in a perilous experiment, in which the chances of success were additionally diminished by frequent changes in the instrumental process, arising mainly from the fluctuating composition of the cabinet. Those changes, it is true, were promoted in some degree by the violent resistance of the Americans to every form in which the overture of bereaving them of their liberties was repeated ; but this circumstance was either never clearly perceived or never justly appreciated by the British ministers, who, with amazing folly, believed, that, by abandoning an assault upon American liberty in one quarter, they would facilitate an attempt upon it in another. With strange disregard or misconception of the most notorious properties of human nature, they believed, or at least acted as if they believed, that all the indignant and courageous spirit aroused in a brave and free people by an obnoxious measure must be instantly dissipated or assuaged by its repeal ; that provocations might be repeated without producing any increase or accumulation of hostile and impatient sentiment ; and that it was always in their power, by a change of policy, however tardy, however ungracious, however flattering to the eflicacy of American resistance, at once to disband all the swelling host of angry passions from whose col- lected fury and victorious force or menace they were compelled to retreat. Yet every observant man, who has witnessed the rise and progress of a rev- olution, must have remarked that a nation excited to violent resistance of oppression is less gratified by immediate success than disquieted by a crav- ' It was about this time that a party of English noblemen and gentlemen, travelling in Ger- many, were entertained at Potsdam by Frederick (styled the Great), king of Prussia, who took occasion to turn the discourse on the controversy between Britain and America. He said that it was a difficult thing to govern men by force at such a distance; that, if the Americans should be beaten, which appeared a little problematical, still it would be next to impossible to draw a revenue from them by taxation ; that, if the English intended conciliation, their measures were too rough ; and if subjugation, they were too gentle. Moore's Travels in Germany. * The frequent changes of administration in the commencement of the reign of George the Third have been ascribed, with much show of reason, by Edmund Burke, to a design cher- ished at court of destroying, by deceiving, disuniting, and disgracing, the leading members of the Whiggish aristocracy of England. See Burke's Thoughts on the Causes of the existing' Discontents,' t.-'T-iH •♦r-' yi v^vHt *s^l-isi V■♦'^^ ^ - ■■ ,-"■- '^ ,.*■■ ,t>- '•■ -^-^'^ ^'' ^:.-^-'.-^" "- '■^.*-f* •''' -'* CHAP, in.] IMPOLICY OF THE BRITISH MEASURES. 45| ing demand for some object whereon to wreak its exuberant energy and unexpended rage. What would have been the entire effect of a deliberate espousal and steady prosecution of lenient and liberal policy it is impossi- ble to define ; but we may safely conclude that most probably it would have promoted the interest, and certainly it would not have impaired the honor and dignity, of Great Britain. A uniform course of rigorous asser- tion of authority, on the other hand, would have accelerated a critical strug- gle, of which the retardation was highly favorable to the interests of Ameri- can liberty. By the course (for truly it is an abuse of language to term it a plan) which was actually pursued, the Americans were thoroughly aroused by attacks on a great variety of points, animated by partial successes, strengthened by the lapse of time, and confirmed in obstinacy of purpose by protracted and indecisive contention. Every principle of good policy, deducible from the issue of the Stamp Act, manifestly inculcated that Britain should either desist altogether from attempts to tax America, or at least should impose no tax obnoxious to the general opposition, or defeasible by the general resistance of the col- onists. A second and similar failure in an experiment of such importance was by all means to be avoided ; and Townshend, indeed, had vainly imag- ined that by his Tea-duty Act he at once asserted the authority of Britain, and obviated the scruples and objections of America. But, with the pres- ent ministry, this measure possessed no claim of parental or kindly regard sufficient to counterbalance the difficulties occasioned by the vehement opposition of the Americans, and the remonstrances of the British mer- chants who suffered from the non-importation agreements. Reckoning the authority which they administered defied, and actuated by a sense of of- fended dignity, they embraced vindictive measures against the colonists on account of the mode in which they had conducted their opposition to a statute for which the cabinet itself entertained little concern or respect. They even warmly opposed a proposition for the repeal of this statute, which, with strange inconsistency, was introduced in the close of the same session of parliament that produced the violent address to the king against the prov- ince of Massachusetts. On this occasion, it was contended by the ministers and their friends, with sincere and exalted folly, that repeal, though warrant- ed and even enjoined by general principles of national policy, was forbid- den by the peculiar circumstances of the juncture ; and Lord North, in particular, declared, that, " however prudence or policy may hereafter induce us to repeal the late act, I hope we shall never think of it till we see Jlmer" ica prostrate at our feet.'*'* Yet, no sooner was the parliamentary session concluded, than the ministers gave notice to the provincial agents and other persons interested in American affairs at London, that in the following year the grievances of America should be certainly redressed ; and in the course of the summer, Lord Hillsborough, in circular letters to all the colonies, signified the intention of himself and his colleagues " to propose in the next session of parliament taking off the duties on glass, paper, and colors, upon consideration of such duties having been laid contrary to the true principles of commerce''^ ; and declared that the cabinet ''entertained no de- sign to propose to parliament to lay any farther taxes on America for the purpose of raising a revenue." Lord Botetourt, on receiving this intelligence, hastened to communicate it to the Virginian assembly (which he reconvoked) in a speech so cour- 452 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. teotis and conciliatory, and expressive of so much warmth of regard for America, that his language gave to the tidings it conveyed more influence than was due to their own intrinsic grace ; and yet the assembly, though they returned an affectionate and respectful answer to his communication, expressed hope and confidence in a tone that implied fear and distrust. When the impression produced by Loi-d Botetourt's gracious manners had subsided, they recorded in their journals a protest expressive of their con- viction that partial remedies were incompetent to heal the existing distem- pers. To the Americans in general the intelligence transmitted by Lord Hillsborough was far from satisfactory. The purposed exception of the duty on tea from repeal, and the professed design of repealing the other duties upon mere commercial principles, excited anew their jealousy, and confirmed them in the opinion that the groundwork of the present grievances Ivas not to be abandoned, but to be reserved for a future opportunity of fresh essays fof the imposition of internal taxes boundless in extent and end- less in deration. No sooner was the tenor of Lord Hillsborough's letter tvm.de known in Massachusetts, than the merchants and traders of Boston, at a general meeting, unaniraously resolved that the projected repeal was iBtended merely to gratify the British manufacturers, and was inadequate to repair or remedy the grievances of America ; and they renewed their former agreement to i-mport no more goods from Britain till the late revenue acts should be totally repealed. So little of pacific influence did Lord Hillsborough's cofnmunication exert, that, in Pennsylvania, a much stronger demonstration of aversion was elicited by the terms of the proposed repeal than had been provoked by the measure itself which was to be partially abrogated. A committee of the principal merchants of Philadelphia, in a letter addressed to the merchants of London, protested that the system of government disclosed by all the measures of the present reign was such as the Americans could not tamely submit to [November 25, 1769] ; that this system tended to sap the foundations of liberty, justice, and property in America, and to strip her citizens of every blessing essential to the dignity and happiness of human life ; that these were not merely the ideas of spec- olative politicians, but the sentiments and language of the people in general ; for in no country was the love of liberty more deeply rooted, or the knowl- edge of the rights of freemen more widely diffused, than in America ; that hothing short of a repeal of all the late revenue acts, and the restoration ©f that state of things which existed prior to the commencement of these innovations, now could or would satisfy the minds of the people ; that Brit- ain by her fleets and armies might overawe the towns, and by her severe •restrictions, her admiralty courts, and custom-house officers, ruin the trade ef America ; but that, while every American farmer was a freeholder, the Spirit of liberty would continue to prevail, and all attempts to divest them m the privileges of freemen must be attended with consequences injurious both to the colonies and to the parent state. ^ The little confidence reposed by the Americans in the British cabinet, ttnd in its promises of a redress of grievances, was still farther impaired by a change which the ministry soon after underwent, in the secession from its ranks of Lord Camden, who resigned the seals [January, 1770], and of Dunning, the celebrated constitutional lawyer and friend of liberty, who had been solicitor-general. But before the projected measure of the cabinet ^^ Bradford. Burk's Virginia. Hutchinson. > '^ . CHAP. Ill] AFFRAY WITH THE TROOPS IN BOSTON. 453. was carried into effect, a circumstance occurred in America fitted to coun- teract the efficacy even of a much greater stretch of conciliation. The British senate had been assured by Franklin that a military force despatched to America, though it would not find, would easily create, a rebellion ; but more credit was given by the present ministers to the representations of Bernard, Hutchinson, Oliver^ Paxton, and other partisans of prerogative, that an impending rebellion could be averted only by the exhibition of mili- tary power. Ever since the arrival of the troops at Boston, the inhabitants of this city regarded tbe presence of these instruments of despotic au- thority with an increasing sense of indignity ; and reciprocal insults and injuries paved the way for a tragical event which made a deep and lasting impression of resentment in America. An aflray, which commenced be- tween an inhabitant of the town and a private soldier, having been gradually extended by the participation of the fellow-citizens of the one and the com- rades of the other, terminated to the advantage of the soldiers, and in- flamed the populace with a passionate desire of vengeance, which, it has been justly or unjustly surmised, was fomented by some persons of con- sideration, who hoped that the removal of the troops would be promoted by a conflict between them and the towns-people. [March 2, 1770.] A cor- responding animosity was cherished by the soldiers, some of whom were severely hurt in the affray. They began to carry clubs in their hands when they walked in the streets, gave other symptoms of willingness to renew the conflict, and evinced the most insulting contempt for the citizens, to whom their presence was already sufficiently offensive. After the lapse of three days from the first affray [March 5], and after various symptoms had betrayed that some dangerous design was harboured on both sides, a party of soldiers, while under arms in the evening, were assaulted by a con- gregation of tbe populace, who pressed upon them, struck some of them, loaded them with insults, terming them bloody-backs (in allusion to the barbarous practice of flogging in the British army) and cowards, and taunt- ingly See Note XXXIII., at the end of the volume. CtlAP. HI] DISCLOSURE OF HUTCHINSON'S LETTERS. 477 the worth and honor of the ends to which they were applied, are the only questions deserving of regard. Shortly after the letters were received in Boston, some expressions un- guardedly or artfully dropped by one or two of the persons to whom they were imparted caused a rumor to arise of matters deeply interesting to the public weal which it was in the power of certain individuals to disclose. The real truth was distorted by mystery and alarm ; the public mind be- came exceedingly agitated ; and at length the assembly, interposing, de- manded a disclosure of the letters, which were accordingly delivered up to them by the custodiers.^ Possessed now of the testimony of Hutchinson's perfidy (for such was the light in which they viewed his conduct)^ they de- sired him to inform them if he acknowledged the authorship of the letters which purported to be his. He requested that they might be sent to him for examination ; but the assembly declined to comply with his request, and deputed a committee of their own body to exhibit the letters to him ; and to this deputation he acknowledged that he had written them. The assembly thereupon caused the letters to.be made public, and, having passed resolutions [June 15] strongly condemnatory of Hutchinson and Oliver, transmitted a petition to the king complaining of these individuals for calumni- ating his subjects to his ministers, and praying him to remove them from their official situations in the province. This petition was presented by Franklin, as the provincial agent ; and the cause was appointed to be tried before the privy council. Franklin assured the ministers that they were now presented with an opportunity of reestabhshing harmony between Britain and Amer- ica, by a gracious reception of the complaints of the colonists, and sacri- ficing to their indignation the insidious counsellors by whom the international quarrel had been fomented ; and from the language of the Earl of Dart- mouth, successor of Lord Hillsborough, he was led for a while to hope that this conciliatory experiment would be attempted. But Franklin had become the object of strong suspicion and dislike to the prevailing party in the British court and cabinet, who highly resented his sarcastic strictures in the newspapers upon their colonial policy, and were informed by their partisans in America that his letters to the popular leaders were replete with the most treasonable counsels and malicious instigations. Besides, the line of conduct which he recommended to the ministry on the present occasion was such as honor and shame alike forbade them to embrace. It was impossible that they should consent to punish two of their partisans for communications which they themselves had encouraged them to make, and had sanctioned by the corresponding measures they adopted. In truth, Hutchinson and OHver had rather flattered than inspired the imperious disposition of the British court. After some delay, the pe- tition of the Massachusetts assembly was discussed before the privy council [January 29, 1774] ; when Wedderburn, the solicitor-general (afterwards Lord Loughborough), attending as the counsel for Hutchinson, discharged a torrent of insulting sarcasm and outrageous invective and ribaldry ^ against ' Some of the expressions in the letters were peculiarly calculated to create offence and irri- tation in America. Hutchinson expressed the most arrogant contempt for the popular leaders, and declared that the people in general, when not deluded by false alarms, equally despised them. Oliver, in suggesting a particular measure to the ministry, observed of it, that, " By such a step, the game will be up with my countrymen." 2 " This wily^American," said Wedderburn, " has forfeited all the respect of societies and men. Into wnat companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest 478 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL the character and conduct of Franklin, whose venerable appearance and illustrious reputation could neither check the flow of the pleader's witty- malice, nor deter the lords of the council from testifying by laughter and ap- plause the entertainment which this unworthy and indecent scene afforded them. A more decorous and temperate harangue would have proved far more injurious to the cause and character of Frankhn. But, as usual, in- temperate attack produced indiscriminate vindication ; and the partisans of American liberty were provoked to extol Franklin's conduct with unmerited encomium, because their antagonists had assailed it with disproportioned rep- robation.' The discussion terminated by a judgment of the privy council acquitting Hutchinson and Ohver from blame and rejecting the petition of Massachusetts. On the following day, Franklin was dismissed by the Brit- ish government from the office of postmaster-general of America. These proceedings, and especially the elaborate malignity of insult heaped upon a man whom they so highly admired and respected, sank deeply into the minds of the Americans. Another act of British power, that was directed with the most childish absurdity against the scientific repute of Franklin, awakened the liveliest derision and disdain in America. For the king shortly after, trans- ported by the blindest abhorrence of the American philosopher for whom he had once professed esteem, actually caused the electrical conductors invented by Franklin to be removed from the palace of Buckingham House, and re- placed by instruments of far less skilful construction and efficient capacity.^ But the triumph of Hutchinson was short. He had now become so generally hateful to his countrymen, that it was impossible for the British government, with the slightest regard to the interest of its own service, to retain him any longer as the representative of the king in Massachusetts. The strong measures, besides, which the government was provoked to em- brace by the intelligence of the destruction of the East India Company's tea at Boston, required that a more vigorous and less odious hand should be employed in their execution. Hutchinson accordingly was commanded soon after to repair to England, professedly to communicate information to the ministers with regard to the state of the colonies. Along with Tryon, who was afterwards recalled from New York, and Carleton, the governor of Canada, he was desired by the cabinet to declare his opinion whether the Americans, in the last extremity, would venture to resist the arms of Britain. Hutchinson confidently predicted that they would either not fight at all, or at most offer no farther opposition than what a few troops could easily quell. Carleton protested that America might certainly be conquered, but that a considerable army would be necessary for this purpose ; and that, for intrepidity of virtue ? Men will watch him with a jealous eye, and hide their papers from him. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters^ — homo trium lite- rarum.'^ ' Some persons have even ventured to defend Franklin's conduct by assimilating his posi- tion to that of the minister of one of two belligerent states. But war had not yet arisen between Britain and America ; and Franklin himself was a British officer as well as an Amer- ican agent. If Athens had been at war with the other states of Greece, the virtue of Aristides would not have condemned nor Athenian wisdom rejected the project of Themistocles for surprising and capturing the Grecian fleet. Franklin's conduct will recall to some readers a remarkable passage in the life of Sir Henry Vane. ' Franklin's Memoirs. Annual Register for 1774. Gordon. Stuart's Three Years in North America. About a year after the insulting treatment of Franklin in England, Don Gabriel, one of the princes of the royal family of Spain, sent him a present of a version of Sallust which he had produced. Franklin, in acknowledging this mark of respect, took occasion to inform the prince that there was rising in America a powerful state, whose interest, he judged, would dictate a close and friendly connection with Spain. Franklin's Private Correspondence. CHAP, m.] QUESTION OF CONQUERING AMERICA. 479 himself, he would not venture to march against New York or Boston with a smaller force than ten thousand men. Tryon declared that Britain would require large armies and long efforts to bring America to her feet ; that her power was equal to any thing ; but that all that power must be exerted in order to put the monster in chains. The representations of Hutchinson were the most congenial to the sentiments and the temper of the British government ; and, unfortunately for England, they were corroborated by the kindred folly and ignorance of many British statesmen and officers. " The Americans are a degenerate race of Europeans, — they have nothing of the soldier in them," was the customary language of men who were destined by their own defeats to illustrate the valor which they depreciated, and who learned too late to consider the Americans as a regenerated race of Europeans, in whom the energy of freemen more than supplied the me- chanical expertness of severely disciplined slaves. General Clarke, with an impudence equalled only by the absurdity of his language, declared in a company of learned men at London, and in the hearing of Dr. Franklin, that, with a thousand British grenadiers, he would undertake to march from one end of America to the other, and shamefully mutilate all the male inhabit- ants, partly by force and partly by a little persuasion. Another general officer asserted, in the House of Commons, that *' The Yankees (a foohsh nickname which now began to be applied to the Americans) never felt hold.'*^ The speeches of other military officers in parliament, and of the prime minister. Lord North, conveyed ideas equally calculated to delude their countrymen and to inflame by contumely all the rage and courage which injustice and injury had already kindled in the Americans. '-'Believe we, my lords," said the Earl of Sandwich, first lord of the admiralty, in the House of Peers, ''the first sound of a cannon will send the Americans a running as fast as their feet can carry them." Unfortunately for his country, he was believed. The extraordinary and injudicious delay and hesitation, which contributed to defeat the subsequent mihtary operations of Britain in America, have been ascribed to these representations, and to the convic- tion they promoted, that only a distinct and certain view of their own danger was requisite to obtain from the Americans an abandonment of every pre- tension that could possibly induce a conflict with the force of Britain. The British government, and the nation in general, deluded by ignorance, preju- dice, offended pride, and false views of interest, were now fully animated with that haughty spirit which precedes and produces disappointment and calamity ; and the evil genius of England seemed to rise in almost every breast. 1 While the delusion lasted, Hutchinson was caressed by the court, and rendered so giddy by vain expectation, that, in letters to America, he announced his approaching elevation to a British peerage. A short time, however, sufficed to open the eyes of the ministry and the nation, so far at ' Even the administrators of British authority were constrained to acknowledge this, long before the termination of the contest. In 1778, Lord Carlisle, William Eden, and George Johnstone were appointed commissioners of the British crown for the pacification of revolted America. To this end, they (vainly) offered larger concessions than America prior to her re- volt had ever demanded ; and Johnstone, in a letter to his friend Laurens, the president of the American Congress, urged him not to " follow ike example of Britain in the hour of her inso- lence.'^ Jinnual Register for 1778. Not less insolent and absurd were the language and conduct of the Spanish Cortes in 1810. " / know not to what class of beasts the Americans belong : such were the expressions heard and applauded in the Cortes, when the rights of the colonists were agitated in that assembly." Napier's History of the Peninsular War. 480 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. least as to render the folly and mischief of his counsels glaringly apparent. He was permitted thenceforward to hide his disgrace and the misery that preyed on his closing life in a retirement near London, undisturbed by am- bitious prospect, and uncheered by a single ray of court favor. He lived to see Britain, to whose predominance he was so much devoted, involved in disgrace and disaster, and his native America irrecoverably ahenated from her and wasted with fire and sword, by the conduct and policy which he had abetted ; and died before the conclusion of the struggle, . oppressed with a load of mortification, and heart-broken by the deaths of children whom he tenderly loved. ^ Some attempts were made, about this period, to encourage the produc- tion of silk, and to promote the cultivation of the grape and the manufac- ture of wine in the Southern States of Anierica. In the year 1772, a considerable quantity of fine silk was exported from Purysburg, in South Carolina, to England ; and in the same year, St. Pierre, a Frenchman in- habiting that province, obtained from the society established at London for encouragement of the arts a gold medal for wine, the produce of his planta- tion, and from the Board of Trade a recommendation to the patronage of the Lords of the Treasury for his successful culture of silk and vines. ^ In the year 1773, William Bartram, son of the great American botanist, who has already engaged our notice,^ undertook, at the request of Dr. Fothergill, a Quaker and distinguished physician in London, an exploratory tour in Carolina, Georgia, and Florida ; directed chiefly, though not exclu- sively, to the extension of botanical science. He afterwards pubhshed the details of his travels and observations, in a very interesting work."* It de- scribes accurately and eloquently the scenery and natural productions of the regions visited by the author, and relates his personal adventures with much simplicity and elegance. It is copiously interspersed with fine and ardent expressions of devotional sentiment, derived from what is called nat- ural (not revealed) rehgion, and of benevolent regard and even tender con- cern for the happiness of all living creatures. It contains, however, some passages in which thoughts and actions little redolent of piety or virtue are recorded with serene satisfaction or uncompunctious indifference. And yet the author professed the tenets and was (like his father) a member of the society of Quakers. In the course of this year, there was extended to America the ramifica- tion of a singular religious sect, engendered by a coalition between some French fanatics who called themselves prophets, and a portion of the Quaker community of England. The separate association that ensued topk the name of The Shakers ; because they conceived themselves the depositaries of truths fitted by their awful grandeur and solemn importance to shake the hu- man soul. A woman named Anne Lee, who was recognized as the spiritual mother of the society in England, and had been immured for some time as a lunatic in an English madhouse, escaping from her confinement, set sail now with some associates for America. The deliverance of the vessel that ' Eliot. Franklin's Private Correspondence. Dwight. The only dignity which Hutchin- son obtained in England was conferred by the University of Oxford, which, on the 3d of July, 1776 (the day preceding the declaration of American independence), bestowed upon him, and upon Peter Oliver, the title of Doctor in Civil Law. Catalogue of Graduates in the University of Oxford, 1659 - 1782. 2 Annual Register for 1772. ^ -Qq^^]^ x., Chap. II., ante. : , * TraceZs, &c., by William Bartram. , ^ . CHAP. III.] EMIGRATION TO AMERICA. 43| conveyed her from the violence of a storm was ascribed by her followers to the exertion of her miraculous power ; and when she died, some years after, she was declared by the American Shakers to have been " taken up out of the sight of the true believers." Of this society, which rapidly and extensively diffused its influence and multiphed its votaries, the principles seem to have been borrowed by derivation or exaggeration from the pecuhar notions of the Quakers and the Methodists. One of the most respectable of their distinctive tenets was, that a dirty, slovenly, careless, or indolent per- son could not possibly be a true Christian. Hence, a regulation arose, that every member, male and female, of the society, must be invariably neat and clean, and constantly employed in some description of honest and moderate labor. ^ A new college was founded, in the present year, in Virginia. This insti- tution, though supported by several eminent scholars and philosophers, never attained a flourishing state, and chiefly claims our notice from the significant name it assumed of Hampden- Sidney College.^ Dr. John Ewing, a native of Maryland, who had acquired a high reputa- tion by his lectures on natural philosophy in the University of Pennsyl- vania, and received the most flattering testimonies of honor and esteem from the University of Edinburgh and the corporations of the principal towns in Scotland, visiting Britain in 1773, was introduced to Lord North, to whom he predicted, with characteristic frankness, sagacity, and patriotism, the issue of the dispute with America, if the British persisted in their scheme of taxation.^ During the whole period of her controversy with Britain, America de- rived a continual increase of strength from domestic growth* and from the flow of European emigration. Her territories presented varieties of human condition and diversified attractions adapted to almost every imaginable peculiarity of human taste, — from scenes of peace and repose, to circum- stances of romantic adventure and interesting danger, — from the rudeness, the silence, and solitude of the forest, to the refinements of cultivated hfe, and the busy hum of men in flourishing, populous, and improved societies, — from the lawless liberty of the back settlements, to the dominion of the most austerely moral legislation that ever prevailed among mankind. No complete memorial has been transmitted of the particulars of the emigrations that took place from Europe to America at this period ; but (from the few illustrative facts that are actually preserved) they seem to have been amaz- ingly copious. In the years 1771 and 1772, the number of emigrants to America from the North of Ireland alone amounted to 17,350, almost all of whom emigrated at their own charge ; a great majority consisting of persons employed in the Hnen manufacture, or farmers, and possessed of some prop- erty which they converted into money and carried with them. Within the first fortnight of August, 1773, there arrived at Philadelphia three thousand five hundred emigrants from Ireland ; and from the same document which has recorded this circumstance it appears that vessels were arriving every month, freighted with emigrants from Holland, Germany, and especially from Ire- 1 Dwight's Travels. * Miller's Retrospect. ' .American Quarterly Review. * The population of Connecticut, according to a census published by its provincial assembly, amounted this year to 191,392 white persons, and 6,464 blacks, — .Annual Register for 1774, — an increase of about 50,000 souls, since the year 1763 (Appendix III., ante), in a provirce which received but few emigrants, and supplied a considerable emigration to other quarters )f America. VOL. II. 61 00 482 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. land and the Highlands of Scotland. About seven hundred Irish settlers repaired to the Carolinas in the autumn of 1773 ; and, in the course of the same season, no fewer than ten vessels sailed from Britain with Scottish Highlanders emigrating to the American States. As most of the emigrants, and particularly those from Ireland and Scotland, were persons discontented with their condition or treatment in Europe,^ their accession to the colonial population, it might reasonably be supposed, had no tendency to diminish or counteract the hostile sentiments towards Britain which were daily gath- ering force in America. And yet these persons, especially the Scotch, were in general extremely averse to an entire and abrupt rejection of British authority. Their patriotic attachment, enhanced«as usual by distance from its object, always resisted and sometimes prevailed over their more rational and prudent convictions ; and more than once, in the final struggle, were the interests of British prerogative espoused and supported by men who had been originally driven by hardship and ill usage from Britain to America. Among other emigrants doubtless cherishing little reverence for their native coun- try, whom Britain continued to discharge upon her colonies, were numbers of convicted felons, who were conveyed in general to the States in which to- bacco was cultivated, and labored during the allotted period of their exile with the negro slaves. Of these persons, the most abandoned characters generally found their way back to England ; but many contracted improved habits, and remained in America. All enlightened and patriotic Americans resented as an indignity, and all the wealthy slave-owners detested as a po- litical mischief, this practice of the parent state, — of which the last instance seems to have occurred in the course of the present year.^ In England, many persons were so unjust and unreasonable as to make the conduct of their government in this respect a matter of insult and reproach to the Amer- icans, — as if the production of crime were not a circumstance more truly disgraceful to a people than their casual and involuntary association with criminals. A convention was held this year in Georgia, by Sir James Wright, the governor of the colony, with a numerous deputation of the chiefs of the Creek and Cherokee tribes, who willingly ceded to the British king several millions of acres of valuable land, in the most fertile and salubrious part of the country, for the payment of debts which they owed to European mer- chants who had traded with them. A transaction of very different charac- ter occurred at the same time in Virginia, where a war broke out with the Ohio Indians, in consequence of a series of reciprocal injuries, wherein the European colonists, if not the aggressors (which, however, there is reason to suppose they were), at least merited the reproach of exceeding their savage antagonists in the infliction of summary, indiscriminate, and dispro- portioned revenge. The Virginian government despatched a strong body of militia, under the command of Colonel Lewis, to oppose the enemy ; and after a bloody engagement in the woods, in which the colonial troops re- pulsed the Indians, but with great difficulty, and the loss of several hundred men on their own side, the quarrel was adjusted and peace again restored.^ ' " September 23, 1775. The ship Jupiter, from Dunstaffnage Bay, with two hundred emi- grants on board, chiefly from Argyleshire, set sail for North Carolina ; the men declaring that the oppressions of their landlords were such as they could no longer submit to." Annual Register for 1775. Many passages of similar import occur in the British journals at this epoch. • ^ Holmes. Annual Register for 1772, for 1773, and for 1774. Franklin's Works. * Jefferson. Burk. Holmes Jefferson's account (by no means creditable to his own I CHAP. IV. BOSTON PORT BILL. 433 CHAPTER IV. Boston Port Bill — and other British Measures — their Effects in America. — Proposition of a General Congress. — Suffolk Resolutions. — Meeting of the first American Congress — its Proceedings. — Transactions in New England. — Proceedings of the British Ministrj^ and Parliament. — Defensive Preparations in America. — Affair of Lexington. — The Americans surprise Ticonderoga and Crown Point. — Battle of Bunker's Hill. — Second American Congress — prepares for War — elects a Commander-in-chief — George Washington. — Transactions in Virginia. — Progress of Hostilities. — American Invasion of Canada. The dispute between the mother country and her colonies had now at- tracted so much interest and attention in Europe, and the national spirit and pride of the English people were so much provoked by the undisguised defiance of an inferior and dependent state, that, even if it had been the wish, it was no longer in the power, of the king's ministers to overlook an open contravention of the sovereign authority, or to refrain from vindicating this prerogative with a rigor and energy proportioned to the affront it had received. In this position of the ministry and temper of the nation, the in- telligence which was received of the recent events in America, and especial- ly of the destruction of the tea at Boston, was communicated to both houses of parliament by a message from the king [March 7, 1774], in which the American colonists were reproached with attempting at once to injure the commerce and subvert the constitution of Great Britain. Although it was manifest, from the documents which accompanied the royal message, that the opposition by which the sale of the tea in America had been defeated was common to all the colonies, yet the ministers and a great majority of the parliament, exasperated at the peculiar violence displayed at Boston, determined to select this town as the sole or at least the primary object of legislative vengeance. It was reckoned that a partial blow might be dealt to America with much greater severity than could be prudently exerted in more extensive punishment ; and it was, doubtless, expected that the Amer- icans in general, without being irritated by personal suffering, would be struck with terror by the rigor inflicted on a town so long renowned as the bulwark of their liberties. Without even the decent formality of requiring the inhabitants of Boston to exculpate themselves, but definitively assuming their guilt, in conformity with the despatches of a governor who was notori- ously at enmity with them, the ministers introduced into parliament a bill for suspending the trade and closing the harbour of Boston during the pleasure of the king. [March 14, 1774.] They declared that the duration of this severity would depend on the conduct of those on whom it was inflicted ; for it would assuredly be relaxed, as soon as the people of Boston should make compensation for the tea that was destroyed, and otherwise satisfy the king of their sincere purpose to render due submission to his government. The bill, on its first introduction to the House of Commons, encountered little opposition ; only a few members vaguely remarking that America was alto- gether in a very distempered condition, and that a malady so general and formidable demanded remedial applications, not partial and violent, but deli- countrvmen) of this Indian war in Virginia is rendered particularly interesting by the gran \ and solemn, yet touching and tender, harangue which he has preserved of Logan, an Indian chief, to Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia. Logan seems to have been the original whence Campbell derived the fine conception of .Outalissi. 484 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. cate, temperate, and of diffusive efficacy ; and though a more special and forcible opposition, exerted in long debates, attended the progress of the measure, yet was it carried in both houses of parHament without a single division in either.^ It was deemed inexpedient by obstinate resistance to weaken a blow which the government, supported by a majority, w^as deter- mined to inflict. Several Americans resident at London presented ineffect- ual petitions to both houses against the bill. Bollan, the agent for the coun- cil of Massachusetts, tendered a petition desiring to be heard at the bar of the House of Commons in behalf of the council, as well as of himself and other inhabitants of Boston, against a measure so injurious to their native country and its commerce. But the house refused even to permit his pe- tition to be read ; assigning a nice and subtle technical objection to the rep- resentative functions which he claimed, and which yet had been recently recognized in other parliamentary transactions. This proceeding gave an air of insolent injustice and of vindictive precipitation to the policy of the British government, and was heavily censured, not only by the partisans of America, but by all prudent and impartial men. It was rendered the more irritating to the people of Massachusetts by the recollection, that the same governor, whose charges they were now precluded from gainsaying, had been indulged in the utmost latitude of defence, when his conduct was arraigned and they w^ere his accusers. The Boston Port Bill was but the first step in the march of coercive policy which the British ministry were now determined to pursue. It was followed shortly after [April, 1774] by an act which introduced the most important alterations into the structure of the provincial government of Mas- sachusetts, and bereaved this people of the most valued and considerable of the privileges which were assured to them by the charter granted after the Revolution of 1688. By this second legislative measure, it was enacted that the provincial council, heretofore elected by the representative assem- bly, should henceforth be appointed by the crown ; that the royal governor should enjoy the power of nominating and removing judges, sheriffs, and all other executive officers whose functions possessed the slightest impor- tance ; that jurymen, hitherto elected by the freeholders and citizens of the several towns, should in future be nominated and summoned by the sher- iffs ; and that no town-meetings of the people should be convoked without a permission in writing from the royal governor, and no business or matter be discussed at those meetings beyond the topics specified and approved in the governor's license. The town-meetings (as they were called), against which the latter provision was directed, were not less valued by the Ameri- cans than dreaded by the British government, which regarded them as the nurseries of sedition and rebellion. Their institution was coeval with the first foundation of civilized society in New England, and their endurance had sustained only a short interruption during the reign of James the Sec- ond, and the tyrannical administration of his minister, Sir Edmund Andros ; and while they presented the image, they partly supplied the place, of that pure democratical constitution which was originally planted in Massachu- ^ Shortly after the bill was passed, there appeared in the English newspapers the following epigram • — " TO THE MINISTRY. " You 've sent a rod to Massachuset, -v^ - ' Thinking the Americans will buss it ; • .' . - *■ But much I fear, for Britain's sake, That this same rod will prove a snake." " ' „_ ...' CHAP. IV.] INNOVATIONS ON MASSACHUSETTS CHARTER. 435 setts, and the modification of which by the second provincial charter that followed the British Revolution had always been to a numerous party among the colonists the subject of regretful or indignant remembrance. In losing this privilege, the people of New England beheld themselves stripped of the last remaining vestige of those peculiar advantages which were gained by the courage and virtue of their forefathers ; and, in invading it, the Brit- ish government palpably assimilated its own policy to that of a reign which had provoked successful revolt, and which was now universally reproached as tyrannical. It was anticipated by the British ministers that tumults and bloodshed might probably ensue on the first attempt to carry the new measures into execution ; and, not satisfied with the control which by the second statute they usurped over the administration of justice, they proceeded still farther to insure impunity to their functionaries by framing a third act of parliament [April 21, J 774], which provided, that, if any person were indicted for murder or for any other capital offence committed in aiding the magistracy of Massachusetts, it should be competent to the governor of this province to remit the accused party for trial either to another colony or to Great Britain. It was in vain that Edmund Burke, Colonel Barre,^ and other lib- eral politicians (who had also ineffectually opposed the second statute) raised their warning voices against this measure of superfluous insult and severity, and appealed to the recent issue of Captain Preston's trial as a refutation of the suspicions by which American justice was impeached. " I regret your error," said an aged member of the House of Commons to his col- leagues, " and I regret to see that it is partaken by the people. But you will soon be undeceived. If there ever was a nation running headlong to its ruin, it is this." Again were the ministers seconded, as before, by large majorities in both houses of parhament. Among other active supporters of the measure was Lord George Sackville Germaine, who, for his conduct at the battle of Minden in the preceding reign, was by the sentence of a court-martial branded with cowardice and incapacity and disabled from ever again exercising military command, but who had now become a favorite and minister of George the Third. The three acts were proposed and carried in such rapid succession as contributed greatly to enhance their inflammatory operation in America, where they were regarded as forming a complete system of tyranny. By the first (exclaimed the organs of popular opinion in all the American Slates), thousands of innocent persons are robbed of their livelihood for the act of a few individuals ; by the second^ our chartered liberties are annihilated ; and by the third^ our lives may be de- stroyed with impunity. The Boston Port Bill, says an American writer,^ distinguished no less by the personal aid than by the literary celebrity which he conferred on the independence of his country, might rather have pro- voked rage than promoted union among the provinces ; but the arbitrary mutilation of important privileges recognized by a solemn charter, decreed without a trial, and by the mere despotic will of the British parliament, * " The Americans," said Colonel Barre, " may be flattered into any thing ; but they are too much like yourselves to be driven. Have some indulgence for your own likeness; respect their sturdy English virtue." Yet Barre had voted for the Boston Port Bill. About a yeai after, Burk'e indignantly protested in the House of Commons, that " the faults which gmw out of the luxuriance of freedom appear much more shocking to us than the base vie* s which are generated in the ranknessof servitude." * Ramsay. 00 * 486 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI convinced every political thinker in America that the cause of Massachusetts was substantially the cause of all the American commonwealths. Towards the close of this memorable session of the British parliament, an act was passed with relation to the province of Canada, which merits our notice both on account of the policy and apprehensions which it discloses on the part of the royal cabinet, and of the effect which it produced in America, where now it was hardly possible for any measure of the su- preme government to inspire confidence or afford satisfaction. It was com- monly called The Quebec Billj and the object of its enactments was at once greatly to enlarge, at the expense of the original American possessions of England, the territory of Canada, and totally to alter the civil and ecclesi- astical constitution of this province. Both these changes, it was supposed, would be agreeable to the Canadians, and contribute to attach them to the British crown, or at least disincline them to any participation in the senti- ments, councils, and enterprises of the ancient colonies of England. After the conquest of Canada, Britain, with the hope of consoHdating all her American possessions by assimilation of their municipal systems, introduced into that province a representative assembly, trial by jury, and various other portions of the framework of English pohty and jurisprudence. The church of England, too, was proclaimed the supreme ecclesiastical establishment, and invested with privileges which encroached on the prior possessions of the Roman Catholic clergy. It was now declared by the British ministry (and was certainly true) that these measures were neither equitable in them- selves nor congenial to the tastes and habits of the Canadians ; and by the Quebec Bill, a legislative council, of which the members were nominated by the king and held their offices during his pleasure, was substituted in place of a representative assembly ; trial by jury (except in criminal cases) was abolished ; all the previously superseded laws of France were reestab- lished ; and the Catholic hierarchy restored to all its pristine wealth, dignity, and privileges. It was generally conceived by the people of America that the chief object of this measure was to convert the Canadians into proper instruments in the hands of British power for reducing them to a state of slavery. As Britain had new-modelled the chartered government of Mas- sachusetts, and claimed equal authority over all the other provinces, the Americans were apprehensive, that, in the plenitude of her imagined power, she would impose on them all, in their turns, a political constitution similar to that which she introduced into Canada.^ If intimidation was the effect which the cabinet of London hoped to pro- duce by its new measures, either particularly in Massachusetts or generally in America, it reaped from them as much disappointment as had attended all its previous operations. It has been conjecturally maintained by some writers,^ that a powerful army, despatched from England to Boston at this period, would have either completely overawed the people of New England, or provoked them to plunge abruptly into a revolt which the other prov- inces were not yet prepared to second. The effect of the measures that were actually embraced was, to produce an increase of irritation, union, and resolution throughout all America. That the new measures might be executed with suitable vigor, the government of Massachusetts, withdrawn * Annual Begister for 4774. Gordon. Franklin. Ramsay. Holmes. Pitkin. 3 Botia, ^nd other*. CHAP. IV.] EFFECTS OF THE RECENT ACTS. 437 from Hutchinson, was conferred on General Gage, the commander-in-chief of the .royal forces in North America, who, arriving at Boston [May 13, 1774], obtained from the citizens a reception of which the courtesy was a tribute partly to his plausible but insincere professions and deportment, and partly to the demerits and unpopularity of his predecessor. He ad- dressed the provincial council in terms which led them to believe that he credited their assurance, that the accounts of the disorders in Massachu- setts, conveyed by Hutchinson to England, were greatly exaggerated ; and yet, at the same time, he himself transmitted to the British government a bitter invective against all the inhabitants and local authorities of the prov- ince. In the same vessel which brought the new governor, there arrived the first copy that was received of the Boston Port Bill, of which the provisions were discussed in a numerous town-meeting on the following day. It was recommended by this civic convocation, as the most certain means of rescu- ing the liberties of America from destruction, that all commercial intercourse whatever with Britain and the West Indies should be renounced by the American States till the repeal of the act. " The impolicy, injustice, inhu- manity, and cruelty of this act," they declared, " exceed all our powers of expression. We therefore leave it to the just censure of others, and appeal to God and the world."*^ Authenticated reports of this proceeding were instantly conveyed to all the American assemblies. At each successive arrival of the recent parhamentary statutes from Brit- ain, innumerable copies of them were printed and circulated with amazing despatch in every quarter of America ; and, as the great bulk of the people were struck with a warm and resentful sense of the injuries inflicted on the inhabitants of Massachusetts, their indignation was progressively wound up to a most formidable pitch by the variety and repetition of provocation. The most diligent exertions, meanwhile, were employed by the leading politi- cians of America, from dissimilar motives, to cherish the general ardor, and yet restrain every partial and irregular ebullition of revolt. Timid and temporizing politicians, who either hoped or were determined never to embrace the extremity of a conflict with the arms of Britain, sought to recommend their pacific counsels without forfeiting their popularity, by freely condemning the conduct of the British government ; while the more resolved and ardent patriots, clearly perceiving that the extremity of war was inevi- table, sought to increase the zeal and number of their adherents by pro- tracting an irritating controversy, and to consolidate the strength of the American communities by rendering the common sentiments with which they were inspired subservient to a federal union. At Philadelphia, a lib- eral contribution was made for the relief of such of the poorer inhabitants of Boston as might be deprived of their hvelihood by the consequences of the Port Bill. In Virginia, a strong impression was produced by a pam- phlet, composed and published by Thomas Jefferson, entitled A Summary View of the Rights of British America. This performance its author de- signed as an exposition to the British monarch of. the wrongs inflicted on America and the sort of redress she would demand. " Open your breast, Sire," he says, addressing the king, " to liberal and expanded thought. It behooves you to think and act for your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader ; to peruse them requires not the aid of many counsellors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest." The Virginian House of Burgesses resolved that the 488 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. first of June, the day on which the operation of the Port Bill was to com- mence, should be set apart by the members as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, in order devoutly to implore the divine interposition to avert the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights^ and the evils of a civil war ; and to give them one heart and one mind firmly to oppost^ by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights.^ The Earl of Dunmore, a man whose rashness, arrogance, and incapacity ren- dered him a very unfit guardian of the interests of Britain in circumstances so arduous and perplexing, had been removed from the government of New York, which he held for a while, and was appointed governor of Virginia, where he succeeded the popular and lamented Lord Botetourt. On the publication of the foregoing resolution, he dissolved the provincial assembly ; but previous to their separation, eighty-nine of the members signed a declara- tion, in which they protested, " that an attack made upon one of our sister colonies to compel submission to arbitrary taxes is an attack made on all British America, and threatens ruin to the rights of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied." They also recommended to the com- mittee of correspondence, already established in Virginia, to propose to the respective committees in the other colonies the appointment of deputies from all the American States to meet annually in general congress, in order to watch over the united interest of America, and to deliberate upon and ascertain the measures best calculated to promote it. ''A tender regard," they significantly added, "for the interests of our fellow-subjects, the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain, prevents us from going farther at this time ; most earnestly hoping that the unconstitutional principle of taxing the colonies without their consent will not be persisted in, thereby to compel us, against our will, to avoid all commercial intercourse with Britain." At New York, the numbers and activity of the Tory party re- strained the assembly and the people at large from publicly expressing their sentiments with regard to the treatment of Massachusetts ; but Sears, M'Dougall, and other popular leaders, transmitted to their friends at Boston the strongest assurances of sympathy and support. On the day when the operation of the Boston Port Bill was appointed to commence [June 1], all the commercial business of the capital of Massa- chusetts was concluded at noon, and the harbour of this flourishing town was closed, — till the gathering storm of the Revolution was to reopen it. At Williamsburg, In Virginia, the day was devoutly consecrated to the re- ligious exercises recommended by the assembly. At Philadelphia it was solemnized by a great majority of the population with every testimonial of public grief ; all the inhabitants, except the Quakers, shut up their houses ; and after divine service, a deep and ominous stillness reigned in the city. In other parts of America it was also observed as a day of mourning ; and the sentiments thus widely awakened were kept alive and exasperated by the distress to which the inhabitants of Boston were reduced by the contin- ued operation of the Port Bill, and by the fortitude with w^hich they en- dured it. The rents of the landholders in and around Boston now ceased or were greatly diminished ; all the wealth vested in warehouses and wharves was rendered unproductive ; from the merchants was wrested the com- ' "With the help of Rushworth [meaning, doubtless, Rushworth's Collection of Documents rrJativc to the Civil War bettoeen Charles the First and his People], whom we rummaged for the revohilionary precedents of the Puritans of that day, we cooked up a resolution, — somewhat modernizing their ohrases." Jefferson apud Tucker CHAP. I v.] OPERATION OF THE BOSTON PORT BILL. 43^ merce they had reared, and the means alike of providing for their families and paying their debts ; the artificers employed in the numerous crafts nour- ished by an extensive commerce shared the general hardship ; and a great majority of that class of the community who earned daily bread by their daily labor were deprived of the means of support. But, animated still by that enduring and dauntless spirit of freedom which had been the parent principle of the New England communities, the inhabitants of Boston sustained the pressure of this calamity with inflexible fortitude. Their virtue was cheered by the sympathy, and their sufferings were mitigated by the generosity, of the sister colonies. In all the American States contributions were made for their rehef. Corporate bodies, town-meetings, and provincial conventions, from all quarters, transmitted to them letters and addresses, applauding their con- duct and exhorting them to perseverance.^ Although republican government was neither established nor even as yet openly affected in America, the prospect of it was beginning to dawn on the minds of men, and to educe that public spirit which no other form of civil polity is equally qualified to inspire. Among other erroneous calculations of the British ministers, they had expected that the Boston Port Bill would prove a source of jealousy and disunion within the province of Massachu- setts, by scattering among the neighbouring towns the benefits of all the com-, merce that was previously confined to the metropolis. But this policy was regarded with a generous disdain in Massachusetts, and produced only in- creased union and firmness of purpose among her people. The inhabitants of Marblehead offered to the Boston merchants the use of their harbour, wharves, and warehouses, together with their personal services in lading and unlading goods, free of all expense. The citizens of Salem concluded a remonstrance against the British measures, addressed to General Gage, in this honorable and patriotic strain : — " By shutting up the port of Boston, some imagine that the course of trade might be turned hither, and to our benefit ; but nature, in the formation of our harbour, forbids our becoming rivals in commerce with that convenient mart ; and even were it otherwise, we must be lost to every idea of justice, and dead to all the feelings of humanity, could we indulge one thought of raising our fortunes on the ruins' of our suffering neighbours.'' A great, though hitherto dependent country, of which the inhabitants thus resolutely withstood the power of the parent state, and approved themselves incapable ahke of being intimidated by dan- ger, impelled by distress, or seduced by interest, to a desertion of the cause of liberty, was ripe for national independence. The public agitation was not a httle increased by the publication of another pamphlet written by Jefferson, in which sentiments, approaching, if not amounting, to asser- tion of independence, were expressed with a fearless vigor and distinctness that greatly endeared the author to his countrymen, and caused him to be included in an act of attainder against certain of the leading patriots of America, which was introduced into one of the houses of the British parliament, but suppressed by the course of events, which recommended more cautious policy. In the midst of the ferment thus renewed in America, the assembly of Massachusetts, which had been adjourned from Boston to Salem by General ' Both on this and on other occasions, expressions of sympathy and encouragement, and even more substantial marks of friendship, were conveyed to the Americans from their friend.* in Britain. See Note XXXIV., at the end of the volurne. VOL. II. 62 490 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. Gage [June 7], revived a project which formerly emanated from its coun- cils, and the resumption of which we have seen recently suggested by the assembly of Virginia. It was resolved, that a general congress, or conven- tion of committees delegated by all the North American States, was highly expedient, and, indeed, urgently necessary, for the purpose of concerting proper measures for the recovery and establishment of the just rights and liberties of the Americans, and for "the restoration of that union and har- mony between Great Britain and the colonies, most ardently desired by all good men." In prosecution of this resolve, a committee of five of the most distinguished patriots of Massachusetts was appointed, to meet with the com- mittees that might be delegated by other provinces, at Philadelphia, in the month of September ; and authenticated reports of these proceedings were transmitted from Salem to all the representative assemblies in America. The necessity, or at least the advantage, of the proposed congress was universally acknowledged by the friends, more or less ardent and determined, of American liberty ; and as these formed everywhere the great bulk of the population, the measure originated by Massachusetts was gradually adopted by every colony from New Hampshire to South Carolina ; — that IS, by twelve of the existing North American States ; Georgia, the thirteenth and youngest, not yet taking an active part in the political transactions, which, nevertheless, she watched with no indifferent eye. In several of the States, the royal governors endeavoured to prevent the election of deputies to the congress, by refusing to convoke the assemblies ; but in all these cases the inhabitants formed provincial congresses, by which deputies to the Continental Congress were elected. When the resolve to appoint deputies was carried in the assembly of South Carolina, a proposition was introduced immediately after by some of the members, for instructing the delegates to what point it was admissible for them to pledge the concurrence of the province in the general measures to which its accession might be invited. John Rutledge warmly combated this proposition, insisting, that, unless the delegates were unshackled by restraint, and suffered to exercise their judgments with manly freedom, their power of serving the country would be inadequate to the exigencies of the pending , crisis ; and when the mem- bers around him, rather subdued by his energy than aroused to partake it, anxiously inquired, " What ought we to do, then, with these delegates, if they make a bad use of their power ? " he replied, with his usual decision and impetuosity, " Hang them.''^ The commissions or instructions, however, which were communicated to the respective committees of delegates by the provinces which they severally represented, directed their attention merely to the reestablishment of the rights and liberties of America as a colonial possession of Britain, and invested them ostensibly with no other function but that of deliberating, and reporting the counsels matured by their united deliberations. But all the ardent friends of America, all the partisans of Britain, and all, in short, except those whose penetration was obstructed by divided hope and purpose, plainly perceived that the formation of a general deliberative council for America at a crisis like the present, as it was an essential requisite, was also a bold and deliberate approximation, to united revolt. General Gage had now, by an imprudently overstrained exertion of the high powers intrusted to him by the British government, rendered himself nearly as odious to the people of Massachusetts as any of the preceding CHAP. IV.] DETERMINED OBSTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH MEASURES. 49 1, governors of this province. Soon after his arrival, two regiments of infantry, with a park of artillery, were landed at Boston, and encamped on the com- mon ; and this armament was gradually reinforced by sundry regiments from Ireland, New York, Halifax, and Quebec. Gage was desirous of having barracks erected for the accommodation of his troops ; but even among the numerous laborers who were deprived of the means of support by the op- eration of the Port Bill, not one could be found willing to accept the gov- ernor's offers of employment. Resenting the popular odium to which they found themselves exposed, the soldiers retorted by insolence of behaviour, and even by acts of violence, against various individuals who had signalized themselves by the warmth or steadiness of their opposition to British poHcy; and Isaiah Thomas, a patriotic printer, whom Hutchinson had ineffectually prosecuted, was now constrained to remove by night his printing-press from Boston by the threats and preparations of the soldiers to destroy it. The provincial committee of correspondence, having revived and extended the ancient non-importation agreement,^ bestowed on their association the title of Jl Solemn League and Covenant^ — a name of evil omen to British monarchy, and which provoked Gage to issue a proclamation reprobating the compact as illegal and even treasonable. He took occasion at the same time to warn the people against religious hypocrisy, — an insinuation which was resented as an insult to the whole province. Daily some additional in- stance occurred of the determined purpose of the inhabitants to obstruct the views and recent arrangements of the British government. The grand and petty juries, summoned to attend the courts of law and perform their im- portant functions, firmly refused to serve under a constitution which they denounced as a tyrannical violation of the provincial charter ; and the judges, who dared not venture to fine or even censure them, assumed the right of deciding causes without the intervention of a jury, — a proceeding which served only to increase the general aversion and impatience at the existing condition of things. In some places, the people assembled in numerous throngs, and so completely filled the court-houses and blocked up every avenue to them, that neither the judges nor their attendants could obtain ad- mission ; and when the sheriffs commanded them to make way for the court, they answered, '' that they knew no court independent of the ancient laws of their country, and none other would they acknowledge." They would submit to a suspension of regular government, rather than permit the streams of justice to flow in the new channel prescribed by the recent acts of parlia- ment, or reconduct them forcibly in the old one sanctioned by their charter. The jealousy excited by successive arrivals of British troops at Boston was increased by the position of a British guard on the peninsular avenue called Boston Neck, and by the diligence with which the troops were em- ployed in repairing and manning the fortifications at that entrance of the town. It was with the utmost difficulty that the popular leaders restrained the explosion of an immediate revolt throughout the province, on the dis- covery that Gage had desp atched a body of the troops during the night to • Botta asserts, that among the most eager promoters of the non-importation agreement in America were some hypocritical knaves, who monopolized the profits arising from a clandes- jne importation of the commodities thus excluded from open and general commerce. But he has not thought fit to support his statement by citing any proof either of the reality of such practices or of the extent to which they were carried. It is undeniable, indeed, that among the Americans (as doubtless among every people that has undergone the ordeal of a revolu- tion), some persons, who before the sword was drawn were the most hot-brained and hot- moulhed partisans of their ^> CHAP. IV.] DEFENSIVE MEASURES OF MASSACHUSETTS. 497 themselves partook. In all the other provinces there was demonstrated for the congress a degree of respect and deference which seemed to invest it wiih the character more of a legislative body than a council ; and its rec- ommendations were as generally and punctually carried into effect as the laws of the most respected government and best regulated state have ever been. Every particular in its language and tone that savored of deter- mined resistance was copied and reechoed with zealous homage, and even enhanced by the exaggeration which is incident to imitators. Shortly after its recommendation of abstinence from all commercial intercourse with Brit- ain was published, a brig, laden with tea, arrived from London at Annapolis, in Maryland. Alarmed by the rage and menaces of the people, the ship- master implored the counsel and protection of Charles Carroll of Carroll- ton, an eminent lawyer, fast rising into a patriotic distinction which every added year of his long life deservedly enhanced, who advised him to burn the vessel and cargo, as the surest means of allaying the popular excitement. This counsel was followed ; the sails were set, the colors displayed, and the brig burned amidst the acclamations of the multitude. In Massachusetts, the aspect of public affairs became daily more inau- spicious to peace and reconcilement. The semblance, indeed, of subordi- nation to the British crown was maintained ; but so hollow and unsubstantial was this semblance, that every attempt of the governor to exert his authority served only to show how withered and decayed were the bands which yet in theory connected the colonists and their domestic institutions with the royal prerogative. Gage had issued writs for the convocation of an assem- bly at Salem, on the 5th of October ; but, alarmed by the temper of the people and the increasing spread of discontent, he judged it expedient to countermand the writs by a proclamation suspending the meeting of the assembly. The legality of this proclamation, however, was generally denied in Massachusetts ; and the new representatives, to the number of ninety, assembUng on the day originally appointed, and neither the governor nor any substitute attending, they resolved themselves into a provincial congress, and soon adjourned to Concord. Here they made choice of Hancock to be their president, and appointed a committee to present to the governor a remonstrance against all his recent measures, concluding with an earnest request that he would desist from the construction of the fortress which he was erecting at the entrance of Boston, ''and restore that place to its neutral state.''- Gage, who, though capable of dissimulation, possessed a hotter temper than befitted his elevated station and difficult predicament, took fire at this language ; he expressed the warmest displeasure at the supposition of danger from English troops to any but the enemies of Eng- land ; and desired the committee to convey to the congress his warning counsel that they should hasten to desist from their illegal proceedings. Dis- regarding his admonition and defying his power, the provincial congress adjourned to Cambridge, where, relieved from all doubts of the general support of America, they embraced and pursued measures of unexampled boldness and vigor. They appointed a committee to prepare a plan for the immediate defence of the province ; gave orders for the enhstment of a number of the inhabitants to be in readiness, at a minute^s learnings to appear in arms ; elected three general officers (Preble, Ward, and Pomroy) to command these minute-men and the provincial militia, in case of their being called to active service ; and appointed a council of safety and a VOL. II. 63 pp * 498 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL committee of supplies. One of the secretaries whom they elected was Benjamin Lincoln, afterwards a general in the American service, and highly- distinguished as a gallant and indefatigable partisan of his country's cause. Reassembling after an adjournment of a few weeks [November] , the same congress, sensible that their countrymen applauded their measures, and that their constituents were prepared to yield imphcit obedience to their de- crees, passed an ordinance for the equipment of twelve thousand men to act on any emergency, and for the enhstment of a fourth part of the militia as minute-men ; appointed two additional general officers, Thomas and Heath ; and sent delegates to New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, to request the cooperation of these provinces in completing an army of twenty thousand men. A committee was likewise appointed to correspond with the inhabitants of Canada ; and circular letters were addressed to all the clergy- men of Massachusetts, requesting their assistance to avert impending slavery. And now all America was aroused by expectation of awful conflict and mighty change.^ New England, upon which the first violence of the storm seemed likely to descend, was agitated by rumors and alarms, of which the import and the influence strikingly portrayed the sentiments and temper of the people. Reports, that Gage had commanded his troops to attack the Massachusetts miHtia, or to fire upon the town of Boston, were swallowed with the avidity of rage and hatred, and instantly covered the highways with thousands of armed men, mustering in hot haste, and eager to rush for- ward to death or revenge. Every thing betokened the explosion of a tem- pest ; and some partial gusts announced its near approach, and proved the harbingers of its fury. In the close of the year, there reached America a proclamation issued by the king, prohibiting the exportation of military stores from Great Britain. The inhabitants of Rhode Island no sooner received intelligence of this mandate, than they removed from the public battery about forty pieces of cannon ; and the assembly of the province gave orders for procuring arms and martial stores, and for the immediate equipment of a mihtary force. In New Hampshire, a band of four hundred men, suddenly assembling in arms, and conducted by John Sullivan,^ an eminent lawyer and a man of great ambition and intrepidity, gained posses- sion by surprise of the castle of Portsmouth, and confined the royal garrison till the powder-magazine was ransacked and its contents carried away.^ The accounts received in Britain of these transactions produced no dis- position on the part of the British government to relax the system of co- ercive measures which it had recently undertaken. In a speech from the throne [November 30] , the king acquainted the parliament that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the laws unhappily prevailed in the province of Massachusetts, and had broken forth in fresh violences of a highly criminal nature ; that these proceedings were countenanced and en- couraged in his other colonies, and unwarrantable attempts were made to obstruct the commerce of his kingdom by unlawful combinations ; and that he had taken such measures and given such orders as he judged most proper and effectual for carrying into execution the acts passed in the commence- ment of the year with regard to Massachusetts. Addresses which approved ^ " The events of this time may be transmitted to posterity; but the agitation of the public mind can never be fully comprehended but by those who were witnesses of it." Ramsay. * Afterwards major-general in the American army. 3 Annual Register for 1774 and for 1775. Gordon. Belknap. Wirt. Pitkin. Holmes. Rogers's American Biographical Dictionary. Eliot. American National Gallery. CHAP. IV.] PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT. 499 and reechoed this speech were proposed in both houses ; and, though they produced warm debates, they were carried by large majorities. In spite of this apparent firmness of purpose, the British cabinet could not contemplate without some hesitation and perplexity the extension to the other provinces of America of those rigorous measures which had been in- flicted with so litde of beneficial effect upon Massachusetts ; and the par- liament was adjourned for the Christmas holydays, without having taken any farther step in relation to colonial affairs. But the intelligence, received during this interval, of the meeting and transactions of the American con- gress precluded farther indecision, and imperatively demanded either an instant retractation of the resisted prerogative of Britain, or a vigorous and decisive retort of the blow which her authority had received. The consid- eration of American affairs was accordingly the first business to which the attention of the reassembled parliament was directed. [January 20, 1775.] At this critical juncture, Lord Chatham, after a long retirement from public life, resumed his seat in the House of Lords ; and, venerable alike from age, achievement, and renown, endeavoured, with all the remaining energy of his commanding spirit and impressive eloquence, to dissuade his countrymen from attempting to subdue the Americans by military force. He enlarged on the ruinous events that were impending on the nation in consequence of the project, equally unjust and impracticable, of taxing America ; he pro- nounced a glowing panegyric on the American congress and its transactions ; arraigned the whole ministerial system of American politics ; and moved that an address should be presented to the king, to advise and beseech him, that, in order to open a happy way to the settlement of the dangerous troubles in America, by beginning to allay ferments and soften animosities in that country, and preventing, above all, some sudden and fatal catastro- phe at Boston, he should command General Gage to remove the troops from that town as speedily as the rigor of the season would permit. This motion was supported by the Marquis of Rockingham and Lords Camden and Shelburne, but rejected by a great majority of the peers. Yet a respect- able minority, in both houses of parliament, was warmly, though ineffectually, seconded in their efforts for conciliation, by petitions from many of the Eng- lish merchants and manufacturers, and particularly from the towns of Lon- don and Bristol. A few days after [January 26], a petition was tendered to the House of Commons from Bollan, Franklin, and Lee, as the agents for the provinces of America, stating that they were directed by the American Continental Congress to present a memorial from it, the contents of which it was in their power to illustrate by much important information ; and praying to be heard at the bar in support of the memorial. A violent debate ensued. The adherents of the ministry, while they refused to hear and discuss the complaints of America, insultingly censured them as containing nothing but pretended grievances ; and a large majority united in rejecting the ap- plication. Lord Chatham still persisted in indulging hopes of conciliation ; and to this end, with a very unwarrantable reliance on the moderation and placability both of the British government and of the Americans, presented to the House of Lords [February 1] the outlines of a bill, which he entitled A provisional Act for settling the Troubles in America, and for asserting the supreme legislative Authority and superintending Power of Great Britain over the Colonies. He proposed, on the one hand, to legalize the codvo- 500 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. cation of a new American congress, which should first acknowledge the su- preme legislatorial power of the British parliament, and then allot to the crown a certain and perpetual revenue, applicable, under parliamentary direction, to the alleviation of the national debt, — and on the other, to restrict the juris- diction of admiralty courts in America within its ancient limits, and to sus- pend all the British statutes of which the Americans had latterly complained. This distinguished statesman had recently cultivated the acquaintance, which in the plenitude of his power he formerly slighted, of Dr. Franklin ; who, less affected by the eclipse of Lord Chatham's official grandeur than the fallen minister himself was, regarded him with undiminished admiration, and willingly met his advances to intimacy. He imparted the outlines of his bill to Franklin, whose opinion was, that, although inadequate to the wishes of the Americans, it would conduce to tranquillize them, and serve as the basis of further treaty. When the measure was broached in the House of Peers, Lord Sandwich, one of the ministers, assailed it with violent and dis- dainful abuse ; refused to believe it the genuine production of any British nobleman ; and, turning with a significant look to Franklin, who was pres- ent, declared it was doubtless the production of an American, and of one well known as the most bitter and mischievous enemy of Great Britain. Lord Chatham in reply vindicated his project, and claimed the whole re- sponsibility attached to its composition ; but added, withal, that, if he were the first minister of Britain, he would not be ashamed to seek the counsel and assistance of one so well versed in American affairs as Franklin, whom he eu- logized as the just object of the world's admiration, and an ornament not merely to the British empire but to human nature. We have seen, indeed, that these were not the views he entertained and was governed by when he actually was the first minister of Britain. The issue of the debate was, that the bill was rejected without even being allowed to lie on the table of the house. 1 This result, together with the subsequent conduct of the British government, induced Franklin to think that his farther tarriance at London was not likely to prove useful to his constituents. After a last vain en- deavour, in conjunction with Lord Howe, with David Barclay, a Quaker and descendant of the celebrated Barclay of Urie, and with Dr. Fothergill, to promote an adjustment of the differences between Britain and her colo- nies,^ he returned, in the spring of the present year, to America, where his * The following striking reflections were elicited from Dr. Franklin on this occasion : — " To hear so many of these hereditary legislators declaiming so vehemently against, not the adopting merely, but even the consideration of a proposal so important in its nature, offered by a person of so weighty a character, one of the first statesmen of the age, who had taken up this country when in the lowest despondency and conducted it to victory and glory through a war with two of the mightiest kitigdoms in Europe ; to hear them censuring his plan, not only for their own misunderstandings of what was in it, but for their imaginations of what was not in it, which they would not give themselves an opportunity of rectifying by a second reading ; to perceive the total ignorance of the subject in some, the prejudice and passion of others, and the'wilf il perversion of plain truth in several of the ministers ; and upon the whole, to see it so ignominicjoly rejected by so great a majority, and so hastily too, in breach of all decency and prudent regard to the character and dignity of their body, as a third part of the national legislature, gave me an exceeding mean opinion of their abilities, and made their claim of sovereignty over three millions of virtuous, sensible people in America seem the greatest of absurdities, since they appeared to have scarce discretion enough to govern a herd of swine. Hereditary Jevislutors ! thought I. There would be more propriety, because less hazard of mischief, in having (as in some university of Germany) hereditary professors of mathematics ! " We have seen the language of Lord Sandwich and the conduct of his colleagues copied with much fidelity in 1836 by the British peers, who, in seeking to vilify the liberal policy they op- posed by ascribing it to the suggestion of the Irish politician, OConnell, established most sat- isfactorily the claim of that illustrious body to the enjoyment o^ hereditary wisdom. » It was happy for Franklin's credit with his countrymen, that the very moderate terms CHAP. IV] QUlNCy URGES RESISTANCE. 50 J fellow-citizens of Pennsylvania straightway elected him a member of the second Continental Congress. During the latter part of Franklin's agency at the British court, he had enjoyed the society and zealous cooperation of his countryman, Josiah Quincy, Jr., who, thoug;h hovering on the brink of an early grave, yet burning with unquenchable patriotism, was attracted to England rather by- vast impetuous desire than by reasonable probability of serving the interest of America. This accomphshed and most enthusiastic man, who now be- held Europe for the first time, was struck with admiration amounting to as- tonishment, but unmingled with dread, at the strength and extent of Britain's military resources and estabhshments. His zeal for the extreme of Ameri- can resistance and his confidence in its efficacy, so far from being daunted, were inflamed by his residence at London ; and that sentiment and con- viction he labored, with more of fiery energy and daring than of sound judg- ment and prudence, to impart to his friends at Boston, to whom the state- ments and counsels conveyed in his letters were as dangerous and might have proved as pernicious as the opposite errors inculcated by Hutchinson on the British ministers. Transported by generous but deluding passion beyond the bounds of sober reason, he hearkened too readily to the ve- hement and indeliberate language of Englishmen whom sincere liberality or mere party spirit induced to espouse the claims of America, and, thus mis- led, did not hesitate to assure his countrymen that the only danger they were exposed to arose from the opinion entertained of them both by friends and foes in Europe, that they were an abject and cowardly race of men ; that this injurious opinion had been recently confirmed by their forbearance (which he had always blamed) to inflict vengeance by their own hands on the person of Hutchinson ; and that they possessed a numerous and power- ful band of friends in England, who were only deterred from openly declar- ing themselves by distrust of American firmness, but who, if they saw the Americans brave the shock of but one single encounter with the British troops, would instantly wrest the helm of government from the present min- isters, and not only redress every grievance of America, but even concede her political independence. He continually reminded the Americans, that no nation had ever achieved its deliverance from oppression and depend- ence by a bloodless contest ; and protested that now, when they were united together in an extraordinary degree, was the fit time for attempting an inevi- table appeal to the sword. To all British overtures of conciliation he urgently counselled them to answer that they would treat only with arms in their hands, and not begin to treat till Britain had retracted every measure they complained of, and practically avowed their independence by withdrawing all her land and naval forces from America. The amiable, magnanimous, and enlightened, though intemperate author of these rash counsels and sug- gestions left Britain to return to his country about the same time with Dr. Frankhn, but breathed his last just as he came within sight of the American coast. His name, once high in the rolls of European chivalry, is now one of the glories of New England. which he proposed were rejected by Britain, — for certainly they would not, at present, have given satisfaction to America. In the commencement of great and dangerous contests, it is not uncommon for political leaders to make proffers of accommodation which they have no serious intention, or at least not the power, to fulfil, but of which the expected rejection is counted on as affording a politic imputation against the opposite party. On the very night be fore Franklin's departure from London, Fothergill, in a confidential billet to him, avowed hia conviction that all the overtures of the British cabinet were specious, hollow, insincere, and ut- terly unworthy of American attention. 502 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL Notwithstanding the urgency of the crisis, some days elapsed before the British ministers followed up their triumph over Lord Chatham's policy by suggesting any proposition of their own. The system which in the in- terim was digested in the cabinet reflected little credit on the wisdom or consistency of the counsels from which it emanated. A joint address was finally [February 9] moved and voted from the Lords and Commons to the king ; returning thanks for the communication of documents relative to the state of the British colonies in America ; declaring their opinion that a rebel- lion actually existed in the province of Massachusetts ; beseeching the king to pursue the most effectual measures for assuring due obedience to the laws and authority of the supreme legislature ; and solemnly pledging themselves with their hves and fortunes to support his Majesty in the maintenance of the just rights of his crown, and of those of the two houses of parliament, against all rebellious attempts to infringe them. In the course of the de- bates that arose on this occasion, three noblemen, who had been members of the cabinet by which, in 1767, the taxation of America was resumed, protested openly, and to the amazement of the whole nation, that they had neither shared nor approved that measure, and that they regarded it as the cause of all the actual and impending calamities of the empire. On the day after the address was voted. Lord North, the prime minister, introduced into the House of Commons a bill for restraining the trade and commerce of the provinces of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, with Great Britain, Ireland, and the British West India Islands, and prohibiting those provinces from pursuing any fishery on the banks of Newfoundland. He observed that the penal acts of the pre- ceding year were confined to Massachusetts alone ; but declared that the other New England States had subsequently aided and abetted their offend- ing neighbours, and were, besides, so near to them, that the intentions of parliament would be frustrated, unless the restraints he now proposed were extended to the whole of New England. This measure was opposed with great w^armth of zeal and vigor of argument, as alike inhuman and impolitic. "You are provoking a rebellion," it was urged, "by one class of stat- utes ; and then recruiting the rebel army by another." Many petitions were presented from various parts of Britain against the bill ; and the English Quakers particularly, in an earnest remonstrance against its cruelty, depre- cated the attempt to destroy by famine a body of people whom they pro- nounced to be as loyal and meritorious as any of the subjects of the British crown. 1 The most urgent petitioners against the measure were those Eng- lish merchants who had lent money to American planters on the security of mortgages of their landed estates, and who looked forward with equal alarm to the independence and to the impoverishment of America. After much opposition in both houses, the bill was passed into a law. [March 30.] But while it was yet in dependence, Lord North suddenly announced, and prevailed with the parliament to sanction, an overture which he termed a conciliatory proposition, by which it was proclaimed that parliament would forbear to tax any colony which should make provision for contributing its proportion of the expenses attending the common defence of the empire, and for the support of civil government and the administration of justice within its own confines. This was a concession somewhat vague and ' The British fisheries proving shortly after remarkably unproductive, a great outcry was raised, both in Britain and America, that this was a judgment of Heaven on those who at- tempted to bereave a whole people of the gifts of nature. CHAP. IV.] ACTS RESTRAINING TRADE. 503 equivocal in its import ; for it neither recognized nor denied the distinction between internal and external or commercial taxation. Yet, tendered but a (ew years before, it might have prevented or retarded the American Revolution. Introduced as it was, at this late stage of the controversy, when passion had controlled speculation and effaced nice distinctions, and incorporated as it was with a system of increased rigor towards America, it neither could nor was seriously intended to produce reconcilement. In- deed, the minister, while he actually weakened the force of his menaces by this show of hesitation, was so much afraid of seeming to yield, that he rendered the present overture worse than powerless by openly acknowledging that it was designed to divide America and to unite all domestic parties in Great Britain. This impolitic sincerity was calculated to affront the Amer- icans, who needed not its assistance to see clearly through so palpable a de- vice. The proposition was conveyed to the several colonial governors in a circular letter from Lord Dartmouth ; but it was treated with contempt by a people too much impressed with the expediency of union, and too well aware of the nature and state of the contest in which they were embarked, to be deceived by an overture that was conciliatory only in name. Scarcely had the bill been passed for restraining the trade of New Eng- land, when intelligence was received that the inhabitants of the Middle and Southern States of America were supporting their Northern brethren in every measure of resistance. This produced an additional edict for ex- tending the restraints of the former one to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. Whatever were the views that prompted the discrimination thus exercised by the British government, — the exemption of New York, Delaware, and North CaroHna from this penal enactment was considered in America as calculated to promote dis- union : and the three exempted colonies, spurning the proffered grace, vo- luntarily declared their participation in the restraints imposed on their neighbours. So mfelicitous were the rulers of Britain in all their measures, and so little acquainted with the disposition and temper of the people of America. There are seasons, as it has been often and justly remarked, when all circumstances seem to conspire towards the nourishment and increase of maladies, whether physical or political. At the very time when the par- hament was enacting the restraining laws, the assembly of New York was preparing a petition to parliament for redress of grievances ; and it both enraged and astonished those who had recently vaunted the submissive loy- alty and moderation of this province, to find its assembly peremptorily de- clare, "that exemption from internal taxation, and the exclusive power of providing for their own civil government and the administration of justice in the colony, are esteemed by them their undoubted and unalienable rights."^ The body politic, composed of the parent state and her colonial ^ Jinnnal Register for 1775. GJordon. Franklins Memoirs. Holmes. Ramsay. Pitkin, duincy's Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr. The British government and the American Tories (blinded by insolence, ignorance, and rage) grossly deceived each other, each relying a great deal too far on the other's force and activity. It is likewise true that the partisans of liberty in America were dangerously deceived by the effect of the violence and intolerance exerted for the promotion of this cause in several of the provinces. A delusive appearance of unanimity was frequently produced in communities where a strong minority were in their hearts dissenters from the general will, and ready, on the first favorable opportunity, openly to range themselves against the predominant domestic party by whose violence they were overawed. Persecution, whether exerted in religious or in political controversy, naturally tends to the production of no better qualities than hypocriti- 504 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. progeny, was now so gangrened and overcharged with evil humors, that no imaginable system of remedial policy could have arrested or even consid- erably modified the headlong pace with which it was advancing to dissolu- tion ; and the political physicians of Britain -to whom the treatment of the case was confided had in reahty no other choice than to suffer that great catastrophe to ensue as the natural issue of the malady, or themselves to accomplish it by the instrumentality of hopeless operation. While the additional restraining act was in progress through the House of Commons, a petition and memorial, couched in very strong terms, was transmitted by the assembly of Jamaica in defence of the claims and conduct of the Americans. In support of this and of other applications of a similar tenor, Glover (the author of Leonidas) , as agent for the West India planters and merchants, delivered an able and eloquent speech at the bar of the house ; but wisdom and wit were exerted in vain to stem the swollen current of regal ambition and national pride. A project of conciliating the Amer- icans by expressly conceding their right to administer their own domestic taxation, proposed to the House of Commons by Edmund Burke and illus- trated by the richest display of his admirable genius and unrivalled oratory, was rejected by a great majority of voices. It was an unfortunate circumstance for the British government, and a strong reason for diseolving its colonial dominion, that it was disabled by distance from adapting its measures to the actual and immediate posture of affairs in America. Months elapsed between the occurrence of events in the colonies, and the arrival of the relative directions from England ; and every symptom of the political exigence had frequently undergone a material change, before the concerted prescription, wise or unwise, was applied. Before the recent proceedings in parliament could produce any effect or were even known in America, the quarrel had made a fearful stride ; and the odious rigor and despised pretences of conciliation which those measures disclosed were announced to a people already roused to fury by the shock of war and the effusion of blood. The example of Massachusetts in preparing for defence was followed by the other provinces ; and warlike counsels were boldly broached in the provincial assemblies and congresses. When [March 23] some members of the Virginian assembly urged the postponement of these preparations, reminding their colleagues of the power of Britain and the comparative weakness of America, and insisting that it would be time enough to fly to arms when every well-founded hope of peace had entirely vanished, — Patrick Henry, with vehement and victorious eloquence, contended that that time had already come. " It is natural," said he, " to man, to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are prone to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that enchantress till she transforms us into cal zeal or timid acquiescence. Seeking to make partisans, it makes enemies of those who might otherwise have been contented with a passive neutrality. The best political estate (perhaps) ever attained by any commonwealth is that wherein the deliberate will of the majority has had the fullest scope. But, as a better is imaginable, so I hope it is also attainable. I mean one in which the power, however strong, of a dominant majority respects and gives a justly proportioned scope to the sentiments (not directly hostile to the general safety) of the minority of the population. This social consummation so devoutly desirable must be the product of some machinery calculated to spread as widely as possible the light of intelligence and the warmth of humanity. There are doubtless times and occa- sions, when the minority of the citizens have as little right to exhibit practical dissent from the will of the majority as could be claimed by the minority of a ship's crew in relation to the conduct of the vessel during a storm or an engagement. GHAP. IV.] ATTEMPTED SEIZURE OF MILITARY STORES IN SALEM. 5Q5 beasts. There is no longer any room for hope. 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 that we are weak, and unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger .'* Will it be when our supineness shall have enabled our enemies to bind us hand and fpot ? Sir, we are not weak,^ if we make use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as ours, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Nor shall we fight our battles alone. That God who presides over the destinies of nations will raise up friends to aid us. The batde is not to the strong alone ; but to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, we have no longer a choice. Jf 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 ! Gentlemen may cry, ' Peace ! Peace ! ^ — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale th^t sweeps from the north will bring to our ears tlie clash of resounding arms." These last words proved prophetic. The Provincial Congress, which had now [1775] superseded the Gener^ Court of Massachusetts, assembling in the beginning of February, pubhshed an address acquainting the people, that, from the large reinforcements of troops that were expected at Boston, the tenor of intelligence from Britain, and other indications, they had reason to apprehend that the sudden destruc- tion of the colony was intended ; and urging in the strongest terms the militia in general, and the minute-men in particular, to spare neither time, pains, nor expense to perfect themselves in military preparation. They also passed resolutions for procuring and making firearms and bayonets ; and decreed an issue of provincial bills of credit to the an)ount of fifty thousand pounds.^ The military preparations which they recommended were diligently pursued, and artillery and provisions were collected at va- rious places. General Gage was not an inattentive sp^ctatpr of these proceedings. Having learned that some military stores belonging to the colonists were deposited in Salem, he despatched Colonel LesHe from Castle William, on the 26th of February, with one hundred and forty soldiers in a transport to seize them. The troops, landing at Marblehead, proceeded to Salem ; but not finding there the object of their expedition, they advanced along the road leading to Danvers, whither the stores had been removed, and reached the drawbridge laid across the river. Here a number of the country people were assembled, and on the opposite side the American Colonel Pickering had mustered thirty or forty armed men, and, having drawn up the bridge, stood prepared to dispute the passage of the river. Leslie commanded them to lower the bridge ; but, as they peremp- > " Thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just," exclaimed Richard Henry Lee, in his speech on the same occasion. In another citation from Shakspeare, Lee shortly after foretold the final appeal to arms. On the adjournment of the assembly, while he was taking leave of two of his colleagues who were standing with him in the porch of the capitol, he inscribed with a pencil these lines on one of the pillars : — " When shall we three meet again ? In thunder, lightning, and in rain ; When the hurly-burly 's done. When the battle s lost and won." * On these bills of credit was represented an American grasping a sword, and pointing to the well known words of Algernon Sydney :— Ense petit placiaam sub Uhertate quieUm. VOL. II. 64 QQ 506 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. torily refused, he was preparing to cross the river in some boats that were moored to the shore, when the people, who had gathered around him, per- ceiving his intention, sprang into the boats and scuttled them with axes. The day of this occurrence was a Sunday ; and, as most of the neighbour- ing inhabitants were at church, this circumstance (as Gage was supposed to have anticipated) prevented the diffusion of alarm and diminished the concourse of armed Americans. A conflict, nevertheless, was on the point of ensuing, when it was averted by the prudent interposition of Barnard, one of the Congregational ministers of Salem, who, finding Leslie deter- mined to cross the river, but willing, if this point were yielded, to content himself with marching thirty paces beyond it and then return without at- tempting farther progress, prevailed with his countrymen to indulge the British with this empty triumph, which, indeed, could have been pushed no farther, as the stores were already removed, during the delay that had been created. At length the bridge was lowered ; and Pickering with his men, still facing the British troops, retired to the line they had measured and marked. Leslie and his soldiers, after advancing to the stipulated point, returned and embarked for Boston. Thus ended the first military enterprise of the Revolutionary War, — without effect and without blood- shed ; but not without additionally kindling the spirit, the vigilance, and the jealousy of the Americans, and inflaming the bitter animosity progressively created between them and the British soldiery. They declared that Gage and his troops (doubtless encouraged by secret orders from Britain) had treated them as rebels, before the British government itself dared to affix this stigma upon them ; and that the previous seizures of arms on their own part in New Hampshire and Rhode Island were merely retaliatory measures and defensive preparations. In such circumstances, an expedition as harmless as the last was not likely again to occur ; and it needed less the sagacity of Patrick Henry to foresee, than his spirit and intrepidity firmly to contemplate, the more serious trial which the resolution of the people of Massachusetts was soon to undergo. A magazine of military stores had been collected with silent but laborious assiduity at the inland town of Concord, about sixteen miles from Boston, when Gage, apprized of this circumstance, resolved to destroy the hostile apparatus. For this service he detached at night [April 18] Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn, who, at the head of eight hundred grenadiers and light- infantry, commenced a secret and expeditious march for Concord. Al- though several British officers, who dined at Cambridge on the preceding day, had taken the precaution to post themselves at various points on the road leading to Concord, in order to intercept any expresses that might be sent from Boston to alarm the country, yet sundry messengers, despatched for this very purpose, contrived to elude their vigilance and communicated an alarm, which was rapidly spread by church-bells, signal guns, and volleys of small arms. Reuben Brown, a citizen of Concord, actually rode a hundred miles in the space of twenty-four hours in order to disseminate the intelligence. The British troops, arriving at Lexington on the following morning at five o'clock, found about seventy of the minute-men of that town assembled in arms on the parade. [April 19.] Major Pitcairn, who commanded the British van, approaching the Americans, exclaimed, — '^Disperse, you rebels ; throw down your arms and disperse ! " This or- der, which they refused to obey, was followed by a discharge from the CHAP. IV.] AFFAIR OF LEXINGTON. 5Q7 British troops, whose fire, huzza, and rapid advance compelled the scanty- band of their adversaries to an instant flight. The fire continued after the dispersion, whereupon the fugitives stopped, rallied, and returned it. Eight Americans were killed and several were wounded in this affray. The Brit- ish detachment now pressed forward to Concord. Here the inhabitants, roused by the signals of alarm, were drawn up in order of defence ; but observing the number of the regulars to be more than they could prudently encounter, they retired across the north bridge to some distance from the town, and waited for reinforcements. A party of British light-infantry fol- lowed them and took possession of the bridge, while the main body of the troops entered the town and hastened to execute their commission. They had leisure to spike two cannons, and to cast into the river five hundred pounds of ball and sixty barrels of flour ; and this paltry result was all the advantage derived from a violent and sanguinary enterprise that was to kindle the flames of war between two nations. Meanwhile the provincial militia were reinforced ; and Major Buttrick, of Concord, assuming the dhection of them, advanced towards the bridge. Unaware of the occur- rence at Lexington, and anxious that the Americans should not be the ag- gressors, he commanded his followers to refrain from giving the first fire ; and this mandate, so difficult to agitated and undisciplined men, he enforced by the example of his own lively yet calm and collected courage. As he advanced, the British detachment which occupied the bridge retired to the Concord side of the river ; and on his nearer approach, they fired and killed a captain and one of the privates of the American militia. The Americans instantly returned the fire ; a skirmish ensued, and the reg- ulars were forced to give ground with some loss. They were soon joined by their main body ; and the whole force commenced a precipitate retreat. All the inhabitants of the adjoining country w^ere by this time in arms ; and they attacked the retreating troops in every direction, — some press- ing on their rear, and some firing upon them from behind stone walls and other coverts. Thus harassed during a retreat of six miles, the British reentered Lexington, where, most opportunely for them, they were joined by Lord Percy, who arrived with a detachment of nine hundred men and two pieces of cannon. After halting two hours at Lexington, the troops, now amounting in number to about seventeen hundred, resumed their march ; and the Americans, instantly renewing their attacks, continued to pour an irregular but galling fire upon the enemy's front, flanks, and rear. The close discharge of musketry by expert marksmen exposed the troops to considerable danger, and produced a good deal of confusion ; but though unable to repel or even effectually retort the assaults they sustained from every quarter, the British kept up a brisk retreating fire on their assail- ants.^ A Httle after sunset they reached Bunker's Hill, where, exhausted with the labors of this disastrous day, they remained during the night, shielded from farther attack by the guns of the Somerset man-of-war, and next morning reentered Boston. Of the Americans engaged in this affair, fifty were killed, and thirty-four wounded. Of the British, sixty-five were killed, one hundred and eighty wounded, and twenty-eight made prisoners. To their wounded prisoners the Americans behaved with the utmost ten- ' Lord Percy, as he marched through the country in the morning, with taunting derision of the Americans, caused his band to play that beautiful air to which the ridiculous name of Vankee- Doodle has been given. But as he returned in the afternoon, the Americans, with sharper scoff, called out to him that he should now make the band play Chevy-Chase. 50^ HISTORY OF NORTH AJVIERICA. [BOOK XL derness and humanity, and they apprized Gage that he was at liberty to send the surgeons of his own army to minister to them. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, being at this time asseriibled, promptly despatched to England an account of the conflict that had taken place, with depositions intended to prove that the British were the aggressors. They also transmitted an address to the inhabitants of Britain, in which pro- fessions of loyalty to the king were united with assurances of a determination not tamely to submit to the persecution and tyranny of his evil ministers. Appealing to Heaven (they warmly protested) for the justite of our cause, we determine to die or be free. As the controversy between Britain and her colonies was to be finally de- cided by an appeal to arms, it was a circumstance of great moment to the American cause, that the first bloodshed by which this dire prospect was illustrated occurred in New England, — where the people were so much connected with each other by consanguinity and by similarity of manners^ condition, and of religious and political sentiments, that the slaughter of a single individual was resented with wide-spread concern and indignation. The affair of Lexington proved accordingly the signal of war. When the tidings reached Connecticut, the young men of this province, burning with rage and valor, flew to arms, and desired to be conducted to the as- sistance of Massachusetts ; and aged parents, sharing the zeal of their sons, charged them to behave like men or never to return. Israel Putnam, one of the most intrepid of mankind, and the most experienced and respected officer in Connecticut, received the intelligence as he was ploughing the fields which he had often before defended against French and Indian foes. It was the sentiment of all who ever witnessed the achievements or par- took the campaigns of this gallant veteran, that Putnam dared to lead where any dared to follow. He instantly unyoked his team ; and, with that prompt but inflexible determination which invariably characterized his life and conduct, cast all private cares and concernments behind him, and marched at the head of a numerous body of his countrymen to the neigh- bourhood of Boston. Thither also promptly repaired three regiments fur- nished by New Hampshire, one of which was commanded by John Stark, a native of this province, who afterwards attained the rank of general in the American army, and achieved a high reputation in the Revolutionary War. There was now assembled an insurgent force of twenty thousand men, who formed a hne of encampment from Roxbury to the river Mystic, and kept the British troops blockaded within the peninsula of Boston. A kindred spirit of courageous preparation broke forth in others of the American States. Troops were raised, and funds provided for their sup- port ; the public mohisy in the provincial treasuries was seized ; and forts, magazines, and arSfenals were secured by the provincial militia. At New York, the precarious ascendency which the Tories had been able to obtain was instantly and entirely swept away by the flow of popular spirit and sympathy provoked by the Lexington conflict ; and the public voice of the province now proclaimed the determination of its people to espouse the quarrel and share the fate of their American countrymen. Shortly after that conflict, a numerous body of the citizens of Baltimore enrolled them- selves voluntarily in the x4merican army before Boston, and, to prevent the minds of the people from being relaxed or dissipated, the provisional government of Maryland prohibited assemblages lor fairs, cock-fighting, and d^At. tV.] CAPTURE OP tiCONDEROGA AND CROWN POINT. 599 horsei-raclng. Thefy exerted, at the same time, the most honorable and gen- erous efforts to protect from popular rage persons known or supposed to be disaffected to the American cause. General Gage, meanwhile, cooped up in Bostdri, expecting an attack from the provincial troops by which he was begirt, and dreading the cooperation they might receive from their friends in the city, offered to all persons who might desire it a free egress from Boston, on condition of an entire surrender of their arms. Though the condition was fulfilled, many of the citizens and their families who de- sired to quit the place were detained by Gage, who pretended that some arms were still concealed, and who in reality was overawed by the vehe- mence with which the American Tories protested against the surrender of hostages, whose presence alone, they believed, restrained the besiegers from setting fire to the town. It was readily perceived by all who now reckoned war inevitable, that the possession of Ticonderoga and Crown Point would confer an important advantage on America, and, indeed, was indispensable to her security. Struck with this consideration, some of the principal inhabitants of Con- necticut conceived the bold design of seizing those fortresses by surprise. About forty volunteers (of whom the most notable was David Wooster, afterwards a distinguished general in the American service) repaired ac- cordingly from Connecticut to Bennington, in the territory of Vermont, where the projectors of the expedition had arranged to meet Colonel Ethan Allen, a man of singularly daring spirit, and possessed of great in- fluence in that district, ^ whom they intended to engage to conduct the enterprise, as well as to raise among the hardy mountaineers around him the necessary complement of force for its execution. Allen, readily en- tering into their views, met them with two hundred and thirty men at Castleton, where they were unexpectedly joined by Colonel Benedict Arnold, a bold and active American officer, who, having conceived the same project, was admitted to act as an auxiliary to Allen, with whom the chief command remained. Proceeding on their adventurous expedition, Allen and his followers arrived in the night of the 9th of May on the banks of Lake Champlain opposite to Ticonderoga. Embarking in boats, which were procured with some difficulty, Allen and Arnold crossed the lake with eighty-three of their men, and accomplished a landing near the fortress without being discovered. The two colonels, after contending who should enter first, advanced together abreast, and made their way into the fort at the dawn of day. [May 10.] All the garrison were buried in sleep, except a sentry, who attempted to fire upon the party ; but his piece mis- sing fire, he retreated through the covered way to the parade. The Americans rushed after him, and, having formed themselves in a hollow square, gave three huzzas which instantly aroused the garrison. A slight and brief skirmish with cutlasses or bayonets ensued. De la Place, the commander, was reqi^red to surrender the fort. " By what authority ? " he asked, with no unreasonable surprise. " I demand it," replied Allen, "in the name of the great Jehovah, and of the Continental Congress." This extraordinary summons was instantly obeyed ; and the fort, with its valuable stores and forty-nine soldiers, was surrendered without farther re- ^ He was formerly outlawed by the government of New York (see Appendix III., ante) for encouraging the people of Vermont to resist its claim of jurisdiction over them ; but, eluding the doom denounced on hitn by his enemies (like Aicibiades), he made them painfully sensible that he was still alive. QQ* 510 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. sistance. Colonel Seth Warner was then despatched with a party of men to Crown Point, and he easily succeeded in gaining possession of this place, in which a sergeant and twelve privates formed the whole of the garrison. The important pass of Skenesborough was surprised and occu- pied at the same time by a detachment of volunteers from Connecticut ; and here a number of soldiers and several pieces of cannon were taken. A British sloop of war, lying off St. John's, at the northern extremity of Lake Champlain, was boarded and captured by Arnold, — who com- menced in this manner a career of brilliant but short-lived glory, too soon clouded by private vice, vanity, and prodigality, and finally tarnished by public treachery and dishonor. And thus the Americans, without the loss of a single man, acquired by a bold and decisive stroke two important posts, a great quantity of artillery and ammunition, and the command of Lake George and Lake Champlain. The Continental Congress learned this enterprise with mingled sentiments of exultation and anxiety. Dreading the appearance of aggression in widening the breach between Britain and Amer- ica, they recommended to the provincial committees of New York and Albany to cause the artillery and stores to be removed from Ticonderoga to the south end of Lake George, and to make an exact inventory of them, " in order that they may be safely returned, when the restoration of the for- mer harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, so ardently wished for on our part, shall render it prudent and consistent with the overruhng law of self-preservation."^ The councils of New England were as vigorous as her military opera- tions. On the 5th of May, the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts pub- lished a resolution importing " that General Gage has, by his late transac- tions, utterly disqualified himself from serving this colony, either as its gov- ernor, or in any other capacity ; and that, therefore, no obedience is in fu- ture due to him ; but that, on the contrary, he ought to be considered and guarded against as an unnatural and inveterate enemy to the country." From this period the authority of Gage in Massachusetts reposed on the bayonets * of his soldiers, and was confined within the limits of the lOwn they occupied. But in the close of the same month his prospects seemed to brighten ; and his force at least gained an increase from the arrival at Boston of a con- siderable accession to his troops from Britain, along with the Generals Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton, all of whom had acquired high military reputation in the last war. Gage, thus reinforced, prepared to act with more vigor and decision than he had latterly displayed. He began by issuing a proclamation, which ofl^ered, in the king's name, a free pardon to all the American insurgents who should forthwith lay down their arms, and return to the habits and duties of peaceable subjects, " excepting only from the benefit of such pardon Samuel Adams ^ and John Hancock, — whose of- fences," it was added, " are of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment " ; and announced the do- minion of martial law in Massachusetts, " as long as t^e present unhappy oc- casion shall require." And thus, as Edmund Burke remarked, the British ^ Wirt. Annual Register for Vllb. Gordon. Rogers. Eliot. Bradford. Holmes. Pit- kin. Dwight. Ramsay. Griffiths. ^ Gage some time before had privately signified to Adams that a high reward would be con- ferred on him, if he would desert the American cause and "make his peace with the king." Adams thus answered : — "I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of kings. No personal consideration shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country." Rogers. CHAP. IV.] BATTLE OF BUNKER'S HILL. 51] commander offered mercy to those who were openly in arms and actually besieging him in his station, while he excluded from mercy two men who were five hundred miles from him and actually at the time (as members of the second congress) sitting in an assembly which had never by statute been declared illegal. To signahze Adams and Hancock in this manner was to employ the only means within his competence of endearing these men and their principles to the Americans, whom the proclamation, instead of intimi- dating or dividing, served but additionally to unite and embolden. From the movements visible among the British troops, and their apparent preparations for some active enterprise, the Americans were led to believe that Gage designed to issue from Boston and penetrate into the interior of Massachusetts ; whereupon, with a view to anticipate or derange the sup- posed project of attack, the Provincial Congress suggested to Putnam and Thomas, who held the chief command in the army which blockaded Bos- ton, that measures should be taken for the defence of Dorchester Neck, and that a part of the American force should occupy an intrenched position on Bunker's Hill, which ascends from and commands the entrance of the peninsula of Charlestown. Orders were accordingly communicated to Colonel Prescott, with a detachment of a thousand men, to take possession of that eminence ; but, through some misapprehension. Breed's Hill, instead of Bunker's Hill, was made the site of the projected intrenchment. By his conduct of this perilous enterprise, and the heroic valor he displayed in the conflict that ensued, Prescott honorably signahzed a name which his descendants have farther adorned with the highest trophies of forensic and literary renown. About nine o'clock of the evening [June 16], the de- tachment moved from Cambridge, and, silently traversing Charlestown Neck, gained the summit of Breed's Hill unobserved. This eminence is situated at the extremity of the peninsula nearest to Boston ; and is so elevated as to overlook every part of that town, and so near it as to be within the reach of cannon-shot. The American troops, who were provided with intrenching tools, instantly commenced their work, which they pursued with such dili- gence, that, before the morning arrived, they had thrown up a redoubt of considerable dimensions, and with such deep silence, that, although the pen- insula was nearly surrounded by British ships of war and transports, their operations were only first disclosed to the astonished army of Britain by the dispersion of the nocturnal darkness under whose shade they had been conducted. At break of day [June 17], the alarm was communicated at Boston by a cannonade which the Lively sloop of war promptly directed against the intrenchments and embatded array of the Americans. A battery of six guns was soon after opened upon them from Copp's Hill, at the north end of Boston. Under an incessant shower of bullets and bombs, the Americans firmly and indefatigably persevered in their labor, until they completed a small breastwork, extending from the east side of the redoubt to the bottom of the hill, towards the river Mystic. We have remarked the mistake that occasioned a departure from the original plan of the American enterprise, and led to the assumption of Breed's Hill instead of the other em- inence which it was first proposed to occupy. By a corresponding mis- take, the memorable engagement which ensued has received the name of The Battle of Bunker'' s Hill^ — a name which only vanity or pedantry can now hope or desire to divest of its long-retained celebrity, and its animating influence on the minds of men. It would be wiser, perhaps, to change 512 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI the name of an insignificant hill ihan of a glorious battle in which the prize contested was the freedom of North America. Gage, perceiving the necessity of dislodging the Americans from the position they had so suddenly and daringly assumed, detached about noon on this service the Generals Howe and Pigot, with ten companies of gren- adiers, ten of light-infantry, and a suitable proportion of field-artillery. These troops, crossing the narrow bay interjected between Boston and the Amer- ican position, landed at Moreton's Point, and immediately formed in order of batde ; but perceiving that the Americans, undaunted by this demonstra- tion, and with spirit erected to the utmost height, firmly waited the attack, they refrained from advancing till the arrival of a reinforcement from Boston. Meanwhile the Americans were also reinforced by a body of their country- men, commanded by the Generals Warren and Pomroy ; and the troops on the open ground, tearing up some adjoining post and rail fences, and fix- ing the stakes in two parallel lines before them, filled up the space between with new-mown grass, and formed for themselves a cover from the musketry of the enemy. Collecting all their courage, and undepressed by the ad- vantage which their adversaries derived from the audacity of assault, they stood prepared for an effort which should yield their countrymen, if not vic- torious liberty, at least a memorable example of what the brave and the free can do to achieve it. The British troops, strengthened now by the arrival of the second de- tachment, and formed in two lines, moved forward to the conflict, having the light-infantry on the right wing commanded by General Howe, and the grenadiers on the left conducted by General Pigot ; the former to attack the American lines in flank, and the latter the redoubt in front. The attack was begun by a heavy discharge of field-pieces and howitzers ; the troops advancing slowly, and halting at short intervals to allow time for the artil- lery to produce effect on the works and on the spirits of their defenders. During their advance, General Gage, who surveyed the field of battle from Copp's Hill, caused the battery at this place to bombard and set fire to the village of Charlestown, situated beneath the position of the Americans, whom, from the direction of the wind, he expected to annoy by the confla- gration. Charlestown, one of the earliest setdements of the Puritans in New England, a handsome and flourishing village, containing about four hun- dred houses, built chiefly of wood, was quickly enveloped in a blaze of de- struction ; but a sudden change of the wind, occurring at this crisis, carried the smoke to a quarter which neither sheltered the approach of the British nor occasioned inconvenience to the Americans. The conflagration added a horrid grandeur to the interesting scene that was now unfolding to the eyes of a countless multitude of spectators, who, thronging all the heights of Boston and its neighbourhood, awaited, with throbbing hearts, the approach- ing battle. The American troops, having permitted Howe's division to ap- proach unmolested within a very short distance of their works, then poured in upon them such a deadly and confounding fire of small arms, that the British line was broken in an instant, and fell precipitately back in headlong rout towards the landing-place. This disorder was repaired by the vigor- ous exertions of the officers, who again brought up the repulsed troops to the attack ; but the Americans, renewing their fire with a precision of aim derived from their habits of life, and unexampled, perhaps, in the conduct of any former battle fought since the invention of gunpowder, again spread CHAP. IV.] BATTLE OF BUNKER'S HILL. 513 such carnage through the hostile ranks, that the British were a second time driven back in complete confusion. At this critical juncture, General Clinton, arriving upon the field from Boston, aided the efforts of Howe and the other officers in rallying the disheartened troops, who with some difficul- ty were a third time led on to the charge. The Americans had been but scantily supplied with cartridges, partly from an overstrained attention to economy in the consumption of an article urgently needed and sparingly possessed by their countrymen, and partly in deference to the counsels of some old provincial officers, whose ideas of battle were derived from their experience in hunting, and in the system (very similar to that employment) of Indian warfare, and who insisted, that, as every shot ought to kill a man, so to give the troops any more ammunition than was absolutely necessary to inflict on the enemy a loss that would be tantamount to defeat was to tempt them to neglect accuracy of aim and throw their fire away. To the discredit of this counsel, the powder of the Americans now began to fail, and consequently their fire to slacken. The British at the same time brought some of their cannons to bear upon the position of the Americans, and raked the inside of the breastwork from end to end ; the fire from the ships, batteries , and field-artillery was redoubled; and the redoubt, attacked on three sides at once with impetuous valor, was carried at the point of the bayonet. Yet so desperate was the resistance of its defenders, that, even after their officers had commanded a retreat, they continued to fight till the redoubt was half filled with the assailants. During these operations, Pigot's division was attempting to force the left point of the breastwork, preparatory to an attack on the flank of the Amer- ican line ; but while his troops advanced with signal intrepidity, they were received with unyielding firmness and determination. The Americans in this quarter, as well as at the redoubt, reserved their fire until the near approach of the enemy, and then poured in their shot with such well-directed aim as to mow down the advancing troops in whole ranks at every volley. But no sooner was the redoubt lost, than the breastwork also was necessarily abandoned. And now the Americans, beaten, but unsubdued, had to per- form their retreat over Charlestown Neck, which was completely raked by the guns of the Glasgow man-of-war and of two floating batteries ; but, great as was the apparent danger, the retreat was accomplished with incon- siderable loss. The British troops were too much exhausted, and had suf- fered too severely, to improve their dear-bought victory by more than a mere show of pursuit. They had brought into action about three thousand men, and their killed and wounded amounted to one thousand and fifty-four. The number of Americans engaged was fifteen hundred, and their killed, wounded, and missing amounted to four hundred and fifty-three. They lost some gallant officers, of whom the most generally known and lamented was Joseph Warren, a young physician of Boston,^ lately promoted to the rank of general in the American army, and who, having ably and successfully animated his countrymen to resist the power of Britain, now gallantly fell in the first battle that their resistance produced.^ And thus ended a day that showed too late to the infatuated politicians of Britain how greatly they * " No part of the community," says an American writer, " engaged with greater ardor in the cause of the country than the members of the medical profession." Among others who distinguished themselves by deserving this remark was John Brooks, who afterwards became governor of Massachusetts. * Annual Register for Vnh. Bradford! Gordon. Dwight. . VOL. II. 65 514 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. had underrated the arduous difficulties of the contest they provoked, and how egregiously those men had deceived them who confidently predicted that the Jimericans would not fight. ^ No other imaginable result of the conflict could have been more unfavorable to the prospects of Britain, whose troops, neither exhilarated by briUiant victory nor exasperated by disgraceful defeat, were depressed by a success of which it was evident that a few more such instances would prove their ruin. The second Continental Congress of America had assembled, meanwhile, at Philadelphia, on the 10th of May, when Peyton Randolph was again elected president by his colleagues. Hancock produced to this assembly a collection of documentary evidence, tending to prove, that, in the skirmish of Lexington, the king's troops were the aggressors ; together with a report of the proceedings of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts on that occasion. The time was now arrived when the other provinces of America were required definitively to resolve, and unequivocally to declare, whether they would make common cause with the New England States in actual war, or, abandoning them and the object for which they had all so long jointly contended, submit to the absolute supremacy of the British parhament. The congress did not hesitate which part of the alternative to embrace, but unanimously determined [May 26],^ that, as hostilities had actually com- menced, and large reinforcements to the British army were expected, the several provinces should be immediately put in a state of defence ; add- ing, however, that, as they ardently wished for a restoration of the harmony formerly subsisting between the mother country and the colonies, they were resolved, for the promotion of this desirable object, to present once more a humble and dutiful petition to the king. Yet the members of this body perfectly well knew that the king and his ministers and parliament not only denied the legality of their assemblage and their right to represent the sen- timents of America, but openly denounced them as a seditious and traitor- ous association ; and by a great majority of the American people the senti- ments of loyalty, which they had once cherished or professed for the British crown and empire, were now extinguished, and either lost in oblivion or re- membered with disdain. But it is a general practice of mankind, and the peculiar policy of governments, to veil the most implacable animosity and the most decisive martial purpose under a show of professions more than ordinarily forbearing and pacific ; nor can any proclamation be more om- inous of violence, than that in which a kingdom or commonwealth judges it expedient to vaunt its own moderation. Massachusetts, having informed the congress of her destitution of regular government, and solicited advice for the remedy of this defect, received in answer the counsel, that the free- holders should elect the members of a representative assembly ; that these General Burgoyne, the British commander, in narrating the engagement that occurred between his own army and the American troops on the 7th of October, 1777, remarked, ! be any persons who continue to doubt iiy oi' fighting, call it by whatever term ' would be very absurd longer to contend with If there be any persons who continue to doubt that the Americans possess the quality and a prejudice that it faculty of fighting, call it by whatever term they please, they entertain 3uld be very absurd longer to contend with." One of Burgoyne's officers. Major Ackland (whose wife. Lady Harriet Ackland, acquired a ;h celebrity by her fortitude and conjugal tenderness), having been severely wounded lantly fighting with the American troops, returned to Britain, where he was killed m high celebrity by her fortitude and conjugal tenderness), having been severely wounded while gallantly fighting with the American troops, returned to Britain, where he was killed in a duel by a far less brave man, to whom he gave the lie for reproaching the Americans with cowardice. * The declaration, which they embraced and published, setting forth the causes and ne- cessity of taking arms, was composed by Dickinson, and contains this remarkable expression : — *■ We have counted the cost of the contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery." CHAP. IV.] ADDRESS OF CONGRESS TO THE BRITISH PEOPLE. 5^5 representatives should appoint counsellors ; and that the representatives and counsellors should together provisionally exercise the powers of govern- ment. This counsel was straightway embraced. Equal efficacy attended a recommendation addressed to all the colonies, that they should appoint com- mittees of general safety to guard and administer the public interest during the occasional recess of the provincial assemblies. Besides their second petition to the king, the congress renewed their ap- plications to Canada and other places, and published an admirable address to the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland. In this last composition, the British people were addressed with the endearing appellations of '' Friends, Countrymen, and Brethren " ; and entreated, by these and every other of the ties which bound the two nations together, seriously to receive and consider the present and probably final attempt to prevent their disso- lution. After again recapitulating former injuries, and recounting the recent acts of hostility in the w^anton destruction of American life and property, they demanded if the descendants of Britons could tamely submit to this 9 'M\o ! " they added, " 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 and armies can destroy our towns and ravage our 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 lux- ury which, from that period, you will want, — the luxury of being free. Our enemies charge us with sedition. In what does this sedition consist } In our refusal to submit to unwarrantable acts of injustice and cruelty } If so, show us a period in your history in which you have not been equally seditious. We are reproached with harbouring the project of independ- ence ; but what have we done that can warrant this reproach } Abused, insulted, and contemned, we have carried our dutiful petitions to the throne ; and we have applied to your justice for relief. What has been the suc- cess of our endeavours ^ The clemency of our sovereign is unhappily di- verted ; our petitions are treated with indignity ; our prayers answered by insults. Our application to you remains unnoticed, and leaves us the mel- ancholy apprehension of your wanting either the will or the power to assist us. Even under these circumstances, what measures have we taken that betray a desire of independence .'' Have we called in the aid of those foreign powers who are the rivals of your grandeur 9 Have we taken ad- vanta'^e of the weakness of your troops, and hastened to destroy them be- fore they were reinforced .'' Have not we permitted them to receive the succours we could have intercepted .'' Let not your enemies and ours per- suade you that in this we were influenced by fear or any other unworthy mo- tive ! The lives of Britons are still dear to us. When hostilities were commenced, —when, on a late occasion, we were wantonly attacked by your troops, though we repelled their assaults and returned their blows, yet we lamented the wounds they obliged us to inflict ; nor have we yet learned to rejoice at a victory over Englishmen." After reminding the British people that the extinction of liberty in America would be only a prelude to its eclipse in Britain, they concluded in these terms : — " A cloud hangs over your heads and ours. Ere this reaches you, it may prob- ably burst upon us. Let us, then (before the remembrance of former kind- 516 HISTORY OP NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. ness be obliterated), once more repeat these appellations which are ever grateful to our ears, — let us entreat Heaven to avert our ruin, and the destruction that threatens our friends, brethren, and countrymen, on the other side of the Atlantic." Aware that a great deal of discontent existed in Ireland, the congress con- ceived the hope of rendering this sentiment conducive to the multipHcation of their own partisans and the embarrassment of the British court ; and to this end in their address to Ireland they alluded to the past oppression and present opportunities of this people with a politic show of sympathy and friendship calculated at once to foment agitation among them, and to at- tach to themselves the numerous bands of Irish emigrants who had resorted and still continued to resort to the American provinces. " The innocent and oppressed Americans," they declared, "naturally desire the sympathy and good-will of a humane and virtuous people who themselves have suffered under the rod of the same oppressor." i Having thus made their last appeals to the king and people of Great Brit- ain, the congress proceeded to organize their military force, and issued bills of credit to the amount of three millions of Spanish milled dollars (for the redemption of which the confederated colonies were pledged) to defray the expenses of the military establishments and operations.''^ Articles of war for the regulation of the continental army were framed ; measures were pursued for the enhstment of regiments ; and a declaration or manifesto was pubhshed, setting forth the causes and necessity of recourse to arms, and withal protesting that American resistance w^ould end as soon as American wrongs were redressed. A battahon of artillery was formed, and the command of it intrusted to Henry Knox, a native of Boston, whom the force of his genius and the peculiar bent of his taste and studies had already qualified to sustain the part of an accomplished master of the art of war, and whose successful exertions in the sequel to improve the Ameri- can ordnance and artillery excited the surprise and admiration of the most accomplished officers of Europe. In all the provinces the enlistment of troops was promoted by the operation of the late acts of parliament, which deprived many of the inhabitants of America of their usual employments and means of subsistence. The nomination of a commander-in-chief of the American forces was the next, and not the least important, measure which demanded from the congress the united exercise of its wisdom and authority. Its choice (and never was choice more happily directed) fell upon George Washington, whom previous scenes have already introduced to our acquaintance,^ and whose ' Every person acquainted with British history is aware of the important concessions in favor of the people of Ireland' that were extorted from Britain by the progress of her quarrel with America. 2 This expedient was-preferred to. direct taxation, which, indeed, the congress was not au- thorized to impose. TJie Americans, it has been said, during the whole contest, discovered a much greater readiness to risk their lives than their fortunes in defence of their liberty. Theif leaders, accustomed' to dieolaim against all taxation but that which emanated from the pro- vincial assemblies, were. afraid to claim for the congress a power which was denied to the Brit- ish parliament. " The contest being, on the very question of taxation, the levying of im- posts, unless from the last necessity, would have been madness." Instructions of Congress to Franklin^ their ambassador at the French court, in 1778. The provincial assemblies and con- gresses possessed more power and exerted more vigor than the general congress, which they always preceded in demonstrations of resistance and approaches to independence. Tyrants formerly recruited their exchequers by debasing the current coin of their realms. Infant re- publics, in modern timesy have not more creditably raised supplies by the expedient of paper money. 3 Mte, Book X., Chap. III. and IV. CHAP. IV.] WASHINGTON CHOSEN COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 517 services, especially in Braddock's campaign, had been always the more fondly appreciated by his countrymen, from the flattering contrast they sug- gested between British rashness and misconduct, and American skill, fore- sight, and energy. The deputies of the New England States, less acquaint- ed with the achievements and character of Washington than the people of the southern provinces, and warmly admiring their own officers, would wil- lingly have conferred this high dignity upon one of them ; and Putnam, Ward, and several others were named as candidates ; but the partisans of these officers, perceiving that Washington possessed a majority of suf- frages, and that his was the name the most widely spread abroad in America, forbore a vain opposition, and promoted the public confidence by uniting to render the election unanimous. [June 15.] Of the other officers who had been proposed, some,^ though inhabitants, were not natives of America ; and some had distinguished themselves by undisguised and headlong zeal for American independence. None of them possessed the ample fortune of Washington, who, in addition to this advantage and to the claim arising from previous services, was a native American ; and though a firm friend of American liberty, yet moderate in his relative views and language, and believed still to cherish the hope, or at least the wish, of reconcilement with the parent state. In conferring the supreme command on him, the partisans of conciliation meant to promote a friend, and the partisans of independ- ence hoped to gain one. Nature and fortune had singularly combined to adapt and to designate this individual for the distinguished situations which he now and afterwards attained, and the arduous duties they involved. A long struggle to defend the frontiers of Virginia against continual incursions of the French and Indians, — the command of a clumsy, ill-organized pro- vincial militia, prouder of being free citizens than effective soldiers, and among whom he had to introduce and establish the restraints of discipline, — obliged with minute labor and constant activity to superintend and give impulsion to every department of the service over which he presided, to ex- ecute as well as order, to negotiate, conciliate, project, command, and en- dure ; — there could not have been a better preparatory education for the office of commander-in-chief of the motley, ardent, and untrained levies that constituted at present the army of America. His previous functions and exertions, arduous rather than splendid, excited respect without envy,^ and, combined with the influence of his character and manners, qualified him to exercise command and prepared his countrymen to brook his as- cendency. The language and deportment of this truly great man were in general remarkably exempt from every strain of irregular vehemence and every symptom of indeliberate thought ; disclosing an even tenor of steadfast propriety, an austere but graceful simplicity, sound considerate sense and prudence, the gravity of a profound understanding and habitual reflection, and the tranquil grandeur of an elevated soul. Of this moral superiority, as 01 all human virtue, part was the fruit of wise discipline and resolute self- control ; for Washington was naturally passionate and irritable, and had in- creased the vigor and authority of every better quality of his mind by the conquest and subjection of those rebellious elements of its composition. Calm, modest, and reserved, yet dignified, intrepid, inflexibly firm, and persevering ; indefatigably industrious and methodical ; just, yet merciful * Gates and Charles Lee, for example. 2 " Whom envy dared not hate," says a great English bard, in allusion to Washington. RR 518 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL and humane ; frugal and calculating, yet disinterfested ; circumspect, yet en- terprising ; serious, virtuous, consistent, temperate, and sincere, — his moral portraiture displays a blended variety of excellence, in which it is difficult to assign a predominant lustre to any particular grace, except perhaps a grave majestic composure. Ever superior to fortune, he enjoyed her smiles with moderation, endured her frowns with serenity, and showed him- self alike in victory forbearing, and in defeat undaunted. No danger or difficulty could disturb his equanimity, and no disaster paralyze his energy or dishearten his confidence. The same adverse vicissitude that would have drained an ordinary breast of all its spirit served but to call forth new streams of vigor from Washington's generous soul. His countenance and general aspect corresponded with the impression produced by his character. Fixed, firm, collected, and resolved, yet considerately kind, it seemed com- posed for dignity and high exploit. A sound behever in the divine doctrines of Christianity, he was punctual and devout in discharging every public and private office of Christian piety. Perhaps there never was another man who trod with more unsullied honor the highest ways of glory, or whose personal character and conduct exercised an influence so powerful and so beneficial on the destiny of a great nation. That he was childless was, con- sidering his situation, a fortunate circumstance, as it obstructed the jeal- ousies that might have impaired the pubhc confidence, and facilitated the disinterested purpose of declining all emolument for his services,^ — a pur- pose declared in the modest yet firm and resolute speech in which he ac- cepted the commission now conferred on him by his colleagues in congress. This assembly assured him that they would support and adhere to him with their lives and fortunes ; and, with a studied conformity to the language of the Roman senate in seasons of public danger, instructed him, in the discharge of the great trust he had received, to make it his especial care that the liberties of America receive no detriment. Departing to assume the exercise of his function [July 2], Washington found, on his arrival in Mas- sachusetts, that the British army, in two divisions, had intrenched itself on Bunker's Hill and Dorchester Neck, adjoining to Boston, where it was still blockaded by the American forces who occupied both sides of the river Charles. About two months afterwards. General Gage embarked for Eng- land, and the command of the British forces devolved on Sir Wilham How^e.^ The partisans of the American cause at New York had already regained their ascendency in the councils of this province, which sent representatives to the present congress, and desired advice relative to the conduct that should be pursued on the arrival of an additional body of British troops, which was daily expected at the provincial metropolis. The congress rec- ommended that the troops should be permitted to remain in the barracks at New York, but not suffered to construct fortifications or assume a position that would enable them to intercept the intercourse between the city and the country ; that, as long as the soldiers demeaned themselves peaceably, they should be treated with civility ; but that the inhabitants should be ready to repel force by force. The British ministers entertained a high • See Note XXXV., at the end of the volume. ' It has been said that this command was first offered to General Oglethorpe, rather in com- pliment to his seniority in the British Army List, than with the expectation of his accepting it; that he actually, and to the surprise of the British ministers, signified his willingness to accept the proffered command ; but that, instead of the armaments which thoy were willing to furnish, he demanded powers of concession and conciliation, which they refused to confer Ramsay's American Revolution. CHAP. IV.] GEORGIA ACCEDES TO THE UNION. 519 opinion of the address and abilities of Tryon, the governor of this province, and had formed expectations of his services with which his conduct was very far from corresponding. Struck with alarm at a resolution of the Con- tinental Congress which recommended to all the provincial assemblies and committees the arrest of suspected persons, of whatever rank or station, he hastily fled from New York and took shelter on board of a British ship of war. This congress first applied to its constituents the title of The Twelve Con- federated Colonies ; a numeration, however, which they were soon agreea- bly invited to alter ; for on the 20th of July, a day which they had sol- emnized by the appointment of a fast throughout America, they received intelligence that Georgia now acceded to the general union and had elected deputies to congress. The cause of American liberty had been actively espoused in this province (which now contained fifty thousand white inhabit- itants), from the very commencement of the controversy with Britain, by a small but increasing party, of which the principal leader was Noble Wim- berly .Tones, a physician, who accompanied Oglethorpe in his first voyage from England, and who distinguished himself by a warm and determined op- position to the Stamp Act. Recent proof was afforded to the American people of the inclination of the Georgians in favor of the common cause. Captain Maitland having arrived at a Georgian port from London with a cargo of gunpowder, the people boarded his vessel and took the powder into their own possession. All the counteracting efforts and policy of Sir James Wright, the governor, though pursued with consummate skill, prudence, and vigor, and supported by the influence of his well deserved popularity, were insufficient to repress the rising spirit of resistance in this the youngest and weakest of the provincial commonwealths. The congress, now repre- senting The Thirteen States of North America, resolved [July 25] to maintain a body of forces, not exceeding five thousand in number, within the province of New York ; and, having organized a post-office establish- ment extending from Falmouth in New England to Savannah in Georgia, unanimously appointed Franklin the postmaster-general. [July 26.] This eminent philosopher and politician, divided between his attachment to American hberty and his desire of preserving the integrity of the British empire, employed much of his time in projecting alternately plans of rec- oncilement with Britain, and of permanent union and confederation between the States of America.^ The national congress, having made provision for the establishment of hospitals adapted to the reception of twenty thousand sick or wounded men, adjourned for a month. [August 1.] On their reassembling [Septem- ber 5], the principal subject of their deliberations was the expediency of an invasion of Canada, for the purpose of anticipating the expected atiack of a British force from that quarter. To the issue of these deliberations we shall subsequently advert. During the present session, Peyton Randolph, the first president of the congress, suddenly died. He had vacated the chair in May precedin g, and John Hancock had been elected his successor.^ ' No less divided were the sentiments of Franklin's grand-nephew, Jonathan Williams, afterwards a general in the American service. Writing from France this year, Williams says, " Although I profess myself an American, I am still an Englishman ; I only wish the titles to be synonymous " ; and declares his conviction that the favor expressed by the French for the American cause proceeded entirely from hatred of England. * Journals of Congress, May 19 and October 23, 1775. 520 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL In one instance, the members of this congress overestimated, or at least practically outstripped, the general pace of sentiment and opinion in Amer- ica, and exposed themselves to the charge of incautious precipitancy. They composed and published a plan of federal association (similar to that which was ultimately adopted) between all the provinces, by which a perma- nent congress was to be estabHshed, and vested with power to administer the general defence, and regulate all financial operations and other matters appertaining to this function, till a happy reconcihation with Britain should be effected. This suggestion, whether premature or not (for it was per- haps intended to familiarize the minds of men with a prospect from which they might be expected at first to recoil), excited a general demur and hes- itation throughout America ; but only in North Carolina did it meet with a distinct and positive rejection. The provincial assemblies were averse to part with so much power as it was proposed to confer on the general con- gress ; and many persons shrunk in temporary panic from a measure which they justly regarded as destructive of all prospect and chance of pacific accommodation with Britain. With this exception, the proceedings of the present congress, even more than those of the former, were the theme of grateful applause throughout the American States, who imitated its language, and, though reluctant to invest it with express legislative authority, yet wil- lingly gave the force of laws to its counsels and recommendations. The convention of South Carolina, in an address to Lord Wilham Campbell, the new governor* of this province, declared, as the congress had done, that they adhered to the British crown, though they took arms against British tyranny. Some of the leading patriots in the province, suspecting that the governor was fomenting a conspiracy of the Royalists against the cause of America, employed M'Donald, a captain in the provincial militia, to discover the governor's policy by feigning to share his sentiments. Lord William unwarily avowed the reality, and disclosed the particulars of the intrigue he was conducting ; but soon perceiving the snare into which he had fallen, and learning that it was proposed to arrest him, he fled from Charleston, and, as a last resource, endeavoured (not unsuccessfully), by in- sidious addresses to the remains of the unfortunate party called Regulators in North Carolina, to recruit the force of the Royalists, and rekindle the em- bers of civil war. The convention of Virginia declared before God and the world that they bore true faith to the king, and would disband their forces whenever the liberties of America were restored ; — as doubtless they did, — though not till after Britain acknowledged the independence of America. In this province the march of the Revolution was accelerated by the in- temperate measures of Lord Dunmore, the governor. Having by a sudden and clandestine operation removed a portion of the public stores during the night from WiUiamsburg on board of armed vessels, and finding his conduct sharply arraigned by the provincial convention, he retorted their censure and condemned all their proceedings in a proclamation which concluded with the usual formula of "God save the king." They replied to him by a proclamation which concluded with " God save the liberties of America " ; and Patrick Henry marched against him at the head of a detachment of the provincial mihtia. Lord Dunmore, who -at first solemnly swore, that, if any violence were offered to himself, he would proclaim liberty to all the ' The frequent changes of royal governors at this epoch detracted much from the reputation of the British cabinet for firm, consistent, deliberate purpose. CHAP. IV.] VIOLENT PROCEEDINGS OF LORD DUNMORE. 52 J negro slaves in the province, and lay Williamsburg in ashes, finding that his menaces inflamed the public rage, instead of inspiring fear, was obliged to procure a respite from the approaching danger by granting a bill of ex- change for the pecuniary value of the stores which had been removed ; but soon again involving himself by his violence in a quarrel (from which the utmost prudence could hardly have kept him free) with the popular party, he fled hastily from Williamsburg, took refuge on board the Fowey, a Brit- ish man-of-war, and thus practically abdicated his functions, — an example, which, greatly to their own discredit, and unhappily for the interest of the principles they espoused, was followed by several of the other royal gov- ernors of American provinces. The Virginian assembly invited their fu- gitive governor to return, which he refused to do unless they would previ- ously announce their acceptance of Lord North's conciliatory proposition. He even refused to signify his assent to certain statutory regulations which awaited this formality, unless the members of assembly would attend him and sohcit his concurrence on board the British vessel. The assembly re- plied by an address (composed by Thomas Jefferson) which announced a firm and dignified rejection of those requisitions, and concluded with an " appeal to the even-handed justice of that Being who doth no wrong, ear- nestly beseeching him to illuminate the councils and prosper the endeavours of those to whom America has confided her hopes, that, through their wise direction, we may again see reunited the blessings of liberty and prosperity, and the most perfect harmony with Great Britain." In imitation of the measure recommended by the general congress to Massachusetts, a provis- ional government was now established in Virginia. Lord Dunmore, how- ever, still continued to hover about and menace the coasts of the prov- ince, and by proclamations invited the inhabitants of Tory principles to make head against the rebels^ and negro slaves to gain their freedom by es- pousing the cause of the king.^ Landing at Norfolk [October 15] whh a party of these adherents, he destroyed or carried away a considerable quantity of ordnance. By other attacks of a similar description, he ravaged many parts of the province confided by Britain to his superintending care, and excited additional rage and hatred against the authority which he pro- fessed to represent and administer. Among the foremost of the Virginians to take arms in defence of the popular cause was George Wythe, who, though highly distinguished as a lawyer and statesman, was always inclined to approve his patriotism rather by actions than by words, and, diligently inuring himself to the toils and other duties of the field, w^ould have contin- ued to pursue a military career, if the voice of his countrymen had not re- called him to participate in their legislative councils as the sphere in which his peculiar talents were likely to be exerted with the greatest advantage. Wentworth, the governor of New Hampshire, alarmed at the spread of revolutionary sentiments in this province, retired from his post ; and thus accelerated the advance of the Revolution, by enabling or compelling the partisans of liberty openly to assume, without appearing to usurp, the ad- ministration of the supreme executive power which he had vacated. Mar- ' M'Adam, the celebrated improver of roads, who was in America at this time, assured me that the negro slaves in general were attached to monarchical, and inimical to republican power. In the years 1778 and 1779, both Georgia and South Carolina, but especially the latter province, sustained dreadful calamities from the vindictive fury of their negro slaves, of whom great numbers revolted against their masters on the first approach of a British army, and fought for their own liberty against the liberty of America. VOL. II. 66 RR* 522 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. tin, the governor of North Carolina, from real or affected apprehension for his own safety, caused his house to be surrounded with cannon, of which several pieces were seized and carried off by the people. Alarmed at the outrage which his own preparation had provoked, Martin took refuge in Fort Johnson, on the river of Cape Fear, where he endeavoured to rally around him a number of Scottish emigrants who regarded with aversion a final rupture with Britain, and to excite insurrection among the negro slaves of the colonists ; but he was forced to evacuate his stronghold, and to fly from the province, by the approach of a body of provincial troops conducted by Colonel Ashe, who abandoned the service of the British king and es- poused the cause of the American people. The spirit of resistance al- ready kindled in the southern provinces was chafed to the highest pitch of vindictive exasperation by the insidious addresses of Martin, Lord Dun- more, and other British functionaries, to the negro slaves in America. This influence was doubtless experienced in Maryland, where a popular congress now assumed the functions of the provincial assembly, and where the planters found no inconsistency or contradiction between their claims as freemen and their possessions as slave-owners.^ A remarkable activity of martial preparation was exerted in this province ; the principal inhabitants set the example of arming themselves ; and the Provincial Congress, besides levy- ing and expending large sums of money for the procurement of ammunition, commanded every citizen to provide himself with arms, under pain of being proclaimed an enemy to his country. Corresponding movements and pro- ceedings took place in the neighbouring province of Delaware. Franklin, the governor of New Jersey, perceiving that his people were daily falling away from their allegiance to Britain, and that his authority over them was merely nominal, contented himself with expressing to the provin- cial assembly the regret with which he beheld the existing troubles and heard the wishes that were breathed for American independence ; for his own per- sonal security he declared that he desired no better safeguard than the good faith of the people of New Jersey. The assembly in answer protested that he was mistaken in supposing the Americans to be aiming at national inde- pendence ; that he might dismiss all doubt and inquietude with regard to his own safety ; that they could not compose the existing troubles ; and, earnest- ly deploring them, must still more keenly regret the unjust and tyrannical acts of parliament from which they arose. But not long after, Governor Frank- lin, persisting in a vain adherence to the cause of British prerogative, was denounced as an enemy of his country, and deposed and imprisoned by the people of New Jersey. In all the States of North America, before the close of the present year, the sceptre had substantially departed from Great Brit- ain ; and not only a vast preponderance of numbers, but the effectual au- thority, and in many parts the open and exclusive administration of municipal power, belonged to the partisans of American revolt and liberty.^ In Georgia, though a convention representing the majority of the people signi- fied their adherence to the American cause and the Continental Congress, yet their ascendency was disputed and their efficiency controlled by the number of Royalists inhabiting the province, and by the presence of a de- ' "We know too much of slavery to be slaves ourselves," is represented as a customary ex- pression of the free citizens of American States where negro slavery has extensively prevailed. * " This pleased me well," said an active American politician ; " for I knew, if government was once assumed, upon whatever motives, they would find that the Rubicon was passedi and that they could never return to their ancient form." Gordon. CHAP. IV.] RAVAGES BY BRITISH CRUISERS. 523 tachment of British troops quartered in it. These troops, after a bloody combat, succeeded in recapturing the fort of Savannah, which had been oc- cupied by a party of the insurgents ; but this advantage was counterbalanced by the arrival of an American regiment which the congress embodied and despatched for the protection of Hberty in Georgia. Sir James Wright, the governor of this province, was arrested by the daring effort of a small troop of volunteers, commanded by Colonel Habersham, and imprisoned by decree of the provincial assembly. Liberated on parole, he violated his engagement, and by nocturnal flight gained the shelter of a British ship of war that was stationed at Tybee. The system of predatory and vindictive hostility, which we have seen Lord Dunmore embrace, was pursued by many of the British commanders in a manner little creditable to the wisdom of their views or the generosity of their sentiments. Infatuated with tyrannical insolence, they provoked the Americans by menace and contumely, and rendered them desperate by a barbarous cruelty and devastation. Wallace, a captain in the British navy, whose vessel was appointed to cruise along the coasts of Connecticut and Rhode Island, judged himself warranted by the present posture of affairs to launch indiscriminate havoc on the inhabitants of America, and accordingly ravaged and destroyed every village and hamlet that his guns could reach. The province of Massachusetts, on receiving this inielhgence, promptly despatched a military force, under the command of General Lee, to the as- sistance of their allies ; and the assembly of Rhode Island decreed the pains of death and confiscation of goods on all who should hold even the slightest correspondence with the forces of the British king. Of this de- cree a practical application was straightway administered by an act of the same assembly confiscating various estates (and among others an estate in Rhode Island belonging to Hutchinson, the ex-governor of Massachusetts), of which the owners were declared by the act to be traitors to the liberty of America. In eompHance with a resolve of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, that Tories should not be allowed to convey their effects out of this province, the inhabitants of Falmouth had obstructed the load- ing of a ship which was engaged to carry masts to Great Britain. In ad- dition to such paltry cause of offence, Mowat, the commander of a British sloop of war, who had frequently been entertained at Falmouth with the most friendly hospitality, was roughly seized and detained for a few minutes by some individuals who were infuriated by the recent news of the battle of Bunker's Hill. He was instantly released by the interposition of the prin- cipal inhabitants ; but, incensed at the affront, he complained of it to the British Admiral Greaves, who was too easily persuaded to intrust him with a number of armed vessels, with which he arrived at the devoted town on the 17ih of October. Next day, he opened a heavy cannonade and bom- bardment, which, with the aid of a party sent on shore under cover of the naval guns, ^reduced the greater part of the town to ashes. A hundred and thirty-nine dwelling-houses and two hundred and seventy-eight ware- houses were destroyed on this occasion.^ » Annual Register for 1775. Gordon~Wirt Burk. Bradford. Ramsay. Holmes. Pit- kin. Dwight. Botta. Tucker's Life of Jefferson. Walsh's Appeal. McGuire's Religious Opinions of Was.angtmi. Collections of the Georgia Historical Society. Some American politi- cians showed a disposition to retaliate the devastations committed by the British troops. There is reason to believe that it was by the instigation, or at least with the encouragement, of Sila* Deane, the Araericao envoy to France, that an English vagabond, named Hill, attempted to vA 524 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK Xt. Nothing could be more impolitic on the part of Britain than such a system of warfare, of which the indiscriminate havoc involved every party, hostile, neutral, or friendly, in one common destruction. " It is calculated," said Edmund Burke in the House of Commons, " to produce the highest degree of irritation and animosity, but never has induced and never can induce any one people to become subjects to the government of another. It is a kind of war adapted to distress an independent people, but not to coerce disobedi- ent subjects." The men whom those ravages deprived of home and em- ployment were constrained to seek a refuge in the American camp ; and were provoked to hostility or confirmed in it by resentment against the British, and by gratitude to their own countrymen, by whom their families were sheltered and supported. The British troops, in conformity with the language of their government, long continued to regard the Americans rather as rebe/s ^ whom they were sent to chastise, than ^s legitimate belligerents entitled to claim the courtesies of civilized war, — a consideration more fitted to enhance the cruelty than to promote the efficiency of their own warfare. In a contest with America, the main advantage which Britain possessed was the superior discipline of her troops ; but this advantage was dimin- ished by the indulgence of a barbarous license and cruelty, productive of disorderly habits and corruptive of the principle of discipline ; and it was balanced by the conviction inevitably impressed on the British officers and soldiers, that their triumph would be attended with little honor and their de- feat with deep disgrace. The Americans, on the contrary, were prepared to rush into the contest with all the energy inspired by an indignant detesta- tion of the oppression which they hoped to repel, and a firm and animating conviction of the justice, advantage, and glory of the objects which they hoped to obtain. And as the war was prolonged, they acquired by experi- ence that discipline which alone gave any superiority to the arms of their opponents. The Massachusetts assembly having passed an act for the equipment of armed vessels, and for granting letters of marque and reprisal against the shipping of Britain, a privateer, commanded by Captain Manly, of Marble- head, was quickly put to sea, and soon after [November 29, 1775] captured a brig from Woolwich containing a great quantity of military stores and ammunition, and, almost in immediate sequence to this achievement, a num- ber of vessels from London, Glasgow, and Liverpool, freighted with cargoes destined for the use of the British forces. A court of admiralty was formed by the provincial authorities ; and by its sentence, the prizes were formally fire to the British dockyards at Bristol and Portsmouth. On the trial (in 1777) of Hill, who was hanged for this offence, the counsel for the crown thus vainly and foolishly expressed himself: — "I wish Mr. Silas Deane were here. A time may come, perhaps, when he and Dr. Franklin will be here." And again, — " Silas Deane is not here yet : he will be hanged in due time." Howell's State Trials. * Some of the British commanders, with ostentatious insult, applied this epithet to the Americans, even at the time when a prudent regard to their own safety imperiously withheld them from inflicting the treatment corresponding to it. In August, 1775, General Gage, writ- ing to Washington, who had taxed him with cruelty to the American prisoners in Boston, strongly denied the charge, and plumed himself on his kind and humane treatment of men whom at the same time he characterized as " rebels whose lives by the laws of the land are destined to the cord." He added that his prisoners were treated though humanely yet indis- criminately, " as I acknowledge no rank that is not derived from the king." To this remark Washington replied, "You affect. Sir, to despise all rank not derived from the same source with your own. I cannot conceive one more honorable than that which flows from the un- corrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power." Bradford. Ramsay, CHAP. IV.] ' PENN-S EXAMINATION. 525 condemned. A detachment of the militia of New Jersey, embarking in a small coasting-vessel, surprised, boarded, and captured a large British ship, carrying cattle, coals, and beer to the troops at Boston. A distinguished actor in this achievement was Aaron Ogden, whom a long and gallant ca- reer of service in his country's cause subsequently conducted to the highest municipal honors that his native province could confer. South Carohna was early and active in martial preparation ; but the whole quantity of powder in the province did not exceed three thousand pounds. The occasion seem- ing to require extraordinary exertions for obtaining a farther supply of this essential commodity, a committee of twelve persons, authorized by the pro- vincial assembly, sailed from Charleston for East Florida (which retained its adherence to the British government), and, boarding by surprise a Brit- ish vessel near St. Augustine, brought off fifteen thousand pounds of pow- der.' Before the close of the year, the Continental Congress gave orders for the construction and equipment of thirteen vessels of war. The British government at this crisis betrayed no symptom of wavering in its purpose to effect by force the submission of the American people.^ The king refused even to notice the second petition of the congress, and, at the opening of parliament in October, declared that the colonists were in a state of actual revolt, and that the object of their rebellion was to establish an independent empire. He added, that, to defeat their purpose, the most vigorous and decisive measures were necessary ; and that he had increased all his forces, and also engaged the aid of a body of Hessians and other German stipendiary troops. An application which this monarch had previously addressed to the States General of Holland, for leave to engage in his service some battalions of Scottish adventurers who were enrolled under the banners of the Dutch repubhc, met with a positive re- fusal. Although the employment of German mercenaries in a quarrel be- tween the king of Britain and his own subjects was severely censured by the wiser and more liberal of the British politicians, the views and policy of the court obtained the acquiescence of large majorities in both of the leg- islative chambers. The second petition of the congress to the king had been intrusted to Richard Penn, one of the proprietaries of Pennsylvania and formerly gov- ernor of this province, who conveyed it to London, but, on presenting it to Lord Dartmouth, was peremptorily informed that no answer would be re- turned. Penn had since remained more than two months in England with- out the slightest intercourse or communication with the ministers, — a cir- cumstance which excited just but unheeded censure in the House of Com- mons, — when, in consequence of a motion of the Duke of Richmond, he was examined on the state of affairs in America at the bar of the House of Lords. In his answers to the questions which were addressed to him on this occasion, Penn (who was himself no friend to American revolt or independence) affirmed that the Continental Congress was universally re- spected and implicitly obeyed in America ; that in Pennsylvania more than ' Ebenezer Piatt, one of the persons who performed this exploit, having fallen soon after into the hands of the British forces, was sent to England, where the government preferred a charge of high treason against him. He was imprisoned on this charge, but never brought to trial. Annual Re.gister for 1777. ^ It was this year that, for the first time, that great genius, but abject and (compared with his genius) despicable man, Gibbon, the historian, took a seat in the British House of Com- mons, where, as he relates in his autobiography, " I supported with many a sincere and si'ent vote the rights^ though not perhaps the interest^ of the mother country." 526 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI twenty thousand effective men, including the most respectable inhabitants of the province, had voluntarily enrolled themselves to undertake actual service, if necessity required ; and that the Pennsylvanians perfectly un- derstood the arts of casting cannon and of making gunpowder and small arms ; that the Americans were as expert as the Europeans in ship-build- ing ; that the language of the congress expressed undoubtedly the general sense of the people of America ; and that the petition to the king with which he had been intrusted was considered in America as an olive-branch, and had procured him there numerous compliments as the messenger of peace ; that in proportion to the hope which had been attached in America to the petition would, he feared, be the despair of friendly adjustment inspired by its evil reception ; that the Americans were willing to recognize the sove- reignty of Britain, but so firmly opposed to the injustice (as they reckoned it) of her claim of taxation, that, rather than yield to it, they would, he believed, embrace the policy of courting foreign succour ; and that it was little likely that even the presence of a strong military force would induce many colonists to support the pretensions of the British parliament against the authority of the American congress. When Penn had withdrawn, it was moved by the Duke of Richmond "that the matter of the American petition affords ground for conciliation of the unhappy difference subsisting between the mother country and the colonies, and that it is highly neces- sary that proper steps be immediately taken for attaining so desirable an ob- ject"', but after a long and violent debate the motion was rejected. In the close of the year [December], an act of parliament was passed, authorizing the confiscation of all American ships and cargoes, and of all the vessels of other countries engaged in trading with the American ports. One of the opponents of this measure in the House of Commons remarked, that, as the indiscriminate rapine proclaimed by the statute would oblige even the most submissively disposed of the Americans to unite with their countrymen in resistance, it ought to receive the title of "An act for more effectually carrying into execution the resolves of congress." By a clause in this act, which was much and justly reprobated, the commanders of Brit- ish ships of war were empowered to seize the crews of all American ves- sels whatever, and, besides confiscating their property, compel them to take arms against their countrymen under pain of being treated as mutineers. It was in vain that the wisdom and eloquence of Lord Chatham, Charles Fox, Edmund Burke, and other great statesmen, were exerted to inspire their countrymen with milder, juster, and more generous counsels. " Is there either justice or consistency," they demanded, " in despoiling a man of his goods as a foreign enemy, and at the same time compelling him to serve the state as a citizen?" The king, together with the great body of the par- liament and nation, > was bent on vengeance and war. Whatever estimate mi^ht be formed of the farthest views and purposes of the Americans, it was evident now that they were prepared by force of arms to emancipate their commerce from the control which had been imposed on it for the fancied advantage of Britain ; and the strong, though erroneous, impression of this advantage that was commonly entertained exerted a deep and active influence on the opinions and sentiments of the British people. In Scotland, especial- ly, where political liberty was little known or valued, and where the senti- ments engendered by the feudal system of manners still survived its decay, 1 S«e Note XXXIV., at the end of the volume. : '. .., ■, > '.:. -. CHAP. IV.] INVASION OF CANADA. 527 there was manifested an earnest and general approbation of the language and conduct of the government, and a most animated inveteracy against the Americans. The ministers themselves declared openly in both houses of parliament that they had been duped and misled by erroneous representations of the condition and sentiments of the colonial population ; and Lord Bar- rington, one of their colleagues, while he protested that America must be subdued in order to preserve her constitutional dependence on Britain, admit- ted that the project of imposing taxes on her people could no longer be ra- tionally entertained. So baseless did the original views and pretensions of Britain already appear to have been ! The other ministers, indeed (with the exception of the Duke of Grafton, who, professing that he had been fatally deceived, abruptly forsook them and became the advocate of reconcile- ment with America), were fa'm to modify the impression of disappoint- ment produced by Lord Barrington's language, which to some of their alarmed supporters they represented, with more or less sincerity, as a mere politic device employed to divide and weaken the Americans. Lord Mansfield, the chief justice of England, in defending the ministerial policy, declared in the House of Lords that it was now too late to entertain or dis- cuss the questions of original right and wrong, that the nation was engaged in war and must disregard every object but victory, and that "the justice of the cause must give way to the exigence of our present situation." " If we do not, my Lords, get the better of America," said he, '' Ameri- ca will get the better of us." Littleton, formerly governor of South Car- olina, now a member of the House of Commons, defended the propriety and predicted the efficacy of martial rigor on the part of Britain ; pro- testing, that, " if a (ew regiments were sent to the southern colonies of America, the negroes would rise and imbrue their hands in the blood of their masters." The only potentates in Europe that showed any inclination to second the policy of the British court were the kings of Denmark and Portugal ; the former of whom this year issued an edict prohibiting his subjects from trading with the Americans. By the Portuguese monarch there was published in the following year a proclamation declaring that the cause of the British king was the common cause of all sovereign princes ; and prohibiting his subjects from holding any intercourse whatever with the Americans, and the ships and natives of America from presuming to enter his dominions. An enterprise deeply affecting the relative interests of Britain and Amer- ica, and materially advancing their quarrel, had latterly been embraced by the American congress, and carried into effect by the vigor of Washington. The movements of Sir Guy Carleton and the British troops whom he com- manded, in Canada, led the American congress to anticipate from this quarter a formidable invasion of their northwestern frontier. To coun- teract the impending blow by an attack on the quarter whence it was ex- pected to proceed, the American leaders were sensible, was to divest their warfare of its merely defensive aspect, and to make a daring advance to the assumption of national independence. But they perceived that the danger with which they were menaced was great and imminent ; they deemed it inconsistent with reason and policy to await a stroke which might be diverted by a timely exertion of vigor ; and they warmly protested that no man was morally obliged to remain an inactive spectator of the conduct of an enemy who wai loading a gun for his destruction. Of the conse 528 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL quent expeditions into Canada which were projected by the congress and executed by their forces a detailed account would be foreign to the purpose of this work, of which the concluding portion regards as its main object the history of the international quarrel, and views the military operations as (com- paratively) unimportant, except in so far as they displayed, inspired, or confirmed in the Americans the purpose of final and absolute revolt.^ The conduct of the enterprise to which we shall now briefly advert was commit- ted to Generals Schuyler and Montgomery, of whom the first was soon obliged by bad health to retire from active service. Montgomery com- menced the siege of St. John's and compelled it to surrender, after a bloody action, in which he defeated a British force that marched to its relief. Dur- ing the siege, Ethan Allen, who had distinguished himself by the surprise of Ticonderoga, fell into the hands of a party of the enemy's troops, and, instead of being treated as a prisoner of war, was sent to England fettered as a traitor. Montgomery, advancing from St. John's, took unresisted possession of Montreal, from which Sir Guy Carleton, by a hasty flight and in disguised apparel, with difficulty escaped to Quebec. Washington had previously detached against this place a force commanded by Arnold, which, after enduring the most dreadful hardships and exerting the most admirable fortitude and energy, suddenly emerged from the depths of an unexplored wilderness, and struck the city and its defenders with astonish- ment and consternation. But arrested at this critical moment by the diffi- culty of procuring boats in order to cross the St. Lawrence, Arnold and his followers saw the opportunity which they had purchased so dearly, of a successful efl^ort of surprise, slip out of their hands. The English and Canadian inhabitants of the place, though previously discontented and at va- riance, now united for the common defence of their respective possessions, which were staked on the stability of the existing government, and a troop of Canadian farmers and peasants, who at first joined the invaders, soon withdrew from them in disgust at the impolitic rudeness and disrespect with which the Americans behaved to the Catholic priests. Montgomery, ar- riving from Montreal in the beginning of December, and uniting his forces with those of Arnold, was slain in a desperate and ineffectual assault upon Quebec. In this sanguinary conflict, and in every circumstance of the campaign which afforded scope to the display of soldierly qualities, no officer in the American army was more conspicuous than Colonel Morgan, who now, by his heroic constancy and brilliant valor, laid the foundation of a fame which every year of his country's danger and glory contributed to en- ' I agree with the two illustrious Americans to whom the following observations are as- cribed : — " Mr. Jefferson preferred Botta's Italian History of the American Revolution to any that had yet appeared; remarking, however, the inaccuracy of the speeches." — " Mr. John Adams said, that of all the speeches made in congress from 1774 to 1777, inclusive of both years, not one sentence remains except a few periods of Dr. Witherspoon printed in his works." Hall's Travels in Canada, &c. This author, whom I have already had occasion to cite, must not be confounded with the later traveller, Captain Basil Hall. I have had the pleasure of learning from Josiah Quincy, President of Harvard College, that John Quincy Adams, late president of the United States, honored my performance with the same commen- dation which Jefferson bestowed on the labors of Botta. Most of the American accounts of the Revolutionary War are overcrowded with names that leave no distinct or lasting impression on the minds of general readers, and loaded with an ac- cumulation of petty details. This is Homer's style, but quite unfit for the lasting representa- tion of a scene so greatly superior in dignity and interest to the subject of his lay. In sur- veying any great object in the physical or moral world, a certain distance, local or temporal, is essential to a just appreciation of its grandeur and proportions. CHAP. IV.] INVASION OF CANADA* ; : ^j^ large. Anthony Wayne, hitherto known to his countrymen only as a sup- porter of the principles of liberty in the Pennsylvanian assembly, also commenced with much honor in this campaign a career that conducted him to the highest military renown. The martial taste and genius of Wayne (awakened probably by the interesting events of the war that issued in the British conquest of Canada) were signally illustrated in his boyhood, when he narrowly escaped expulsion from school for diverting his comrades from their studies by the continual rehearsal of sieges, skirmishes, and battles. Aaron Burr, likewise, more generally known by his subsequent title of Colonel Burr (grandson of the great Jonathan Edwards, and after- wards vice-president of the United States of North America) first distin- guished himself in this campaign by the inflexible fortitude and the deter- mined spirit of adventurous enterprise which he displayed, first as a volun- tary associate of Arnold's followers, and then as aid-de-camp of Montgom- ery, the commander-in-chief ; he was only nineteen years of age, when, deaf to the remonstrances of all his friends and relations, he braved and sustained the fatigues and dangers of the Canadian expedition. In the sub- sequent scenes of the Revolutionary War, till his broken health compelled him to abandon the field, he continued to approve himself one of the most skilful, intrepid, and efficient officers in the American army ; but he ob- structed his own promotion and the recognition of his real merit by his inordinate ambition, his moody, jealous pride, his splenetic obstinacy, and the unbounded license of profligacy which he indulged in his intercourse with women. The annals of America present no other instance of the dark, hard, restless, dangerous character disclosed in the career of Burr. Montgomery himself, whose fall we have remarked, was a native of Ireland, and, after serving with the British army during the last war in America, had married and established himself in the State of New York, and trans- ferred his patriotic attachments to the new scene of his residence and do- mestic afl^ections. His loss was deeply deplored, and his merits as a gallant and experienced officer and generous friend of liberty were enthusiastically commemorated in all the American States. Even the partisans of Britain admired his character, while they blamed his conduct ; and Lord North, in alluding to him in the British House of Commons, exclaimed, " Curse on his virtues ! for they have undone his country." Arnold, on whom the command of the invading forces now devolved, contrived through the whole winter to maintain the blockade of Quebec ; and it was not till the arrival of the following year and of strong reinforcements to the British army from Europe, that he and his American troops, successively abandoning post after post, were finally compelled to evacuate Canada. i Among all the scenes of war to which the quarrel between Britain and America gave rise, this expedition was honorably distinguished both by the intrepid valor and endurance of the Americans, and (with the exception of the indignities inflicted on Allen) by the generous concern and respect for each other reciprocally demonstrated by the belligerent forces. The Amer- icans warmly celebrated the merits of Carleton as a magnanimous foe, and ascribed to his undisguised abhorrence of the employment of Indian auxilia- * Annual Register for 1775 and for 1776! Gordon. Ramsay. Holmes. Williams's His- tory of Vermont. Armstrong's Life of General Wayne. Davis's Memoirs of Aaron Burr. Walsh's j^^pm/. Pitkin. This last cited work, though invaluable from the access to novel and important American documents which its writer enjoyed, is rendered extremely perplexing to ordinary readers by ltd negligent composition and disregard of chronological arrangement VOL. II. 67 ss gg5 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL ries the policy which, unfortunately for Britain, prompted her ministers to divest him of his command and preferably intrust it to General Burgoyne.^ The Canadian expedition of the Americans and its result, misrepresented by the folly and insolence of Burgoyne, induced the British cabinet to entertain a very erroneous view of the importance and facility of hostile operations in this quarter, and in the sequel exerted a very injurious influence on its military policy, — which, instead of directing the British forces to act with combined vigor upon one point, divided them into two armies, of which the operations were totally unconnected, and of which the one was appointed to invade America in front from the seacoast, while the other, descending from Canada by the lakes, attempted from the rear to penetrate into the in- terior of the revolted provinces. . , CHAPTER V. Popular Feeling and public Policy in America. — American Negotiations with France. — La Fayette. — Condition of the American Army. — Operations of Washington. — Retreat of the British Army from Boston. — Hostilities in South Carolina. — The Americans de<;lare their Commerce free. — Conduct of the American Quakers. — Proceedings in Congress. — Declaration of American Independence. — Conclusion. Our historical progress has at length conducted us to the last year [1776], during any part of which even a shadowy semblance or rather pretext of political union subsisted between Britain and the provinces of North America. For more than ten years, the parent state had, by a series of most impolitic measures, prolonged a quarrel of constantly augmenting bitterness with her colonies, and provoked them to demonstrate a more and more determined resistance to her authority. Since the refusal of the Amer- icans to submit to the Stamp Act in 1765, the temper and deportment of both parties disclosed a reciprocal and progressive hostility ; and every year had enlarged the numerical force of the partisans of America, con- firmed their resolution, and extended the compass of their democratic view and purpose. In this country a whole generation had grown up from infancy to intelligent youth and manhood's dawn since the controversy be- gan. Their education under such circumstances had not inculcated the respect that was formerly entertained for the parent state ; and with the fearless, generous spirit that distinguishes their season of life, they warmly embraced the interests of liberty, and hailed the prospect of their country's independence.^ Nor was the general ardor for liberty confined to the more ' Carleton learned from his own feelings and understanding what Burgoyne ascertained by a lamentable experience, that the vindictive and ungovernable fury of the Indians was more fitted to provoke rage and despair than to inspire fear or recommend submission. Like those half-tamed beasts of prey employed in the chase by the inhabitants of Eastern countries, they became dangerous to their employers whenever their unchained ferocity encountered a check or disappointment. ' Almost all the young men in America were ardent patriots. At the commencement of the war, the College of New Jersey was deserted by many of its students, who rushed to join the ranks of the American army. Thither also repaired, from the school at which he was placed in South Carolina, at the age of fourteen, Andrew Jackson, afterwards president of the United States. Joel Barlow, the American poet, then a student at Yale College, always passed his vacations in the American camp. At the age of seventeen, John Marshall, of Virginia, afterwards so highly distinguished as a patriot, a lawyer, and chief justice of the CHAP, v.] PROGRESS OF INDEPENDENCE. 4|^| youthful inhabitants, or even to the stronger sex in America ; it glowed in the gentle bosoms of women, and triumphed over the feebleness and timidity of age. The female inhabitants of the county of Bristol, in Massachusetts, equipped a regiment at their own expense. The oldest German colonists at Philadelphia formed themselves into an armed company of veterans, and in the election of their officers gave the command to a man nearly a hundred years of age. While the Americans of British descent were inspired with indignation by the intelligence that Britain had drawn a mercenary host from Germany to invade them, the colonists of German origin experienced no distraction of sentiment from this prospect ; their zealous attachment to the adopted country where they found liberty and happiness was not abated by the hostility with which it was menaced from the instruments of that tyranny whence they themselves had sought refuge in America. This country at present exhibited the singular spectacle of a people pro- fessing allegiance to a distant monarch, whose commands they had for ten years openly disobeyed ; zealously adhering to a domestic government which that monarch denounced as a traitorous usurpation ; and maintaining an army avowedly raised to fight his troops, already engaged in battle with them, and latterly employed in the invasion of his territories. A state of things so heterogeneous could not subsist much longer ; and, notwithstanding the exertions that were made to bridle the impetuosity of the partisans of independence, this great consummation was rapidly maturing, and became with more certainty from day to day the substantial, though unacknowledged, purpose of the Americans. Nay, its advancement was promoted even by the exertions of the moderate and temporizing politicians, and the conces- sions which they obtained from the more ardent party of their country- men. In language more guarded and calm than the British parhament, the American congress was, in purpose and action, more steady, consistent, and prospective.! Professions of loyalty to the king induced timid and wavering men to acquiesce in measures which practically realized inde- pendence, and rendered a speedy and open declaration of it unavoidable. " In the beginning of the dispute,'' exclaimed an American patriot, ** we aimed not at separation from Britain, but there 's a divinity that shapes our ends.''"' An attitude was gradually assumed, maintained, and improved, from which it was impossible to retreat without certain ruin, or to advance without the assertion of national independence. Various symptoms had of late betokened the approaching birth of this event. Paine and other popu- lar writers, in works which were extensively read and relished, attacked the principle of regal government with energetic reprobation and ingenious United States, forsook his classical and juridical studies to enrol himself in the militia of his native State. Such also was the conduct of John Trumbull, of Connecticut, whose talent as a draughtsman was appreciated and employed by Washington, and who now devoted to the military service of his country the pictorial genius whiclT was afterwards exerted in de- lineating the scenes and particulars of her glory. No small surprise and admiration was ex- cited in America by the discovery that some of the ablest and most eloquent compositions in support of liberty, that were published in the year 1774, were the productions of Alexander Hamilton, a student at New York College, only seventeen years of age. This young man in the present year entered the American army as an officer of artillery. He rose to the rank of general, and gained high distinction as a soldier, a statesman, and a political writer Many years after, he was slain in a duel by Aaron Burr, his equally ardent, but far less virtuous, contemporary in youthful zeal and gallant exertion for American liberty. * From the debates in the British parliament only two years after the present epoch, one might suppose that a great majority of the members had always execrated a war with America, and had been gradually betrayed into measures, of which, at the time, the^ perceived neither the full import nor th« fetal consequences. Hoi-^ ..: ' ' ' . " ' . ;: v. ^' f: 5-i * : A ^$2 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. ridicule ; and animated* the Americans to declare themselves an independ- ent people, — supporting the legitimacy and exalting the dignity of this claim by every consideration that could prove it to their reason or wed it to their desire. In electing members to the second congress, the people of Maryland expressly charged their delegates not to consent to the assump- tion of independence unless they found a majority of the congress convinced of the expediency of that measure and determined to espouse it. The inhabitants of the county of Mecklenburg, in North Carolina, on learning the affair of Lexington, felt all their doubts dissolved, and instantly em- braced and published a violent resolution, declaring themselves independent, and all political connection with Britain abandoned. The project of inde- pendence was discussed in every province and assembly, and daily gained partisans, of whom some pursued it with passionate desire, and others con- templated it with patient expectation. Drayton, whom the assembly of South Carohna now appointed chief justice of this province, in a charge delivered by him to a grand jury, thus expressed himself : — ''The Al- mighty created America to be independent of Great Britain ; let us beware of the impiety of being backward to act as instruments in the almighty hand now extended to accomplish his purpose." All these symptoms of public feeling were watched with interest and cherished with policy by the prevail- ing party in the national congress, which, without ever expressly alluding to independence, except in professions that they were not aiming at it and would fain avoid it, only waited a fit juncture for asserting this pretension with the most decisive efficacy. Before taking so critical a step, it highly imported them to assure themselves with extraordinary wariness and care of finding a firm and stable footing in the perilous path which it would pledge them to tread. Anticipating the approaching rupture, and desirous to fortify their coun- try by every possible means against the shock of a tremendous and inevi- table conflict, the American congress had for some time directed their at- tention to the acquisition of foreign succour. In the month of November of the preceding year, a committee, consisting of Franklin, Jay, Dickin- son, Harrison, and Johnson, was appointed for the purpose of holding a secret correspondence with the friends of America in Great Britain, Ireland, and other parts of the world. The real object of this committee was to sound the dispositions of the principal powers of Europe, and particularly of France and Spain, with respect to the American controversy ; and, if possible, to obtain from them assistance or a pledge of it in a war for Amer- ican independence. The requisite negotiations commenced immediately af- ter by a correspondence between Franklin and a Frenchman of his acquaint- ance, named Dumas, who resided in Holland and w^as known to be friendly to the American cause ; a sentiment which likewise prevailed to a great and growing extent among the Dutch, who could not but deeply sympathize with a people whose situation so nearly resembled what had once been their own. These negotiations were attended with such promising results, that, in the spring of the present year, Silas Deane, one of the deputies to congress from Connecticut, w^as secretly despatched by the committee as political agent for America to the court of France, — where he continued to dis- charge this important function, till the exercise of it was openly acknow^l- edged, and confided to worthier hands, by the mission of Franklin and Arthur Lee to Paris after the declaration of independence. \ ; i. . CHAR v.] EUROPEAN INTEREST IN THE CAUSE OF AMERICA. 535 The contagious Influence of revolutionary movements in behalf of liberty appears to have been very little understood or regarded by the cabinets of Europe at this period. It required, indeed, a greater diffusion of knowledge than yet existed, together with an efficacious machinery for the circula- tion of sentiment and opinion (subsequently afforded by the maturity of the periodical press), in order fully to develope that important principle of social life, which has no perceptible existence in a barbarous and illiterate age. All the commercial states of Europe, as we have frequently re- marked, were interested in the destruction of the British monopoly of American commerce ; and of late they began more highly to appreciate, by partially obtaining, the advantage of that catastrophe. In proportion as the breach was widened between Great Britain and America, the contraband trade between America and those states increased ; and it was now yield- ing to them an extent of profit which they ardently desired to retain, and which only a final severance of the British colonies from their parent state could render legitimate and permanently secure. The friendly in- terest in the cause and fortune of America, thus derived from motives of commercial gain, was aided in France both by the strong predilection for liberty that was recently aroused in this country, and by national jealousy and antipathy against Great Britain. A literary band, composed of the most eloquent and ingenious writers in France, had, for a series of years, exerted themselves with equal zeal and success to awaken among their coun- trymen a hatred of royalty and aristocracy and a passion for republican free- dom. The hatred which they sought to kindle was fanned by the tyranny and prodigality exemplified by their own domestic government, and the dem- ocratic visions which they engendered found an attractive bodily show in the condition and prospects of the Americans. The events of the last war, be- sides wounding the pride of France, had taught her by severe lessons to dread the accession of force which Britain derived from her American colonies. Issuing from the ports of America, four hundred privateers had successfully cruised on French property ; and besides a colonial militia of 23,800 men, who cooperated with the regular British forces in America, the colonists had, by their powerful and seasonable aid both of men and provis- ions, materially contributed to the reduction of Martinique and Havana. Their growing importance rendered those colonies daily more formidable to the rivals of their parent state ; and their prolonged union with Britain threatened destruction to the commerce and colonies of France. This the Duke de Choiseul clearly perceived ; and, though bis plans had perished with his ministerial power, the policy to which they were subservient was by no means disregarded by his successors. With improvident acqui- escence or vindictive satisfaction, the French government now beheld the rise and gradual spread among its people of a passionate zeal for Ameri- can liberty, which it ascribed to mercantile competition and national rivalry, and encouraged, or at least permitted, a number of French oflicers and en- gineers to indulge their enmity to Britain or their thirst for martial enter- prise by accepting commissions which were readily tendered to them by Deane in the American army. The attraction to this confluence of repub- lican and revolutionary spirits, whether martial or commercial, national or philanthropic, though chiefly experienced in France, was not confined to this country. German officers (some of whom had been trained to the art of war in the armies of Frederick the Second of Prussia) hastened across 534 HlStORV OF NORTH AMERICA. ^ [BOOK XI. the Atlantic to exert their skill and talents in defence of American liberty. Polish noblemen * were among the earliest and bravest of its champions ; and the name of Kosciusko acquired in America a part of its claims on the gratitude and admiration of mankind. Vergennes, the present French minister, encouraged Deane to expect all but open assistance in the actual posture of affairs ; and a pretended com- mercial establishment was soon after formed in Holland, through which military stores and other succours, the gift of the French government, were transmitted in the guise of mercantile consignments to America. Under strict injunctions of secrecy, two millions of livres were presented by the French court to congress ; American agents were secretly permitted to fit out a number of vessels from French ports to cruise against the British shipping ; and various prizes thus acquired were brought in and sold in France. By the influence of the French court, a secret contribution of arms and money in aid of the Americans was likewise procured from Spain. In the progress of the negotiations that ensued, the Americans endeavoured to interest the cupidity of France by proposing to her an ad- vantageous commercial treaty and the reconquest of Canada, and to pro- voke her pride by suggesting that now was the time " to obtain satisfaction from Britain for the injuries received in the last war commenced by that nation in a manner contrary to the laio of nations ! " But surely the American politicians from whom this suggestion proceeded must have been blinded by passion or duped by the extravagance of their own cunning, when they hoped (if they really could hope) to awaken the sympathy of France by reproaching England with the late war, and decrying those con- quests which had inspired their own most ardent wishes and triumphant exultations. Even so late as the year 1775, the congress, in their final address to the British king, which was circulated throughout all Europe, had characterized the late war as "the most glorious and advantageous that ever was carried on by British arms, and to the success of which your loyal colonists contributed by such repeated and strenuous exertions as frequently procured them the distinguished approbation of your Majesty, of the late king, and of parliament." The French, besides, had no longer any desire to reobtain Canada ; the possession of which by Britain they judged likely to conduce to the more entire dependence of America on the power and friend- ship of France.^ The utmost dupHcity was practised by both the parties in ' Among these was Count Pulaski, who had been outlawed for his share in the desperate enterprise by which a few conspirators seized and carried off Stanislaus, king of Poland, in the midst of his capital, in the year 1771. After a gallant career in America, he was mortally wounded in a conflict with the British troops in 1779. The Polish monarch, on receiving the intelligence of his death, is said to have exclaimed, " Pulaski ! always brave, but always the enemy of kings." Another Polish nobleman, Count Grabouski, joined as a volunteer the British army in America. In the nineteenth century we have seen the Ameri- can States, by a territorial grant, afford a new country to many brave, unhappy Poles, driven from their native land by Russian tyranny. 2 Some of the members of congress were so far transported by exasperated zeal beyond the bounds of sense and moderation, that they proposed to bestow on France what they would not now have yielded to Britain, by transferring to the French ports the same monopoly of 1 commerce which the British had hitherto enjoyed. Treaties framed in conformi- ty witn such passionate propositions could not have been durably binding or satisfactory. The counsels of the re^ American commerce which the British had hitherto enjoyed. ate propositions could not have been ( evolutionary government of America, though sometimes warped by pas- sion, never evinced a lasting departure from the principles of sound policy. In 1778, an ex- pedition for the conquest of Canada, suggested by D'Estaing and La Fayette, was opposed by Washington, and declined by the American congress. Britain, far more sincerely than Amer* ica, endeavoured to employ Canada as a bribe to the French, to whom she vainly offered to H}store her now regretted conquest jw the price of their deserting the American caus*. t CHAP, v.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 53^ this negotiation ; and each (but chiefly the court of France) was entrapped in the toils of its own craft and insincerity. When Lord Stormont, the British ambassador at Paris, complained of the transmission, which he had discovered, of military stores to America from France, and of the shelter and facilities afforded in this country to American privateers, the French gov- ernment flatly denied any participation in these transactions, and even car- ried dissimulation so far as to throw its own agents into prison. And about two years after the present period, when the American congress was dissat- isfied with the conduct of Silas Deane, — and when Paine, their secretary for foreign correspondence, had, in order to depreciate the vaunted services of that envoy, published a statement which showed, that, before the Amer- ican declaration of independence, and before even Deane's arrival in France, a promise of succour was given by this power to America, — in consequence of a remonstrance from the French government, the congress consented to sacrifice its own integrity to the reputation of its ally, and published a denial of Paine's statement, which nevertheless was unquestionably true. They characterized all the secret succours they had received from France as mere mercantile consignments to them from the private individuals whom they well knew to be agents of the French minister ; and were severely punished by the embarrassing claims which these agents (emulating the impudence and hypocrisy of the parties between whom they transacted) preferred for repayment of their pretended advances. * The court of France, regardless of the contest which itself was actually waging against the principles of liberty with the provincial parliaments of the kingdom, and actuated by jealousy, ambition, and an insatiable spirit of intrigue, was willing to embarrass and weaken Great Britain by fomenting the quarrel between her and America, but demurred openly to patronize American revolt and independence. Ill-treated as the Americans had been, this court could not, without absurd and manifest hypocrisy, affect an honest concern for a people whom it had long sought to enslave, nor honest disap- probation of a treatment far more liberal than itself had ever bestowed on the colonies of France ; and though it did undervalue, it could not entirely overlook, the impolicy and peril of sanctioning and allowing its subjects to participate in a democratic controversy with monarchical authority. "Let France avoid open hostilities," said the celebrated French minister, Turgot, in a representation which he addressed to his court and colleagues, *' but privately aid the Americans with arms, ammunition, and money. An of- fensive war on our part would unite the mother country to her colonies by giving to the minister a pretext for yielding, and to the colonies, a motive for acceding to his propositions, in order to obtain time to consolidate them- selves, to ripen their projects, and to multiply their means." It was the force of public sentiment and opinion in France, partly nurtured by the in- triguing pohcy of the French court, that ultimately overcame the scruples of this court, and prevailed with it to espouse openly the cause of America. The most active, the most influential, and the most generous promoter and partisan of this ca use in France, and indeed in Europe, was a young French * Pitkin, Franklin's Pn'rale Correspondence. Botta. The congress showed more regard to the principles of honor in its domestic than in its foreign policy. It withstood and counter- acted the general but erroneous inpression of the incapacity of Generals Schuyler and St. Clair, which the Americans derived from the unexpected surrender of Ticonderoga to Bur- goyne in the year 1777 ; but instructed its foreign agents to propagate that impression in Europe as an antidote to the unfavorable prognostic that might be formed of American spirit and good fortune. 536 HISTORY OF JVORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. officer, the Marquis de la Fayette. The circumstance ^ from which his connection with America originated was curious and remarkable, and oc- curred in the commencement of the present year, when this illustrious friend of human liberty, then in the nineteenth year of his age, was in garrison with his regiment at the town of Metz. Here arrived, in the progress of a con- tinental #our which he was pursuing, the Duke of Gloucester, brother of the king of Britain, who, having contracted a marriage that was deemed unsuitable to his dignity, was discountenanced by his reigning brother and denied the privilege of presenting his duchess at court. The duke sought to cover his disgrace under the show of a conscientious opposition to the measures and policy of the British government, and vented his discontent in passionate declamations in favor of liberty and reprobation of arbitrary power. Having accepted an invitation to dine with the French officers at Metz, he launched, after dinner, into an animated exposition of British tyranny and of the gallant spirit of resistance which it had provoked in America, and indulged his spurious zeal on this theme with such success, as to kindle in the breast of young La Fayette a purer and more generous fire, and awaken the first glimmering of that purpose which soon after broke forth with so much honor and glory in the enterprise by which he staked his life and fortune on the cause of American freedom. And thus the irritated pride and effervescent impatience of a discontented scion and ally of royalty was able to rouse the zeal, dormant as yet from lack of knowl- edge and opportunity, of a champion, as virtuous and heroic at least as the world has ever produced, of the principles of democracy and the just rights of men. So strange (was the remark of La Fayette himself fifty-three years after) are the concatenations of human affairs ! ^ We must now transfer our attention from Europe to America, and briefly surv^ey the posture and conduct of the American forces, which, encamped in Massachusetts, watched the motions and blockaded the position of Howe and the British army. Washington, on his arrival at the camp, had found (he acknowledged) the materials for a good army, but assembled, rather than combined, and in a state of the crudest composition. Never was a military commander beset by a greater or more perplexing variety of counteractions. The troops having been separately raised by the various provincial govern- ments, no uniformity existed among the regiments. Animated by the spirit of that liberty for which they were preparing to fight, and unaccustomed to discipline, they neither felt the inclination nor appreciated the importance of subjection to military rules. Every one was more forward to advise and to command than to obey, — forgetful that independence must be securely ac- quired before it can be safely enjoyed, and unaware that liberty, to be gained by batde, must be preceded by submission, nearly mechanical, to the stern- est restraint of absolute authority. In many of the regiments the officers had been elected by their troops, whose suffrages too often were gained by a show of enthusiastic confidence which was mistaken for genius and valor, and of furious zeal for American liberty which not less erroneously was sup- posed the certain test of pure honor, generous virtue, and sound patriotism. In other cases, it proved, that, when a regiment was in process of constitu- * Related to the author by La Fayette himself. ^ "La Fayette trouvait la cause des Americains juste et sacrfee : raffection qu'il lui portait etait d'autant plus vive, qu'independamment de la candeur de son caract^re, n'ayant encore que dix-neuf ans, il etait dans I'age ou le bien parait non seulement bon, mais beau, et ou tous Ifcs sentimens deviennent des passions." Botta. See Note XXXVI.,at the end of the volume. CHAP, v.] CONDITION OF THE AME5^1CAN ARMY. 537 tion, the men elected only those for officers who consented to throw their pay into a joint stock, from which all the members of the regimental body, officers, drummers, and privates, drew equal shares. These defects were counterbalanced by the ardent zeal and stubborn resolution of the troops, and the strong persuasion they cherished of the justice and glory of their country's cause. When the last speech of the British monarch to his par- liament was circulated in the camp, it produced a violent burst of universal indignation, and was publicly burned by the soldiers with the strongest de- monstrations of contempt and abhorrence. They expunged at the same time from their standards every emblem appropriate to the British crown, and adopted a flag variegated with thirteen colored stripes, in allusion to the number of the confederated provinces. The difficulty of establishing a due subordination in the American camp was greatly enhanced by the shortness of the terms for which the regiments were enlisted, none of which were to endure for more than a few months. Nor was it long before Washington, in addition to his other embarrassments, made the alarming discovery, that his troops labored under a deficiency of bayonets, and that all the powder in his possession was barely sufficient to furnish each man with nine car- tridges. ^ By the exertion of consummate address, and with a magnanimous sacrifice of his own reputation to his country's interest, he succeeded ia concealing these dangerous deficiencies both from the enemy and from the general knowledge of the American people, some of whom, with audacious absurdity and injustice, imputed to him a wilful forbearance to destroy the British forces, for the sake of prolonging his own importance at the head of the American army. Destitute of tents, a great portion of this army was lodged in scattered dwellings, a circumstance unfavorable equally to dis- cipline and to promptitude of operation. There was no conEwnissary-general and consequently no systematic arrangement for obtaining provisions. A supply of clothes was rendered peculiarly difficult by the effect of the non- importation agreements. There was besides a lack of engineers, and a deficiency of tools for the construction of works. The American States were unaccustomed to combined exertion, which was farther obstructed by the incompact and indefinite frame of the federal league into which their common rage and danger had driven them. Practically independent of the supreme authority of congress, and little acquainted with each other's condi- lion and resources, the provincial governments respectively indulged too often B. narrow jealousy of imposing on their constituents a disproportioned share of the general burdens ; and from inexperience, in addition to other causes, iheir operations were so defective in harmony, that stores of food, clothing, and implements of war, collected for the army, sometimes perished, and were often injuriously detained by neglect of the means of transporting them lo their appointed destination. Washington, happily qualified to endure and overcome difficulties, prompt- ly adopted and patiently pursued the most judicious and effectual means to organize the troops, to fit them for combined movements and active service, and to introduce and mature arrangements for securing a steady flow of the necessary supplies. Next to these measures, he judged the reenhstment of the army the most mteresting. To this essential object he had early solicited ^ Shipments of ammunition and warlike stores were made about this time from Ireland to the North American States. Some of the parties, concerned in these transactions were dwKOv ared and.impri«med by the BcitiafasgOkV«niiin«iit. jammal Mtgifter fgr >177!6. VOL. II. 68 \ ' :.^M .c 538 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. the attention of congress, who appointed a committee of its members to re- pair to the military head-quarters at Cambridge, in order to consult with the commander-in-chief and the magistrates of the New England States on the most eligible mode of preserving, supporting, and regulating a conti- nental army. Recruiting orders were issued ; but the progress in collect- ing recruits was not proportioned to the public exigence. Many Americans, firmly attached to the cause of their country, indulged their reluctance to the toil and hardship of military life under the shelter of a fond credulity which still lingered in contemplation of an adjustment of the dispute with Britain without farther bloodshed. At the close of the last year, when all the original troops not engaged on the new establishment were disbanded, there had been enlisted for the army of 1776 little more than nine thousand men. An earnest recommendation of Washington to try the influence of a bounty was at length acceded to by the congress [January, 1776], and during the winter the number of recruits was considerably augmented. Soon after his assumption of the supreme command, Washington engaged as his secre- tary and aid-de-camp Joseph Reed, a distinguished lawyer in Pennsylvania, and latterly a determined advocate of American independence, who had re- signed a lucrative forensic practice at Philadelphia, in order to serve as a volunteer in the continental army in Massachusetts. In his new functions Reed displayed so much valor and ability, that, on the promotion of Gates in the present year to a command directed against the British forces in Canada, he was appointed to succeed to the post thereby vacated of adjutant- general of the American army.^ Before this army received its proper mihtary organization, or discipline had strengthened the hands of the officers, they were obliged to supply their defective power by the influence of their own example and the authority of their personal character. Passion and zeal had collected the first levies of men. But passions spend themselves, and zeal declines, — while habits of discipline abide ; and though they render the character of an army much less romantic and interesting, they mightily increase its steadiness and vigor as an effective machine. After the first ardor of the American troops was somewhat spent, considerable vices and disorders broke out among them. The virtue (and it was very great) that still manifested itself in their ranks was the more creditable from its superiority to the contagious influ- ence of evil example, and as arising purely from natural character and senti- ment, and not from that professional sense of honor educated by the habits of civilized schools of war. Great disadvantage has accrued to the repu- tation of the American troops from the almost intolerable pressure of the dis- tress and privations to which they were exposed ; and in some of the works that record their campaigns, the virtue they long exerted in resisting temp- tations to mutiny and disorder is obscured by the acts of pillage and deser- tion to which the extremity of suffering did in the end occasionally impel them. Never before had there arisen in the world a war so universally in- teresting to mankind as the revolutionary warfare between Britain and Amer- ica. Unlike prior wars, its incidents were instantly recorded by numerous pens arid extensively circulated with the minutest detail. Harsh lines and features were thus preserved, which would have escaped or been softened - ^ It wa&this officer who two years after thus replied to the offers of riches and honors by which the agents of Britain endeavoured to detach him from the cause of his country : — "1 am not worth purcliasiitg ; but, gubh as I am, thb king of Great Britain is not ticb enough to buy me." '^ CHAP. V-l RAVAGES OF LORD DUNMORE. gg^ in a more distant survey ; and circumstances both melancholy and disgust- ing, the concomitants of every war, have by many writers and readers beea regarded as almost, if not entirely, peculiar to the war of the American Revolution. The conflicts of Lexington and Bunker's Hill, and other similar en- counters that signalized the commencement of hostilities, tended to delude the Americans with very exaggerated notions of the efficacy of their militia> which had been exhibited in situations peculiarly favorable to a force of this description. They entertained a rooted prejudice against troops of the line, and, appreciating the example of Braddock as erroneously as that un- fortunate commander had appreciated his own position, they cherished the chimerical hope of organizing every year a new militia force capable of withstanding the attack of a regular army. The prevalence and the dan- gerous consequences of this delusion were strikingly illustrated by the gen- eral panic and consternation that followed the first victories of the disci- plined troops of Britain in the close of the present year. It was a more surprising and more honorable trait in the character of the American troops and people, that even in such trying circumstances they were never tempted to withdraw the generous confidence which they reposed in their command- ers, but invariably displayed a noble superiority to those mean suspicions of treachery which rage and vanity so readily suggest to nations irritated by reverses after having been intoxicated by success. A numerous party in the congress, however, continued long to resist the formation of a regular, army ; and even when this could no longer be avoided, they jealously op- posed the measures that were necessary to the improvement of its military habits and discipline. " God forbid," they exclaimed, " that the civic char- acter should be so far lost in the soldiers of our army, that they should cease to long for the enjoyments of domestic happiness. Let frequent fur- loughs be granted, rather than the endearments of wives and children should cease to allure the individuals of our army from camps to farms." ^ Lord Dunmore, the fugitive governor of Virginia, still continued, with a flotilla carrying a force composed of British troops and American Royal- ists, to ravage the Virginian coasts. On the first day of this year, the town, of Norfolk, which had formerly experienced his hostility, was by his direc- tions reduced to ashes by the guns of the Liverpool man-of-war. This vessel on her arrival from England having joined Lord Dunmore's flotilla^ a flag was sent on shore to demand if the inhabitants of Norfolk would supply his Majesty's ship with provisions. On the return of a negative answer, the town was bombarded, and property to the value of three hun- dred thousand pounds sterling destroyed. The provincials themselves de- molished the houses and wasted the plantations situated near the water, in order to deprive the ships of every resource of supply. The barbarous and inglorious cruise, in which Lord Dunmore persisted for some time longer, issued in the discomfiture of his arms and the ruin of his American asso- ciates. Everywhere committing havoc, but everywhere repulsed, he beheld some of his vessels driven by storms on the coast, where the survivors of the * "Men unaccustomed to control," said an enlightened American patriot, "cannot in a day be taught the necessity, or be brought to see the expediency, of strict discipline. Expe- rience has shown that our militia will not stand fire. Tliey will not fight fi-om home. Men must learn to fight as they learn any thing else. No laws can be too severe for the govern- ment of men who live by the sword, and who have this only reply for their ravages, — ^if negat arma tenentif " ^^ ' HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. cre^vb \^'^re mad^ prisoners by their exasperated fellow-citizens. Constrained at length to consult his own safety in preference to empty visions of con- quest or the farther pursuit of a perilous revenge, Lord Dunmore, having first burned the least valuable vessels of his squadron, bade adieu with the rest to the scene of his barbarity and disgrace ; and the miserable remnant of soldiers and Royahsts, assailed at once by tempest, famine, and disease, sought refuge in Florida, Bermudas, and the West Indies. The exertions by which Martin, the fugitive governor of North Carolina, signalized his constancy to the cause of Britain, were as illiberal and unsuc- cessful as those of Lord Dunmore, though, happily, less protracted and mischievous. Attacked in the commencement of the present year by a body of provincial troops and mihtia, the partisans of royalty whom Martin's intrigues had drawn to a head, though greatly superior in number to their assailants, sustained a defeat which completely blasted the hopes and ex- tinguished the activity of this party in North Carolina. During the winter, the British troops that occupied Boston suffered great privations from scarcity of food and of fuel. An armament, which their commander despatched in quest of provisions to Savannah, in Georgia, was opposed by the militia of this province, and, after some sharp encounters, finally repulsed. Washington had hitherto found ample scope for his most strenuous activity within the limits of his own encampment ; ^ but desirous now by some grand and important achievement to elevate the spirits of his army and country, he conceived the project of attacking Boston as soon as the circumstances of his situation might seem to justify an effort so critical and adventurous. Towards the middle of February, the coldest portion of the season having begun, and the ice becoming sufficiently firm to support the troops, he was disposed to undertake that enterprise ; but deferred it with reluctance in consequence of the almost unanimous disapprobation of his council of war. The effective regular force of the Americans in this quarter now amounted to upwards of fourteen thousand men, — in addition to which, the commander-in-chief called into active service about six thou- sand of the militia of Massachusetts ; and with these forces he determined to take possession of the Heights of Dorchester, whence he would possess the power of inflicting severe annoyance on the British soldiery and shipping in the town and harbour of Boston. By assuming this position, from which an attempt to dislodge him by the enemy was certain, he expected to bring 6n a general action, during which he intended to cross with a part of his forces from the Cambridge side of the river and attack the town of Bos- ^ " It is not in the pages of history, perhaps," he observed in a letter to the congress, " to fbmish a case like ours. To maintain a position within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together without ammunition, and at the same time to disband one army and recru t another within that distance of more than twenty British regiments, is more, probably, than ever was before attempted." — " During the siege of Boston, General Washington consulted congress upon the propriety of bombarding the town. Mr. Hancock was then president of congress. After General Washington's letter was read, a solemn silence ensued. This was broken: by a member making a motion, that the house should resolve itself into a commit- tee of the whole, in order that Mr. Hancock might give his opinion upon the subject, as he was so deeply iiJterested from having all his estate in Boston. After he left the chair, he ad- dressed the chainnan of the committee of the whole in the following words: — 'It is true. Sir, nearly all the property I have in the world is in houses and other real estate in the town of Boston ; but if the expulsion of the British army from it and the liberty of our country require their being burnt to ashes, issue the orders for that purpose immediately.' " Sanderson's Bi- ography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. " The animation of the times raised the actors in these scenes above themselves, and excited them to deeds of self-denial ♦'hich the interested prudence of calmer seasons can scarcely credit." Ramsay^. CHAP. V.J THE BRITISH EVACUATE BOSTON. 5|| ton ; counting, doubtless, on being aided by a simultaneous insurrection of the citizens. To conceal his design by diverting the attention of the British army, a heavy bombardment of their lines was commenced one evening [March 2] and continued during the two following nights. On the third evening [March 4], immediately after the firing began, a strong detachment o( the American forces under the command of General Thomas, proceed- ing from Roxbury, took silent possession of Dorchester Heights. The ground was almost impenetrably hard, but the night was mild ; and by la- boring with great diligence, the troops before morning advanced their works so far as to cover themselves in a great measure from the shot of the enemy. When the British, at break of day [March 5], discovered these works, magnified to their view by the intervention of a hazy atmosphere, they were struck with astonishment, and gloomily anticipated a repetition of the carnage of Bunker's Hill. " The rebels have done more in one night, '^ said General Howe, " than my whole army would have done in a month." Nothing now remained but to abandon the town or instantly to dislodge the Americans from Dorchester Heights. Howe, with more enterprise and energy than usually characterized his mihtary policy, decided to venture; an attack ; and took measures for the embarkation on the same evening of two thousand chosen troops on this important and hazardous service. The Americans, remarking this demonstration, prepared to abide the encounter with a lively valor, which was inflamed to the utmost eagerness by Washing- ton's seasonable remark to them, that this was the anniversary of the Boston massacre^ and that the day of vengeance for tlieir slaughtered countrymen had arrived. But the royal troops were hardly embarked in the transports, when a tremendous storm arose, and the fury of the elements, intercepting human strife, rendered the execution of Howe's design impracticable. A British council of war was assembled the next morning [March 6], and recommended the evacuation of Boston with all possible speed. Whether from the numerous preparations which were requisite, or from a lingering sentiment of shame in the breast of the British commander, some delay occurred before this measure was carried into effect. Meanwhile, the Americans were actively engaged in strengthening and extending their works ; and on the morning of the 17th of March, the British discovered a breastwork which had been constructed by their enemies during the night at Nook's Hill, on Dorchester Peninsula, and completely commanded Bos- ton Neck and the southern quarters of the town. Delay was no longer consistent with safety. A flag of truce was sent by the selectmen of the town to Washington, intimating that Howe was making preparation to re- tire, and that he was willing to leave the town undamaged provided his own retreat were unmolested. Washington declined to give any pledge to this efl!ect, but expressed himself in terms that tranquillized his countrymen and the British commander. At four o'clock the next morning [March 18], the discomfited British army, amounting to about ten thousand men, and attended by all the inhabitants of Boston who were attached to the royal cause, began to embark ; and in a few hours they were under sail for Hal- ifax, in Nova Scotia. As the British rear-guard embarked, Washington, at the head of his successful forces, marched into Boston, whose remaining inhabitants hailed their dehverance and deliverer with triumphant joy. A considerable quantity of valuable military stores fell into the possession of the victors ; and a British vessel, arriving at Boston soon after, with a tardy TT 542 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL reinforcement to the fugitive army, was forced to surrender the troops she conveyed as prisoners of war. The American congress testified their satisfaction with this exploit by a formal resolve, " That thanks be presented to General Washington and the officers and soldiers under his command for their wise and spirited conduct in the siege and acquisition of Boston^ and that a medal of gold be struck in commemoration of this great event and presented to his Excellency." Shortly after the departure of the British troops from the town, the fortification of its harbour was undertaken and accomplished by the zeal of the people of Boston and of the neighbour- ing districts. Many persons (clergymen as well as laymen) aided as vol- unteers in this important service ; and only the poorest of the inhabitants who took a share in it received wages for their labor. It was at this period, that a remarkable debate occurred in the British House of Lords on a motion of the Duke of Grafton for pacifying America by concessions. The motion was negatived by a great majority of voices ; the supporters of the ministry now explicitly declaring that the season for conciliation was past, and that to America there remained only the alterna- tive of absolute conquest or unconditional submission. While a part of the British troops were employed this year in reinforcing the garrison of Quebec and recovering Canada from the American invaders [May], another body had been directed to acquire and occupy some com- manding position in the southern provinces of America. The conduct of this enterprise was committed to General Chnton and Sir Peter Parker, who, having formed a junction at Cape Fear, resolved to attempt the re- duction of Charleston, the metropolis of South Carolina. For this place they accordingly sailed with two thousand eight hundred land forces ; and crossing Charleston Bar, anchored about three miles from Sullivan's Island. [June 4.] The people of South Carolina had already made the most strenuous efforts to put the province, and especially its capital, in a posture of defence. Works were constructed on Sullivan's Island, which lies about six miles below Charleston towards the sea, and affords a post well adapted to the annoyance and interruption of ships approaching the town. The militia of the State now repaired in great numbers to Charleston ; and General Charles Lee, on whom the national congress bestowed the immedi- ate command of all the forces in the southern department of the common- wealth, arrived at this critical juncture with a detachment of regular troops from the northern provinces. After having consumed much valuable time in preparatory inquiries and arrangements, Parker attacked [June 28] the fort on Sulhvan's Island with a squadron which poured upon it a fire from two hundred and fifty-four cannons. On the fort were mounted twenty- six guns, with which the garrison, consisting of three hundred and seventy- five regulars and a few militia, under the command of Colonel Moultrie, made a gallant defence ; while Colonel Thompson, at the head of seven hundred men, confronted and prevented an attack which was menaced by Chnton in another quarter of the island. The assault was maintained for ten hours. Shortly after it began, the flag-staff of the fort, struck by a shot, fell down upon the beach ; whence it was instantly resumed by Jas- per, a sergeant in the American army, who, springing from the wall, and reascending amidst a furious storm of battle, replaced it on the top of the rampart. Three of the British ships, advancing to attack the western wing, became entangled with a shoal ; and to this incident the final deliverance CHAP, v.] INDIAN ALLIANCES OF BRITAIN. 543 of the garrison was ascribed. At night the firing ceased on both sides, the British ships slipped their cables, and the enterprise was abandoned. In this action, the deliberate and well directed fire of the garrison severely- shattered the hostile vessels, of whose crews more than two hundred were killed and wounded. Ten men killed and twenty-two wounded formed the amount of the loss sustained by the garrison. Though many thousand balls were fired from the British squadron, yet the works of the fort were but little damaged. Its walls were formed chiefly of the wood of the pal- metto, a tree indigenous to South Carolina, and of a remarkably spongy na- ture ; whence, the shot that took effect was buried in the wood without shivering or splintering the object of resistance. Scarcely a hut or tree on the island escaped uninjured. Among other American officers engaged in this affair was Francis Marion, so highly renowned in the progress of the war for enterprising valor and inflexible fortitude and perseverance. The thanks of congress were voted to Lee, Moultrie, and Thompson, — an honor very little merited by Lee, who had rashly proposed to evacuate Sullivan's Island, and was restrained from the commission of such a peril- ous act of folly and timidity only by the resolute interference of John Rut- iedge.^ Yet Lee was a very skilful officer, and, though eccentric, an able and courageous man. • Relieved from the presence of the British armament, the southern prov- inces had leisure to employ their forces in repelling and punishing an attack they sustained from a different quarter. No sooner did the controversy be- tween Britain and America assume an aspect that betokened war, than the policy of the parent state was exerted to induce the Indian tribes to espouse her interest and support her quarrel. In the month of July, 1775, a number of Indian chiefs, instigated by the hope of a wide, ferocious range in car- nage, pillage, and devastation, and conducted by Johnson, the principal agent of Britain with these savages, repaired to Montreal and solemnly pledged themselves to support the cause of the British king against the American people. They readily hearkened to Johnson's plausible repre- sentation that the king was their natural protector against those encroaching colonists, who, if they should succeed in their opposition to Britain, would probably next attempt the extirpation of their colored neighbours. Stuart, another British agent, by magnificent promises of reward and assistance, had more recently induced the Creeks and the Cherokees to interrupt their friendly relation with Virginia and the Carolinas. The Creeks, eagerly rushing to war, were as suddenly depressed and paralyzed by the manifest inability of Stuart to fulfil his insidious promises. Imploring and obtaining pardon from the colonists, they rejected a subsequent overture of alliance ^ Annual Register for 1776. Gordon. Bradford. Ramsay's Histories of the American Revo- lution and of the Revolution of South Carolina. Holmes. Garden. Botta. Rogers. Pitkin. Nothing could exceed the bravery which the British displayed in their attack on Sullivan's Island. The behaviour of Morris, captain of the Bristol man-of-war, was particularly cele- brated. After receiving a severe wound in the neck, and having his right arm shattered by a chain-shot, he retired to the cockpit of his vessel, where the mangled limb was amputated. No sooner was this operation performed than he reascended the deck, where, as he was un- dauntedly directing and animating the fight, he received a third and mortal wound. Such valor must have tnumphed but for the equal valor with which it was encountered. The American sergeant, Jasper, executed what even the romantic courage of Hotspur would hard- ly have deemed " an easy leap." A sword was presented and a commission offered to this gallant man by the provincial government of South Carolina. The sword he gratefully ac- cepted, the commission he modestly declined. And yet Lord George Germaine, who had himself been cashiered by a court-martial for cowardice, expected to subdue and enslave such 544 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. from thje Cherokees, protesting that they had wonderfully escaped from destruction, and were determined never again to court such jeopardy or need such good fortune. The Cherokees, with more stubborn ferocity, adhered to their hostile purpose ; and, encouraged by the approach of Chn- ton and Parker, committed the most ruthless ravages on the Virginian and Carohnian frontiers. Attacked by the combined forces of these provinces after the repulse of the British from Sullivan's Island, the Cherokees were defeated in various engagements and forced to evacuate their territory and take refuge in Florida. The most important enterprise by which the British government proposed to illustrate the campaign of this year was the occupation of New York by a powerful body of troops, composed of a detachment from the army of Sir William Howe, aided by reinforcements despatched from England under the command of his brother. Lord Howe, who, along with himself, in ad- dition to their mihtary functions, were appointed to exercise the vain office of commissioners for restoring peace and harmony between Britain and America, by granting pardons in the king's name to such Americans as would surrender their arms and sue for indulgence. Washington was sen- sible of the danger to which New York was exposed from the importance which the British must attach to its occupation ; and, during the siege of Boston, had detached General Lee from the camp in Massachusetts, to conduct defensive preparations in Long Island and New York. Lee ar- rived at New York two hours after the appearance of some British ships of war off the harbour, and, finding the citizens much alarmed by the pros- pect of an attack on the town, he publicly proclaimed, that, " If the men- of-war set one house on fire in consequence of my coming, I will chain a hundred of their friends together by the neck and make the house their fu- neral pile." He farther composed the formula of a tremendous oath, which he employed Captain Sears to administer to all persons suspected of inclina- tion to the royal cause. But the congress condemned and forbade such proceedings, by proclaiming their resolve, " That no oath, by way of test, be imposed upon or required of any of the inhabitants of these colonies by any military officer." Soon after the evacuation of Boston, Washington, having despatched reinforcements to the American troops in Canada, and leaving some troops in Massachusetts, repaired himself with the main body of his army to New York, where his head-quarters were established on the 14th of April. Here the renewed and augmenting difficulties of his arduous predicament afforded wide and constant scope to the exercise of his own wisdom and of his countrymen's patience and fortitude. The reciprocal jealousies and prejudices of the continental troops of the different States broke forth in dissensions,^ which their common interest and danger were unable to prevent, and which all their commander's influence barely sufficed to compose ; and so imperfect was the provision of military stores, that the citizens of New York were fain to surrender the leaden weights of their windows to eke out the ammunition of their defenders. Every province and almost every seaport town in America was pervaded by the apprehen- sion that its own individual danger from British attack was the most real and immediate ; and hence applications for instant succour so numerous and * " Their animosities," said an jVmerican officer, m a letter to a friend, " have already risen to such a height, that the Pennsylvania and New England troops would as soon fight each pUwr ^ the enemy." , ^^ ., / , . ., ,, CHAP. V.j GERMAN MERCENARIES. 545 SO ui^ent were addressed to Washington, that it required all his firmness and vigor to prevent the feeble American force and the deficient stock of public arms from being divided and subdivided to such an extent as to be unequal to the proper defence of any one place. Meanwhile, Sir William Howe and the Generals Clinton and Lord Percy, with their forces which had been withdrawn from Boston, waited anxiously at Halifax for the promised succour from Britain ; and it was not, till, in despair of its arrival, they had sailed for New York, that they were joined by the auxiliary British armament conducted by Lord Howe and Lord Cornwallis. But so much of the year was then elapsed, that the ineffectual attempts of the commissioners, as well as the consequent military operations of the British ti'oops, fall not within the scope of this work. The late rigorous measures of the British king and parliament, in con- currence with the actual progress of hostilities, the irritating devastation of the American coasts, and the elevating successes that crowned the Amer- ican arms, had contributed to inflame and propagate in America the firmest purpose of decisive warfare, and every sentiment tending to a distinct asser- tion of national independence. It was openly proclaimed by the recent acts of parliament, that the inhabitants of America, so far from being included any longer within the pale of royal protection, were delivered up to the most vindictive severities of mihtary execution. " Protection and allegiance are reciprocal," became the general exclamation of the Americans ; ''and to withdraw the one is to discharge the other." By invading Canada the Americans had practically expressed their determination to assert inde- pendence rather than yield submission or endure conquest ; and in rejecting the conciliatory overture of the Duke of Grafton, the British government had left them no other choice but between the dignity of independent free- men and the degradation of pardoned rebels. Nothing rendered the royal government more generally odious, or contrib- uted with more decisive efficacy to confirm and extend the purpose of inde- pendence, than the measure of employing German mercenary soldiers in the subjugation of America.^ When the Americans learned that foreigners were summoned to interfere in. a domestic quarrel, and that, instead of con- tending with men educated in the same acknowledged principles with them- selves, they were to be exposed to the hired ferocity of German slaves, the last tie that held them to Britain, the allegiance they professed to their prince, was dissolved. " He employs," they exclaimed, " the borrowed tools of the most detestable tyrants of Europe, who trade in human blood, to subvert American liberty, and to erect on its ruins the same despotic power of which they are the fit instruments and guardians in their own native land, and from the rigor of which so many of their own oppressed country- men have already sought refuge among us." These sentiments were warmly * In the sequel, also, it contributed to sustain and render eifectual the resolution of inde- pendence. The German auxiliaries of Britain, at first from wanton indifference for the Amer- icans, and afterwards from resentment of the furious abhorrence to which they found them- selves exposed, indulged their cruelty and cupidity in the most barbarous devastation and pillage. The English generals could neither restrain the barbarity of the Germans nor wholly preserve their own troops from the contagious influence of such evil example. Noth- ing tended more effectually to rouse the Americans from the depression occasioned by the first successes of the British and German forces than the vindictive rage with which they were in- spired by the rapine and insolence of the victors. Written protections granted to Americans by the British officers were vainly presented to soldiers who, not understanding English, could not read them. VOL. II. 69 -^xc-:... " : ■ ^^ » : :k. : :.:_i^^ .. 546 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XL expressed by the Americans at the very time (and indeed somewhat pos- terior to the time) when their own domestic government had deeply engaged in negotiations for obtaining the aid and interposition of France in the quarrel with England. If England seek the aid of foreign powers (it was asked), may not and must not America do the same ? And how can she hope to obtain open and active assistance, till she seek it in the character of an independent state ? Among the violent declarations elicited at this period from the American communities, we distinguish a resolution of the Committee of Safety for the province of Georgia to defend their metropolis, Savannah, to the last extremity, and to burn the town and shipping rather than suffer them to fall into the hands of the British, — a flight of lofty sen- timent and ebullition of bold words, it must be confessed, very inadequately supported by the subsequent conduct of the people of that province. Not less was the displeasure excited in America by discovery of the ex- ertions that were made by British officers and agents to excite the Indian tribes to espouse the cause of Britain, and promote it by their cruel and barbarous system of warfare ; although the American governments had them- selves made urgent application to the Indians, and solicited their savage aid to the cause of liberty and independence. There was certainly, however, a wide difference between employing Indian savages to resist the hostilities of armed soldiers, and engaging them to attack defenceless citizens and hus- bandmen, and make war on villages, plantations, and families. The Conti- nental Congress, besides, accounted the sanction it gave to the employment of Indian auxiliaries a measure of necessary defence and rightful retaliation. An entire neutrality was preferably desired and earnestly recommended to the Indians by this assembly.^ But the Indians in general manifested a decided preference of the British to the American cause. Britain had of late years dihgently cultivated the friendship of those savages ; and while she enjoyed access to the most considerable of the tribes through Canada on the north and Florida on the south, and was abundantly capable of sup- plying their numerous wants, the Americans were compelled to suspend much even of their usual intercourse with the Indians by their own non- importation agreements, which deprived them of the articles chiefly required in the Indian trade. It might have been foreseen from the first, as it was clearly manifested in the sequel, that the employment of such auxiliaries in such a contest was less likely to affect its final issue than to beget odium, animosity, and irritation. Britain suffered most from these unfavorable sen- timents ; because her camps and fortresses, the only possessions she enjoyed ' For a while, some of the Indian tribes professed a strict neutrality between Britain and America. The Oneida tribe of the Six Nations thus replied to the overtures of the Ameri- cans : — " Brothers ! we have heard of the unhappy dilFerences and great contention between you and Old England. We wonder greatly and are much troubled in mind. Brothers ! pos- sess your minds in peace with respect to us, and take no umbrage that we refuse joining in the contest. We are for peace. We cannot intermeddle in a dispute between two brothers." To this professed neutrality the Oneida tribe steadily adhered. All the other tribes of the Six Nations espoused the cause of Britain. Some Indian nations, however, embraced the in- terests of America. A small tribe thus expressed its sentiments to the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts : — " Brothers ! we have always been friends. When you were small, we were great, and we protected you. Now you are great and tall, we are small and not so high as your heel ; and you take care of us. Brothers ! whenever we see your blood running, we will revenge it. Though we are small, we will gripe hold of your enemy's heel, that he cannot run so fast and so light as if he had nothing at his heels." The Indian converts of the Moravian missionaries, at the expense of provoking insult and violence from both the belligerents, firmly declined all participation in the war, declaring that " the Great Being did not make men to destroy men, but to love and assist each other." CHAP, v.] DEFECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH SERVICE. 547 in America, were less exposed to Indian ravage than the settlements and plantations of the Americans. In consequence of the recent Cherokee war, some Americans, who, till the close of the preceding year, professed themselves Tories, and disavow- ed all right of resistance to their parent state, now became active Whigs, and eagerly took arms, in the first instance against the Indians, and finally against Britain, as the instigator of their barbarous devastations. Lord Effingham, Lord Pitt, son of the Earl of Chatham, Wilson, a member of the Irish parliament, and several other persons, distinguished by their rank or character, who held commissions in the British army, protesting against the injustice of the quarrel and the disgraceful association required from them with German mercenaries and savage Indians, withdrew at this period from the British service, — an example that was not imitated by Lord Percy, who procured himself to be matriculated a member of the tribe of Mohawks, and accepted an Indian name, which he ostentatiously employed in his intercourse with the savage alHes of his country. Among others who refused to serve against America was a young naval lieutenant named Cartwright, long afterwards highly celebrated as a zealous and disinterested patriot, under the title of Major Cartwright. He was urged to accept a commission in the service of America ; but he declared, that, though he would never accede to an unjust and offensive war upon that country, he would yet stick to England as long as a plank of her remained above water. Many natives of Britain, however, were less scrupulously attached to their particular birthplace ; and, having formed connections by residence in America and intercourse with it, conceived, that, in this great divulsion of the empire, they were entitled to choose which portion of it they would adhere to. Some daring adventurers, also, of dubious character and ex- traction, found in this tempestuous crisis an element congenial to their rest- less souls, and figured as partisans of hberty, more or less genuine, on the scene of American affairs. Among these was a person who obtained the rank of general in the American army, and was named Alexander. He had been in Britain an unsuccessful claimant of the Scottish title of Lord Stirling, and pronounced an impostor by decree of the House of Lords. The Amer- icans, though arrayed against royal and aristocratical pretensions, readily complimented Alexander with the empty ascription of a title, the substantial loss of which, perhaps, occasioned his espousal of their cause. It was re- marked, that, on the very day [February 28] after that on which Lord Pitt resigned his commission, two Indian chiefs from Canada were presented at the British court and obtained a gracious reception from the monarch who had hired them to steep their weapons in his people's blood. One of them, carrying a tomahawk in his hand, and having his face painted with the rep- resentation of streaks of blood, attended the king at a review of a body of troops that were preparing to embark for America. Petitions and instructions now began to flow to the congress from most parts of America, desiring and authorizing the open proclamation of Ameri- can independence. Notwithstanding these indications, the congress, pru- dently desirous in a matter of such importance to follow rather than to pre- cede the march of public spirit and opinion, still hesitated to broach the claim of independence, and waited a more general and deliberate expres- sion of the national wish and readiness for this consummation. They studied by gradual approach to familiarize the public mind to the contemplation of 54g HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. independence, and by preparatory measures so far to realize this predica- ment as to diminish the alarm necessarily connected with its fateful name. In this politic course they were prompted to make a notable stride by the tidings which arrived in the spring of the rejection of their last petition to the king, and of the acts of parliament authorizing the employment of Ger- man troops and the confiscation of American ships, and by the general and lively indignation which these tidings provoked. The measures they em- braced on this occasion imported the boldest defiance of British authority, and tended to unite the fortune of America with the interests of every other commercial state in the world. They directed [March 23] reprisals to be made by armed vessels, both public and private, on all British ships and cargoes, and, deliberately breaking the shackles of that monopoly by which their commerce had been so long held in bondage, they declared the ports of America open to all the world except Great Britain. On the same day they embraced and published a resolve, "that no slaves be imported into any of the colonies." About two months after [May 10], emboldened, perhaps, by the expulsion of the British troops from Boston, the congress, as a provocation and preparatory step to independence, recommended to the various provincial' assemblies and conventions an entire suspension through*- out America of all authority derived from British appointment, and the adoption of such forms of government as they should judge most conducive to the happiness and safety of their constituents. This recommendation of the congress was instantly carried into effect ; and all the provincial gov- ernments were now reconstructed in conformity with the principle, that in each commonwealth the will of the citizens was the supreme and independ- ent source of power, and that the majesty of the crown was superseded by the majesty of the people. John Rutledge was elected governor of South Carolina, and Patrick Henry of Virginia. Some varieties occurred in the details of the new political structures ; but the general features of their composition were alike, and the same fundamental principles pervaded them all. This change was effected with little agitation and without any dangerous convulsion. The general diffusion of knowledge in America de- fended its inhabitants from the chimeras of ignorant enthusiasm. Familiar- ized with a reasonable and orderly freedom, they were not likely to mistake the features of a political blessing which had been always embodied in their favorite domestic institutions. They cherished, revered, and pursued it with an ardor passionate, yet tempered by sober sense and reason, and un- tinctured with that visionary strain of undisciplined fancy which misleads expectation and' misguides practice. Ev^ry mode of happiness and enjoy- ment adapted to the capacities of human nature is cherished with more solid regard, and cultivated with more judicious concern in proportion to the virtuous freedom of acquaintance habitually admitted between its objects and its admirers. The experience of an oppressive and degrading yoke of tyranny, while it inflames the desire of liberty, promotes a false concep- tion of the nature and value of this condition, promotes extreme and cease- less innovation in the season of revolutionary change, and paves the way, through the lassitude and impatience of disgust and disappointment, to that worst of all revolutions, a restoration of abrogated tyrannical power. Some of the royal g^overnors unnecessarily deserted their executive functions, and, in the plenitude of rashness, insolence, and ignorance, predicted an inextricable chaos and confusion as the result of an abrupt extinction of CHAP, v.] CONDUCT OF THE aUAKERS. 549 the lamp of royal prerogative. Never was policy more effectually balked, nor prediction more completely falsified. No violent shock or extensive change was required to enable the American States to accomplish the transition to what they desired from what they had already theoretically or practically enjoyed. This memorable year was additionally signalized by the third and last voyage of the illustrious navigator, Captain Cook, — an exploit recom- mended to our present notice by its connection with the history and labors of a distinguished American traveller. John Ledyard, a native of Con- necticut, cherished from his earliest years an ardent desire to explore the undiscovered regions of the globe. He was placed at Dartmouth Col- lege, with a view to his acquisition of so much theological knowledge as might qualify him for the profession of a clergyman ; but, diverted by taste or driven by penury from his academic pursuits, he forsook the col- lege and performed a part of his homeward journey in a canoe constructed by his own hands. Yielding to the favorite inclination of his genius, he passed several years among the Indians, studying their manners and culti- vating the means of recommending himself to the favor and protection of savages. He was enabled to visit England by engaging himself as a common sailor on board a ship bound from New York to London, and now gained admission among the associates of Cook's last voyage, — acceptmg the humble situation of corporal of marines rather than forego an opportunity so inviting to his inquisitive and adventurous spirit. The qualities he dis- played in this voyage won the praise of his great pattern and commander, who recognized with esteem the kindred genius which was afterwards illustrated with so much honor and renown by the travels of Ledyard in Europe, Asia, and Africa.^ In all the States of America there was a party of the inhabitants firmly- attached (from prejudice, from principle, or from interest) to the royal cause, and who received the appellation of Tories from the rest of their countrymen, by whom they were regarded with implacable rage and de- testation.^ The vain efforts of these persons to stem the prevailing current of national sentiment and purpose were now aided by the sect of Quakers * in America, who, after a long retreat from politics and political controversy, came forward this year with rekindled zeal in support of the declining cause of royalty,, and pubhshed at Philadelphia a declaration of non-resistance to the king, whom they pronounced to be set over them by God, and lawfully removable by the same great Being alone. They seemed entirely to exclude from the scheme of nature and Providence the operation of the divine will through human instrumentality.'* As a sect, or religious society, the Quakers ^ Miller's Retrospect. St. John's Memoirs of Ledyard. Ledyard was born in 1751, and died at Grand Cairo in 1788. ' John Adams, in a letter to his friend Gushing during the Revolutionary War, reminds him, that " I strenuously recommended at first to fine, imprison, and hang all Americans ini- mical to the cause, without favor or affection." He adds, " I would have hanged my own broth- er, if he had taken part with our enemy in this contest." Annual. Register for 1781. Adam» at a later period deplored and vainly endeavoured to restrain in his countrymen the fury and violence that had been sanctioned and fomented by such language. 3 Voltaire, speculating on the probable conduct of the Qjiakers at this crisis, shows at least his acquaintance with their policy on former occasions. In a letter co the king of Prussia, dated the 30th of March, 177b, he says : — "I do not believe that my dear Quakers will fight with their own hands, but they will pay others to fight for them." * We have seen it proclaimed by one of the most illustrious patriarchs of the Quakers, that Good mm loiU never suffer bad laios. AntCy Book VII., Chap. 1. 550 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. exposed themselves to general reproach in America by this proceeding, and by the repeated testimonies which they subsequently published, during the Revolutionary War, of adherence to Britain and sympathy with the occa- sional success of her arms. But as a body of men, the conduct of the American Quakers was nowise uniform or consentaneous. Many enlight- ened and estimable persons who had hitherto professed Quakerism in Amer- ica, now openly embracing the American cause and taking arms in its de- fence, were excommunicated by their more consistent fellow-sectaries. Among those were Thomas Mifflin, who afterwards became president of the congress, and Nathaniel Greene, the greatest military genius that Amer- ica produced in the Revolutionary War. Some others of the members of congress were professed Quakers, who (we learn from the letters of An- thony Benezet) were distinguished by the warmth of their patriotic zeal, and the violence of the hostility which they expressed and promoted against Britain. Of the Quakers who adhered to their doctrine of non-resistance, there were some who demeaned themselves during the whole of the con- test with a strict neutrality, supported by the most magnanimous intrepidity. One of these, Warner Mifflin, whose serene, dauntless heart was awed neither by the pride nor by the violence of man, sought an interview with General Howe, and upbraided him with the desolation inflicted by his troops on America ; and when the Quakers had become objects of general dislike and suspicion to the Americans, at the risk of being considered and treated as a spy, he penetrated to Washington in his camp and defended their con- duct. The behaviour of some other Quakers, however, was by no means defensible either by the general principles of honor, or by those peculiar sectarian principles to which they professed an inviolable adherence. They exasperated the Americans by congratulating the British on their victories, even when these victories were sullied by the most barbarous outrage, rapine, and cruelty ; and two of them were hanged for assisting a party of British troops to rescue some of their captive comrades, by disclosing the place where they were confined by the Americans as prisoners of war.^ We willingly turn to a more agreeable feature in the contemporary pro- ceedings of the American Quakers. Our attention has been too often so- licited by that painful circumstance in the composition of American society, negro slavery. The present circumstances of the free colonists were pecu- liarly fitted to impress them with clear and just notions of the merits, both moral and political, of this institution. Protesting against established author- ity, and appealing from its maxims and pretensions to the general rights of man and the presumed will of God, they sought the protection of principles which manifestly sanctioned a similar appeal against the bondage to which their own negro slaves were consigned.^ If the pious and the reasonable » See Note XXXVII., at the end of the volume. * Innumerable citations to this effect might be extracted from the speeches of American pa- triots and the resolves and manifestoes of American assemblies. The proclamation, by which the Continental Congress, in 1775, justified its military preparations, commenced in the follow- ing manner: — "If it were possible for men who exercise their reason to believe that the Di- vine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over, others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom as the objects of a legal domination never rightly resistible, however severe and oppressive; the inhabitants of these colonies might at least require from the parliament of Great Britain some evidence that this dreadful authority over them has ever been granted to that body. But a reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to pro- mote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end." &t.. CHAP, v.] EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES BY THE aUAKERS. 55] were impressed with this consideration, the timid and interested were not less struck with apprehension of the dangerous accession which the hostile force of England was likely to derire from the enslaved negro population. In all the provinces, an increased humanity was now displayed in the treatment of negro slaves and of Indian neighbours. The humane exertions of a party among the Quakers to mitigate the evils of slavery have already on several occasions demanded our notice, and merited a praise inferior only to that which is due to the unvaunted proceedings we recently remarked ^ in Massachusetts. But the disinterested example which had been afforded by many of the inhabitants of Massachusetts was now to be iraritated by a ma- jority of the society of Quakers. Two years prior to the present period, the annual convocation of the Quakers of Pennsylvania and New Jersey published an ordinance menacing with excommunication all members of their ecclesiastical community who should import, buy, or sell negro slaves, or retain negroes in a state of slavery for a longer period than the legal or customary endurance of the indentures of white servants. And in the pres- ent year, the same assembly enacted a statute of excommunication against every Quaker who should for a moment longer detain a negro in a state of slavery.^ Thus the emancipation of their slaves by the Quakers (though some contumacious members of the sect were excommunicated, and many sold their slaves to elude that penalty) , and the emancipation of themselves from British tyranny by the Americans in general, were contemporary events. And which, it may be asked, — the act of just sacrifice, or the act of gen- erous exertion, — was the transaction most honorable to human nature } Without attempting the impossibility of answering this question to the satis- faction of every class of thinkers, it may be remarked, with little hazard of contradiction, that the conduct of the American Quakers would have afforded scope for more unmixed commendation, if they had refrained from embar- rassing the exertions of their countrymen for the achievement of political lib- erty. The oppressed and degraded state of freed negroes in North America has rendered their manumission in actual effect very litde beneficial, if not positively detrimental, to the welfare and happiness of mankind.^ The American congress had now received from a majority of the thir- teen confederated States which it represented either urgent entreaties or deliberate consent and authority to the dissolution of all farther political connection with Great Britain. One or two of the provincial assemblies yet The original draught of the Declaration of Independence contained a strong protest against the iniquity of negro slavery. But this clause was surrendered by an approving majority to a dissenting minority of the members of congress. " If there be," said Day, the author of Sandford and Merton, " an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot siting resolutions in favor of liberty with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves. "_ Day in the present year "sh (^1776) reprobated the policy and predicted the discomfiture of the British operations in Amer- ica in a poem entitled Tlie Devoted Legions. Thus wrote, with dying hand, one of the greatest and best of mankind ; — " Go on in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away." John Wesley to William Wilberforce, 1791. ' Ante, Chap. III. The first decisive interference of the legislature of Massachusetts on lis subject occurred in the year 1777, when a British vessel with a cargo of negro slaves was captured by an American privateer and carried into Salem. The captors proposed to sell the this subject occurred in the year 1777, when a British vessel with a cargo of negro slaves was captured by an American privateer and carried into Salem. The captors proposed to sell the negroes ; but the legislature forbade the sale, and directed that the negroes should be set at liberty. Bradford. • Annual Register for 1776. Gordon. Holmes. Pitkin. Garden. Rogers. Ramsay. Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave-trade. Brissot's Travels in America. Botta. Stone's Ufe of Joseph Brant. ' See Note XXaVIII., at the end of the volume. 552 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI: reframed from giving any explicit directions on this subject to their representa- tives ; the directions from Maryland were latterly unfavorable to an imme- diate assertion of independence ; and those from Pennsylvania and Dela- ware were flatly opposed to it. But the leading partisans of independence perceived that the season had arrived when this great design must be either openly espoused or definitively abandoned ; they remarked, that, in general, the main objections that were still urged against it applied rather to the time than to the measure itself, and they were* convinced that in every one of the States the majority of the people, however credulous or desirous of a reconciliation with Britain, would rather repudiate such views than retain them in opposition to the declared and general policy of America. On the 7th of June, accordingly, it was formally proposed in congress, by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia (where the project of independence was openly es- poused by unanimous vote of the provincial assembly), that the American States should be declared free and independent. This proposition in- duced long and animated debates, and afforded scope to the largest dis- play of wisdom, genius, and eloquence in the discussion of a question than which none more interesting to human liberty and happiness was ever before submitted to the decision of a national assembly. The American congress, in its original composition, exhibiting the citizens of a subordinate common- wealth in the act of assuming into their own hands the reins of government which a superior state had previously wielded over them, presented a spec- tacle of deep and stirring interest to human nature and civihzed society. Deliberating now if the grand conception which it had suggested was to be despondingly abandoned or resolutely fulfilled, it addressed the universal sentiments of mankind with extended interest and augmented dignity. While European sovereigns were insulting and violating every sanction and safe- guard of national right and human liberty by the infamous partition of Po- land, a revolutionary principle of nobler nature and vindictive destiny was developed to the earnest and wondering eyes of the world, in America.^ A very ordinary degree of knowledge and reflection may enable any person to suggest to himself the principal arguments which must have been employed in the conduct of this solemn and important debate ; but no authentic re- port of the actual discussion has been transmitted. John Adams, who supported the project of independence, and Dickinson, who opposed it, were acknowledged to have preeminently distinguished themselves by their rhetoric and ingenuity. Adams (as we are desired by tradition to believe, and authorized by probability to suppose) forcibly maintained that a restora- tion of union and harmony between Britain and America was impossible ; that military conquest alone could restore the British ascendency ; and that an open declaration of independence was imperiously required to harmonize the views of the Americans, to elevate and confirm their spirits in an inevi- table conflict, and to enable them to seek, expect, and obtain effectual succour from foreign powers.^ Prudence and justice alike demanded that ' See Note XXXIX., at the end of the volume. 2 Before the close of this year the congress were practically sensible of the advantage which only an open pretension to independence was capable of opposing to the impressions created by defeat and misfortune. Seeing many of their constituents and some of their troops disheart- ened by the first successes of the bands of disciplined mercenaries employed by Britain, they declared by a manifesto to their countrymen that essential services had already been rendered to them by foreign states, and that they had received the most positive assurances of farther aid. This was derided as a false and vain boast by the British journals; notwithstanding a prochimation of the king of Spain, in the month of October, declaring all the Spanish ports freely open to American vessels. CHAP, v.] DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 553 the brave men who had taken arms in defence of their country's freedom should be enabled to dismiss the apprehension of fighting for a hollow and precarious reconciliation and a return to the yoke of dependence. Dickin- son is said to have insisted (and very plausibly, it must be allowed) that an instant dissolution of the American confederacy would be produced by the mere act of Great Britain in withdrawing her fleets and armies at the pres- ent juncture ; but in maintaining, as he is also reported to have done, that the same breach of federal union, aggravated by an effervescence of popular spirit incompatible with civil order, must ensue from the withdrawment of the British troops at a later period, and after a prolonged contest and the ex- citation of furious passion in every part of America, he disregarded the con- tinued influence of that bond of union whose initial operation he was so strongly impressed with, and undervalued the wisdom and virtue which his countrymen were capable of exerting for the extinction of the flames of revolutionary passions. Some members of the congress opposed a decla- ration of independence as unwarrantable or premature ; and others for a while were reluctantly deterred from supporting it by the instructions of their constituents. After the discussion had been protracted for nearly a month, during which interval the hesitation or opposition of a minority of the States was overborne, as had been foreseen, by the general current of national will, — the measure proposed by Lee was approved and embraced by a vote almost unanimous ; ^ and a document, entitled Declaration of the Independ- ence of the Thirteen United States of JSTorth America, composed by Thomas Jefferson, was subscribed by all the members who were willing to indulge the wish, to accomplish the glory, and to confront the danger of their country.^ [July 4.] This admirable production commenced in the following manner : — " When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with an- other, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a de- cent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. " We hold these truths to be self-evident: — that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to se- cure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed ; that, whenever any form of gov- ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to promote their safety and happiness. Prudence, in- deed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed » \3nnual Register for 1776.^ Grordon7"Rogers. Pitkin. Botta. OiTthVlSth of"june,"the representatives of the people of New Hampshire voted unanimously that their delegates at the Continental Congress be instructed to jom with the other colonies in declaring the Thir- teen United Colonies a free and independent state, provided the regulation of their internal police be reserved to their own provincial assembly. On the 28th of June, chiefly by the in- fluence of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the assembly of Maryland declared its espousal of the project of independence. On the 3d of July, it was declared by unanimous vote of the Massa- chusetts assembly, " that, if congress shall think proper to declare the colonies independent, this house will approve of the measure." * See Note XL., at the end of the volume. VOL. II. 70 UU 554 HISTORY or north AMERICA. [BOOK XI. for light and transient causes ; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufFerable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." After a recital, couched in strains at once simple, spirited, manly, and dignified, of the wrongs which the American States had endured from the government and people of Great Britain, the Declaration thus concluded : — " We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separa- tion, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, — in peace, friends. " We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America m general congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the author- ity 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 poHtical connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm rehance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." ^ Thus, at once, all the vague and various notions respecting the legitimate boundaries of royal prerogative or British supremacy, by which the Ameri- cans had been hitherto divided and perplexed, were finally discarded from the international controversy, which now presented only the one grand and simple question, — Whether the inhabitants of North America should in future exist as conquered colonists, or as a free and independent people. This great transaction, involving at once the creation of a new empire, and the exposure of it in the very hour of its birth to the vindictive hostility of the most puissant monarchy in the world, was conducted in the metropo- lis of the State of Pennsylvania, — a city which had existed little more than ninety years, and whose extent of population would have entitled it to very little distinction in a European commonwealth, — the centre of Qua- kerism in America, — and of which the inhabitants were generally charac- terized by moderation of temper and sobriety of manners. Pennsylvania, after repeatedly opposing, was one of the latest of the provinces in assent- ing to, the project of independence. Hence, as well as from the privacy with which the deliberations of the congress were still conducted, no adven- titious fervor was imparted to this assembly by the contagious vicinity of popular excitement, or the animating presence and sympathy of a crowded and admiring audience. In the congress thus sequestered from an infiu- ence of which the most enterprising assemblies in the world have acknowl- edged the powerful efficacy, the heroic or ambitious partisans of American independence were aware that the glory of the measure must be shared with all their colleagues ; while the cautious and timid were conscious that the danger of it was equally extended to every individual who should sanc- * The articles of confederation between the States, which defined the powers of congress, were not arranged and ratified till a later period. They were published almost contempora- tieously with a royal proclamation (in England) errjoinmg a fast for the deliverance of America from the tyranny and injustice of rebels^ who (so said the proclamation) had assumed there the exercise of arbitrary power. CHAP, v.] CONCLUSION. 555 tion the Declaration. Every man, indeed, who signalized his espousal of this decisive measure, irrevocably staked his life and fortune on the achieve- ment of his country's freedom, and linked his own fate to the political destiny of North America.^ The Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by order of the con- gress, and received with shouts of applause, and an instant and eager expul- sion of every badge of royal authority and British connection in all the con- federated States ; and, on the evening of its arrival at New York, a leaden statue of the king of Britain, which had been erected in former days, was hurled from its pedestal and given up to be melted into bullets for the use of the American army. The enthusiasm, with which the great measure announced to them was hailed and embraced by the troops of this army, showed how fully they appreciated the altered and exalted attitude which it imparted to their own condition and to that of their country.^ In reviewing these remarkable tides in the affairs of men, it is difficult to resist the temptation of speculating on the consequences that might have resulted from a conduct and policy different from that which was actually pursued. Had Britain, after the treaty of Paris, discerned the change which her relation with America had actually undergone, and liber- ally recognized it ; had she, instead of aggravating the pressure of her com- mercial restrictions, and introducing new regulations still more arbitrary and severe, begun with prevenient grace to relax those bonds ; and finally, ac- knowledging the national maturity of her colonies, declared them inde- pendent ; and, trusting to their grateful friendship, sought to negotiate with them a commercial treaty beneficial to her own people, — would the consequences of this pohcy, more magnanimous than any nation had ever yet shown itself equal to,^ have proved more conducive than the scenes which actually ensued to the happiness of Britain, America, and mankind in general .-* To suppose so would be to impeach the wisdom or benefi- cence of the dominion exerted by Providence over the passions of men and the stream of events. As the commonwealths of America did not owe their existence, so they were destined not to owe their independence, to European grace and liberality. If Britain had merely persisted in her original course of policy, without aggravating its severity, the Americans, notwithstanding, would doubtless have revolted in process of time ; but in ^ See Note XLI., at the end of the volume. ' Annual Register for 1776. Botta. Burk. In Virginia, the Declaration of Independence was welcomed with transports of joy. The provincial assembly instantly commanded that the name of the king should be expunged from every formulary of public prayer, and that a new and appropriate seal of the commonwealth should be framed. For this Virginian seal various devices were suggested. Dr. Franklin proposed a figure of Moses standing on the shore of the Red Sea, and extending his hand over tne waves collected for the destruction of Pharaoh, with the motto, Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. Jefferson suggested a different device, with the motto. Rex est qui regem non habet. The device actually adopted was suggested by Wythe, and disclosed on one side a figure of Virtue, the genius of the com- monwealth, treading on Tyranny, represented by a man prostrate, a crown fallen from his head, a broken chain in his lefl hand and a scourge in his right, with the motto. Sic semper tyrannis; on the reverse, a group, of which the principal figures were the goddess of Liberty and Ceres holding a cornucopia, with the motto, Deus nobis hcec otia fecit. In all the States the formula of legal writs was changed from " George, by the grace of God king," to " The peo- ple of America, by the grace of God free and independent." 3 « There are instances in which individual rulers, weary of power, have freely resigned it ; but no people ever yet voluntarily surrendered authority over a subject nation." Heeren's Reflections on the Politics of Ancient Greece. It has been said, with melancholy semblance of truth, that A nation has no heaH. 556 HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA. [BOOK XI. that case, most probably, either the revolt would have been partial, irreg- ular, and proportionally ineffective ; or, if it had been general, it would, from the increased growth and strength of the provinces, have been in- stantly successful. The sudden increase in the mode and measure of Brit- ish domination caused all the States to revolt simultaneously ; and the long and arduous struggle that ensued served to knit them together in strong conjunction and prepare them for permanent federal association. NOTES TO THE SECOND VOLUME NOTE I. Page 58. The people of New Englcmd were not in this respect more credulous than the inhabitants of the parent state. A shock of an earthquake having been expe- rienced in London on the 8th of February, 1750, and another somewhat more violent on the 8th of the follow^ing March, a common soldier, disordered in his intellects, began to preach in the streets, " and boldly prophesied that the next shock would happen on the same day of April, and totally destroy the cities of London and Westminster. Considering the infectious nature of fear and super- stition, and the emphatic manner in which the imagination had been prepared and prepossessed, it was no wonder that the prediction of this illiterate enthusiast should have contributed in a great measure to augment the general terror. The churches were crowded with penitent sinners ; the sons of riot and profligacy were over- awed with sobriety and decorum. The streets no longer resounded with exe- crations, or the noise of brutal licentiousness ; and the hand of charity was liber- ally opened. Those whom fortune had enabled to retire from the devoted city fled to the country in hurry and precipitation, insomuch that the highways were encumbered with horses and carriages. Many who had in the beginning combated these groundless fears with the weapons of reason and ridicule began insensibly to imbibe the contagion, and felt their hearts fail in proportion as the hour of pro- bation approached ; even science and philosophy were not proof against the un- accountable effects of this communication. In after ages it will hardly be believed, that, on the evening of the 8th of April, the open fields that skirt the metropolis were filled with an incredible number of people assembled in chairs, in chaises, and coaches, as well as on foot, who waited in the most fearful suspense until morning and the return of day disproved the truth of the dreaded prophecy. Then their fears vanished ; they returned to their respective habitations in a transport of joy ; and were soon reconciled to their abandoned vices, which they seemed to resume with redoubled affection, and once more bade defiance to the vengeance of Heaven." Smollett. NOTE II. Page 69. Various European bards have essayed, more or less successfully, to wake, or at least to imitate, the lyre of the Indian Muse. The songs of Outalissi, in Camp- belPs Gertrude of Wyoming^ will outlast all the genuine productions of Indian poets, and probably the Indian race itself. Of these JEuropean compositions, the XJU* 558 NOTES. best (in point of fidelity to Indian sentiment and character) that I have ever met with is a little German poem of Schiller, of which I have been furnished with the following English version by my friend, Sir John Herschel. It is entitled, THE DEATH-SONG OF A NADOWESSEE* CHIEF. See, where upon the mat he sits Erect before his door, - With just the same majestic air That once in life he wore. But where is fled his strength of limb, , I i i / J The whirlwind cif his bre>&tl^ To the Great Spirit when he sent The peace-pipe's mounting wreath ? Where are those falcon eyes, which late Along the -phtm could trace, Along the grass's dewy wave. The reindeer's printed pace .-• Those legs, which once with matchless speed Flew'through thediifled snow, Surpassed the stag's unwearied course, /> . .., . Outran the mountain roe .'' .' Those arnas, once used with might and main ,, ' . The .stubborn bow .to twang .^ See, see, their nerves are slack at last. All motionless they hang. ■ ■■"■■ "T 'is well with him, for he is gone 'l. Where snow no more is found, „ ,- . Where the gay thorn's perpetual bloom Decks all the fields around ; ■ Where wild birds sing from every spray, ^here deer come sweeping by, Where fish, from every lake, afford A plentiful supply. With spirits now he feasts above, And leaves us here alone To celebrate bis valiant deeds And round his grave to moan. Sound the death-song, bring forth the gifts. The last gifts of the dead,— Let all which yet may yield him joy Within his grave be laid. The hatchet place beneath his head. Still red with hostile blood ; And add, because the way is long, The bear's fat limbs for food. The scailping-knife bewde him lay, With paints of gorgeous dye, That in the land of souls his form May shine triumphantly. Very similar to the foregoing effusion is an Indian declamatioo in honor ol a 6mA ^wf, ipsesBTYed in Davia^a Travels in America, NOTE III. Page 96. The French traveller Volney, in his View of the United States, thus contrasts the English, vGterman, and Dutch colonists of America with those of French ex- traction. " The settler of JBritish or German descent is of a cold and phlegmatic temper, *'W tbifl tribe :8cmie,notk« x)ccHrs in C^ NOTES. 659 and deliberately forms a plan of husbandry which he steadily pursues. He at- tends sedulously to every thing that can influence the success of his projects. He never becomes idle, till his end is accomplished, and he has put his affairs on a good footing. " The impetuosity of the Frenchman leads him to embiraee; precipitately any plausible or flattering project, and he proceeds in his career without laboriously computing expenses and contingencies. With more genius for his portion, he kughs at the dulness and caution of his Dutch and English neighbour, whom h© stigmatizes as an ox ; but his neighbour will sedately ajod wisely reply, that the patient ox will plough much better than the mettlesome racer. And, in truth, the Frenchman's fire easily slackens, his patience is worn out, and, after change ing, correcting, and altering his plans, he finally abandons his project in despair, " His neighbour is in no haste to rise in the morning, bui, when fairly up, he applies steadily to work. At breakfast he gives cold and laconic orders to his wife, who obeys them without contradiction or demur. Weather permitting, he goes to plough or chop wood ; if the weather be bad, he prosecutes his in-door tasks, looks over the contents of his house and granary, repairs his doors ox windows, drives pegs or nails, makes chairs or tables, and is always busied; in rendering his habitation more comfortable and secure. With these habits, he. is nowise averse to sell his farm for a good price^ and reiaaove, even in old ag»^, still farther into the forest, cheerfully recommencing all the labors of a new set- tlement. There will he spend years in felling trees, building a hut and a barn, and in fencing and sowing his fields. His wife, as placid and patient as himseif, will second all his labors ; and they will sometimes pass six months together without seeing the face of a stranger. In four or five years, comfort, conveor ience, and ease will grow up around them, and a competence will reward their soUtary toils. " The Frenchman, on the contrary, will be up betimes, for tb& pleasure of sur*- veying and talking over matters with his wife, whose counsel he demands. Their constant agreement would be quite a miracle ; the wife dissents, argues, and wrangles, and the husband has his own way or giv^ u-p to her, and is irritated and disheartened. Home, perhaps, grows irksome ; so he takes hjis gua, and goes a shooting, or a travelling, or to chat with a neighbour. If he, atay at home, he either whiles away the hours in good-humored talk, or he scolds and quarrels* Neighbours interchange visits ; for to visit and talk are sa necessary to a Frenchr man, that, along the frontiers of Canada and Louisiana, there is nowhere a settler of that nation to be found, but within sight or reach of some other. On asking how far off" the remotest settler was, I have been tc^d, ' He is. in the woods with the bears, and with nobody to talk to.' " This temper is the most characteristic difference between the two nations ; and the more I reflect upon this subject, the firmer is my persuasion, that the Americans and the northern Europeans, from whom they are descended, chiefly owe their success in arts and commerce to habitual taciturnity. In silence they collect, arrange, and digest their thoughts, and have leisure to calculate the future ; they eujquire habits of clear thinking and accurate expression ; and hence there is more decision in their conduct, both in public and domestic exigencies ; and they at once see the way to their point more clearly and pursue it more directly. " On the contrary, the Frenchman's ideas evaporate in ceaseless chat ; he ex- poses himself to bickering and contradiction ; stimulates the garrulity of his wife and sisters ; involves himself in quarrels with his neighbours ; and finds, in the end, that his life has been squandered away without use or benefit." Volney would have found an appropriate text to the foregoing discourse m this sentence of Solomon : — "In all labor there is profit ; but the talk of the lip» tendeth only to penury." 560 NOTES. NOTE IV. Page 121. The following extracts from the first part of John Wesley's Journal illustrate the manners of himself and some of his fellow-passengers. " Now we begin to be a little regular. Our common way of living was this. From four of the morning till five, each of us used private prayer. From five to seven, we read the Bible together, carefully comparing it (that we might not lean to our own understandings) with the writings of the earliest ages. At seven, we breakfast. At eight, were the public prayers. From nine to twelve, I usually learned German, and M. Delamotte, Greek ; my brother writ sermons, and Mr. Ingham instructed the children. At twelve, we met to give an account to one another of what we had done since our last meeting, and what we designed to do before our next. About one, we dined. The time from dinner to four we spent in reading to those of whom each of us had taken charge, or in speaking to them severally, as need required. At four, were the evening prayers, — when either the second lesson was explained, or the children were catechized and instructed before the congregation. From five to six, we again used private prayer. From six to seven, I read in our cabin to two or three of the English passengers, and each of my brethren to a few more in theirs. At seven, I joined with the Ger- mans in their public service ; while Mr. Ingham was reading between the decks to as many as desired to hear. At eight, we met again to exhort and instruct one another. Between nine and ten, we went to bed, where neither the roaring of the sea, nor the motion of the ship, could take away the refreshing sleep which God gave us." Having described a storm at sea, and condemned himself as unfit, because he found himself unwilling, to die, he thus alludes to the more lively and triumphant faith of the Moravians : — "I had long before observed the great seriousness of their behaviour. Of their humility they had given a continual proof, by perform- ing those servile ofl[ices for the other passengers, which none of the English would undertake ; for which they desired and would receive no pay, saying, ' It was good for their proud hearts,' and ' their Saviour had done more for them.' And every day had given them occasion of showing a meekness which no injury could move. If they were pushed, struck, or thrown down, they rose again and went away ; but no complaint was found in their mouth. There was now an opportunity of trying whether they were delivered from the spirit of fear, as well as from that of pride, anger, and revenge. In the midst of the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over us, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swal- lowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sung on. I asked one of them afterwards, ' Was you not afraid ? ' He answered, * I thank God, no.' I asked, * But were not your women and children afraid ? ' He replied mildly, * No ; our women and children are not afraid to die.' " At the time when the danger seemed most imminent, and the vessel was expected immediately to founder, an infant was brought to Wesley to be bap- tized. " It put me in mind," he says, " of Jeremiah's buying the field when the Chaldeans were on the point of destroying Jerusalem, and seemed a pledge of the mercy God designed to show us, even in the land of the living." Of the manners of the Germans in Georgia Wesley subsequently gives this representation: — "They were always employed, always cheerful themselves, and in good-humor with one another." He adds : — "They met this day to con- sult concerning the affairs of their church ; Mr. Spangenberg being shortly to go to Pennsylvania, and Bishop Nitschman to return to Germany. After several hours spent in conference and prayer, they proceeded to the election and ordi- nation of a bishop. The great simplicity as well as solemnity of the whole NOTES. 5^ J almost made me forget the seventeen hundred years between, and imagine my- self in one of those assemblies where form and state were not, but Paul the tent- maker or Peter the fisherman presided, yet with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power." NOTE V. Page 129. " If the reigns of many European proprietors of slaves," says Dr. Moore, the traveller and novelist, " were faithfully recorded, it is much to be feared that the capricious cruelties which disgrace those of Caligula and Nero would not seem so incredible as they now do." Charles Wesley, who visited South Carolina, oa his return from Georgia, in the year 1736, inserts the following remarks in his Journal : — "I had observed much and heard more of the cruelty of masters towards their negroes ; but now I received an authentic account of some horrid instances thereof. I saw, myself, that the giving a slave to a child of its own age, to tyrannize over, to abuse and beat out of sport, was a common practice ; nor i^ it strange, that, being thus trained up in cruelty, they should afterwards arrive afc such perfection in it." After describing various modes of penal torture that were inflicted on the slaves, and even talked of with indifference by many of the plant- ers, Charles Wesley adds : — " Another much applauded punishment is drawing the teeth of their slaves. It is universally known here that Colonel Lynch out off the legs of a poor negro, and that he kills several of them every year by his bar- barities. It were endless to recount all the shocking instances of diabolical crU- ■ elty, which these men, as they call themselves, daily practise upon their fellow- creatures, and that upon the most trivial occasions. I shall only mention one more, related to me by an eyewitness. Mr. Hill, a dancing-master in Charleston, whipped a female slave so long that she fell down at his feet, in appearance dead ; when, by the help of a physician, she was so far recovered as to show some signs of life, he repeated the whipping with equal rigor, and concluded the punishment with dropping scalding wax upon her flesh. Her crime was over-filling a tea-cup. These horrid cruelties are the less to be wondered at, because the law itself, in effect, countenances and allows them to kill their slaves, by the ridiculous penalty appointed for it. The penalty is about seven pounds, — one half of which i6 usually remitted, if the criminal inform against himself." MS. Journal of G; Wesley. Hewit has drawn a melancholy picture of the general treatment of slaves in South Carolina at this period. Extreme and even wanton cruelty was ordinarily inflicted on them. The slaves of humane masters were often worse treated than others, for they were abandoned to overseers. Numbers skulked in the woods, where they were hunted and shot like wild beasts. The planters withheld from them all moral and religious instruction ; declaring that negroes were an inferior race of beings, far below the intellectual stature of white men. They indulged their ostentation in maintaining a numerous retinue of domestic slaves ; and nothing was more common than for guests at banquets to declaim upon the brutality and treachery of the race to which the sable attendants standing by and hearing the discourse belonged. Yet Hewit extols the general benevolence and humanity of that generation of the planters of Carolina. It was unfortunate for many of them that they had suddenly attained great wealth, and that the insolent and imperious temper incident to rapid prosperity was not mitigated by a liberal education. After the American Revolution, the farther importation of negroes into South Carolina was forbidden by law ; and the proportions between the freemen and the slaves underwent a change highly promotive of the security and the humanity of the one and of the comfort and consideration enjoyed by the other. Indeed, VOL. II. 71 662 NOTES. a law to the same effect had been enacted by the assembly of South Carolina several years before the Revolution ; but it was disallowed by the royal governor, as contrary to the policy and injurious to the trade of Great Britain. Traces of the cruelty with which slaves were anciently treated in South Carolina have lingered, it must be confessed, till a very late period, both in the laws of this province and the manners of its inhabitants. During this nineteenth century, slaves were doomed to be burned alive for murder, burglary, or fire-raising. In the year 1808, two negroes were actually burned alive over a slow fire in the market-place of Charleston. Bristed's America and her Resources. " The grand jury of Charleston, for the term of January, 1816, reported, as a most serious evil, that instances of negro homicide were common within the city for many years ; the parties exercising unlimited control as masters and mistresses, indulging their cruel passions in the barbarous treatment of slaves," &;c., &c., " and thereby bringing on the community, the state, and the city the contumely and reproach of the civilized world." Warden. They who entertain such a sense of the evil will, it may be hoped, in time find a remedy for it. We have seen the British found and rear a settlement of free negroes at Sierra Leone, the very spot, where, two centuries before, they first participated in the slave-trade. And, more recently, we have beheld the Americans transport to the settlement of Liberia, in Africa, the emancipated descendants of those negroes whom their ancestors had procured as slaves from the African shore. Absurd and delusive, indeed, has this latter experiment proved. What strange inconsistencies may coexist with even the worst evils of slavery is strikingly displayed in the life of that distinguished Roman who united all the abstractions and refinements of the Pythagorean philosophy with the most odious inhumanity to his slaves. Plutarch's Life of Marcus Cato. According to Aulus Gellius, Plutarch himself could insult with philosophical discourse the slave whom he was causing to writhe under the torture of the lash. But none of the truly great men of North America have been either severe or even willing slave-masters. Washington, writing to his friends Morris and Mercer, in 1786, protested that he would never again purchase a slave, and that he ardently desired the abolition of negro slavery. Patrick Henry and Jefferson, as we have seen, entertained the same views and sentiments. Franklin attacked the system of negro slavery by an ironical defence of the practice of Christian slavery in Morocco. During the Revolutionary War, John Jay declared, that, " Till America embrace this measure [abolition of slavery] her prayers to Heaven for liberty will be impious." Some of the most distinguished champions of the Revolution emancipated their slaves by testamentary bequest, — as Judith, the deliverer of Israel, prior to her death, " made her maid free." NOTE VI. Page 142. The following description of a Georgian planter's method of life occurs in the American Museum for 1790. " About six in the morning, he quits his bed and orders his horse to be got ready ; he then swallows a dram of bitters to prevent the ill effects of the early fogs, and sets out upon the tour of his plantation. In this route he takes an oppor- tunity to stop at the negro-houses, and if he sees any lurking about home, whose business it is to be in the field, he immediately inquires the cause. If no sufficient cause be given, he applies his rattan whip to the shoulders of the slave, and obliges him instantly to decamp. If sickness be alleged, the negro is immediately shut up in the sick-house, bled, purged, and kept on low diet, till he either dies or gets into a way of recovery. After having examined the overseer relative to the NOTES. 56S welfare of the poultry, hogs, cattle, &c., he proceeds round the farm, takes a cur- sory view of the rice, corn, or indigo fields, and examines into the state of the fences and other inclosures. About the hour of eight, his circuit is finished, when, before he alights at his own door, a tribe of young negroes in the primitive state of nakedness rush out to meet him and receive the horse. " Breakfast being over, he again mounts a fresh horse, and rides to the county- town or the first public-house in the neighbourhood, where he talks politics, in- quires the price of produce, makes bargains, plays a game at all-fours, or appoints days for horse-races or boxing-matches. About four o'clock, he returns, bringing with him some friends or acquaintances to dinner. If the company be lively or agreeable, he rarely rises from table before sunset. If it be a wet evening, or the weather be very disagreeable, cards or conversation employ him till bed-time. If it be fair and no moonlight, after an early supper, a fire is kindled in a pan, and two or three of them set out, stored with some bottles of brandy, preceded by a negro who carries the fire, in order to shoot deer in the woods ; as those creatures are so attracted by a light, that they constantly stand still and fix their eyes upon the blaze, by the reflection of which from the eyeball they are easily discovered and shot. " About midnight, they return, according to luck, with or without game ; their shins and faces sadly scratched, and themselves fit for nothing but to be put to bed. This is the general routine of existence among such of the Georgians as live in the more retired and woody parts of the State. Others have their weekly- societies for sentimental and colloquial amusement. As to trade and business, it is entirely managed by overseers and factors." Winterbotham. NOTE Vn. Page 155. Some readers, unacquainted with Brainerd's Journal^ may be gratified by the following extracts from it, illustrative of his ministrations among the Indians. " I explained the story of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke xvi., 19. The word made powerful impression upon many, especially while I discoursed of the blessedness of Lazarus in Abraham's bosom. This, I could perceive, affected them much more than what I spoke of the rich man's torments. And thus it has been usually with them. They have appeared much more affected with the comfortable than the dreadful truths of God's word." " There were sundry In- dians newly come here, who had frequently lived among Quakers, and, being more civilized than the generality of the Indians, they had imbibed some of the Quakers' principles, especially this, — that, if men would but live according to the dictates of their own consciences (or the light within)^ there is no doubt of their salvation. These persons I found much worse to deal with than those who are wholly under Pagan darkness, who make no pretences to knowledge in Christianity, nor have any self-righteous foundation to stand upon. However, they all, except one, appeared now convinced that this was not suflnicient to sal- vation, since Christ himself had so declared in the case of the young man." " An Indian woman came to me, discovering an unusual joy in her countenance ; and when I inquired the reason of it, she replied, that God had made her feel that it loas right for him to do as he pleased with all things^ An Indian conjuror, having been converted, declared that he felt that some mysterious power which he formerly possessed had now wholly departed from him. " Another old Indian having threatened to bewitch me and my people, this man presently challenged him to do his worst, telling him that he himself had been an eminent conjuror, and that notwithstanding, as soon as he felt the word of God in his heart, his power of conjuring immediately left him." " It is worthy of remark, that numbers of 564 NOTES. these people are brought to a strict compliance with the rules of morality and sobriety, and to a conscientious performance of the external duties of Christianity, without having them frequently inculcated, or the contrary vices particularly ex- posed. God was pleased to give the grand gospel truths of the total depravity of human nature, and the glory and sufficiency of the remedy provided in Christ, such an influence on their minds, that their lives were quickly reformed, with- out my spending time in repeated harangues upon external duties." " When these truths were felt at heart, there was no vice unre formed, no external duty neglected. Drunkenness, the darling vice, was broken off, and scarce an instance of it known for months together. The reformation was general, and all springing from the internal influence of divine truths upon their hearts ; not because they had heard particular vices specifically exposed and repeatedly spoken against. So that happy experience, as v^ell jas the word of God, and the example of Christ and his apostles, have taught me that the preaching which is suited to awaken in mankind a lively apprehension of their depravity and misery, to excite them earnestly to seek after a change of heart, and to fly for refuge to Christ as the only hope set before them, is likely to be most successful toward the reformation of their external conduct. I have found that close addresses, and solemn appli- cations of divine truths to the conscience, strike death to the root of all vice ; while smooth and plausible harangues upon moral virtues and external duties, at best, do no more than lop ofl" the branches of corruption." NOTE VIII. Page 156. Cicero inculcated the same maxim, though he was unable to illustrate its efii- cacy with equal patience and detail. " Non intelUgimt homines,''^ says the Roman orator, " quantum vectigal est parsimoniay Franklin's lessons of parsimcHiy have been severely censured by some writers, who charge him with teaching mankind to consider the replenishment of their purses as the chief end of their being. This censure, though exaggerated, is not entirely without foundation. Economy or parsimony, like the string of a neck- lace, derives a value more important than its own intrinsic worth from the objects with which it is subserviently connected. It is difficult to panegyrize one virtue, without bestowing disproportioned praise on it ; and Franklin, in his eagerness to withstand the pernicious influence of prodigality, seems at times to have for- gotten that avarice is also an infirmity of human nature. Even in America, neither the genius nor the character of Franklin has com- manded unanimous praise. He is characterized by a late American writer, as ** a singular composition of formal gayety, of sprightly gravity, of grave wit, of borrowed learning, of vicious morality, of patriotic treachery, of political folly, of casuistical sagacity, and republican voluptuousness." Marshall's History of Ken- tucky. Of some of these expressions I am unable to divine the meaning. In one sense, all learning must be borrowed. Of plagiarism, or affectation in the display of his learning (except, perhaps, his familiarity with the French language, which was the acquisition of his old age), Franklin cannot be justly accused. His theo- retical morality was not vicious. It was very refined and elevated ; though devoid of the dignity of religious origin, and of the authority of religious motive. His practical morality was neither lofty nor pure. In his Memoirs he represents him- self as a fugitive in early life from his family, — the infidel son of pious parents, — the subverter of the faith of his friends and associates, — and regardless of vir- tue and honor in his intercourse with women. He married a woman whom he had previously deserted, after gaining her affections, and who, in the interval, had become the wife of another man, of whose death neither Franklin nor she pos^ NOTES ^Q^ sessed any assurance. Doubtless he confesses his faults, — but with little more penitence than we find in the Confessions of Rousseau. His embezzlement of the money intrusted to his keeping by a friend, though corrected as far as possible by subsequent restitution, yet, as being an untradesmanlike action, seems to have given him more concern than the irreparable injury he did to the faith and morals of several young men, his companions. His complaints in old age of the ingrati- tude of his country, and the inadequate recompense he received from it for ser- vices which had gained him immortal fame, are unworthy of his character and genius. Before he stooped to so mean a strain, he had depressed his view to the contemplation and calculation of the pecuniary value of his exertions. Many persons have read his Memoirs^ without being aware that the son to whom they are addressed was not his legitimate offspring. One of the finest tributes that Franklin's fame has ever received was rendered by the printers of Nantes, in the year 1790, when, assembling in consequence of the intelligence of his death, they (among other expressions honorable to his memory) embraced by unanimous vote a resolve, that, as Franklin had never printed an obscene or immoral line, so they, in admiring respect and extension of such example, would rather destroy their types and printing-presses than ever prostitute them to applications unfriendly to the worth and welfare of the human race. Camille Mellinet's Commune et Milice de Nantes, Vol. VI. It is remarkable that Franklin, the strenuous advocate of parsimony in the re- ward of public services, and who even maintained that the chief officers of a commonwealth ought to serve their country gratuitously, should have distinguished himself above all his countrymen by the bitterness with which he lamented and condemned the inadequate remuneration of his own services. So difficult is it for any man, whether in sentiment or in action, to treat others altogether as he would have others treat himself Whether America be really a loser by her parsimony in rewarding public services is a question which it is much easier to discuss ingeniously than to solve satisfactorily. Men of talent, and of enlarged rather than elevated minds, must ever feel themselves interested in maintaining the afllirmative. Certainly (in theory, at least) the American principle of remune- ration tends to exalt virtue above mere talent, and to purify the desire of fame. On this subject, an interesting statistical work of an American writer presents the following observations: — "One important cause of the stability and peace of this State (Connecticut) is, that the salaries annexed to all public ofliices are small. Various causes have united in producing this fact. The inhabitants were at first few and poor, and unable to give any other. When the salaries were enlarged to their present standard, they were worth three times their present value. Now they are quite inadequate to the decent support of those who receive them. After they were once established, there were always reasons which could be conven- iently alleged against increasing them. To refuse voting for the expenditure of public money is always the road to popularity for little men ; and there are always men of a secondary standing in society, who hope, that, when offices are cheap, they hiay fall to themselves, because they will be declined by their superiors. There is, however, a share of wisdom in this scheme. Whenever public offices are attended with great emoluments, they are coveted by every man of ambition , avarice, or pleasure. The sight of the prize rouses in every such man an energy which is excessive, and but too commonly able to compass its object. In the early and sound periods of their republic, the Romans pursued the same policy as the Americans. Their public offices were accompanied by small emoluments. The reward held out to the candidate was the esteem of the community. This was a prize whose value could be comprehended only by good sense and worth." Dwight. It has been said, and doubtless with some truth, that republics are ungrateful. Whoever honestly serves a republic devotes himself to the welfare of mankind, vv 566 NOTES. and ought to have declined the service, if, in addition to the happiness of cooper- ating with great and generous designs, he cannot be contented with the gratitude and esteem of the candid, the wise, and the good. Sallust (Bell. Jugurthin.) ap- plauds the republican policy of cherishing a more earnest remembrance of inju- ries than of benefits. Valerius Maximus (Lib. V., Cap. 3) apologizes for it, and contends that public is less blamable than private ingratitude. The people of free states, always prone to suspect their conspicuous fellow-citizens of encroach- ing ambition^ easily conceive jealousy, even of their acknowledged benefactors, scan the career of public officers with a vigilance of observation little akin to benignity, and gladly reduce and beat down every aspiring pretension to supe- rior merit and national gratitude. The Athenians sickened of the unceasing praise of Aristides ; and the Parisians experienced a similar corruption of sentiment from the hyperbolical panegyric with which Mirabeau and his associates, with diabolical ingenuity, overloaded the character of La Fayette. NOTE IX. Page 196. " The most remarkable circumstance attending the progress of this bill, which made its way through both houses and obtained the royal assent, was the number of contradictory petitions in favor and in prejudice of it, while it remained under consideration. The tanners of leather in and about the town of Sheffield, in Yorkshire, represented, thatj if the bill should pass, the English iron would be undersold ; consequently a great number of furnaces and forges would be dis- continued ; in that case, the woods used for fuel would stand uncut, and the tan- ners be deprived of oak bark sufficient for the continuance and support of their occupation. They, nevertheless, owned, that, should the duty be removed from pig-iron only, no such consequences could be apprehended ; because, should the number of furnaces be lessened, that of forges would be increased. This was likewise the plea urged in divers remonstrances by masters of iron-works, gentle- men, and freeholders, who had tracts of woodland in their possession. The owners, proprietors, and farmers of furnaces and iron-forges belonging to Sheffield and its neighbourhood enlarged upon the great expense they had incurred in erecting and supporting iron-works, by means of which great numbers of his Majesty's subjects were comfortably supported. They expressed apprehension, that, should the bill pass into a law, it could not in any degree lessen the con- sumption of Swedish iron, which was used for purposes which neither the Amer- ican nor British iron would answer ; but that the proposed encouragement, con- sidering the plenty and cheapness of wood in America, would enable the colo- nies to undersell the British iron, a branch of traffic which would be totally de- stroyed, to the ruin of many thousand laborers, who would be compelled to seek their livelihood in foreign countries. They likewise suggested, that, if all the iron- manufacturers of Great Britain should be obliged to depend upon a supply of iron from the plantations, which must ever be rendered precarious by the hazard of the seas and the enemy, the manufacture would probably decay for want of mate- rials, and many thousand families be reduced to want and misery. On the other hand, the ironmongers and smiths belonging to the flourishing town of Birming- ham, in Warwickshire, presented a petition, declaring that the bill would be of great benefit to the trade of the nation, as it would enable the colonists to make larger returns of their own produce, and encourage them to take a greater quan- tity of the British manufactures. They affirmed that all the iron -works in the island of Great Britain did not supply half the quantity of that metal sufficient to carry on the manufacture ; that, if this deficiency could be supplied from the col- onies in America, the importation from Sweden would cease, and considerable NOTES. 557 sums of money be saved to the nation. They observed that the importation of iron from America could no more affect the iron-works and freeholders of the kingdom, than the like quantity imported from any other country ; but they prayed that the people of America might be restrained from erecting slitting or rolling- mills, or forges for plating iron, as they would interfere with the manufactures of Great Britain. " Many remonstrances to the same effect were presented from different parts of the kingdom ; and it appeared, upon the most exact inquiry, that the encour- agement of American iron would prove extremely beneficial to the kingdom, as it had been found, upon trial, applicable to all the uses of Swedish iron, and as good in every respect as the produce of that country." Smollett. NOTE X. Page 202. In the year 1749, a singular congregation of scattered members of the human race was occasioned in North America by the missionary labors of the Moravians. " In the summer of this year," says the historian of New Jersey, " three natives of Greenland passed through the province, dressed in seal-skins with the hair on, after the manner of their own country. They consisted of two young men and a young woman converted to the Christian religion by the Moravian missionaries. They had left Greenland about two years before in a Moravian ship (which car- ried a house ready-framed for worship to be erected there, that country affording no wood for building), and had since visited the brethren in several parts of Eu- rope, as England, Holland, and Germany. Their eyes and hair were black, like the Indians here ; but their complexion somewhat lighter. Two Indian converts from the Moravian mission at Berbice, near Surinam, were also with them. They went together to the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, where they met with some Delaware and Mohican Indians, converts also of the Mora- vians ; and though their native lands are so vastly remote as the latitude of 5° 41' and 65° North, yet what they observed of each other's eyes, hair, and complexion convinced them that they were all of the same race. They could find, however, no similitude in their several languages." S. Smith. Kalm notices the meeting of these three races, and adds, " I had no opportunity of seeing them ; but all those who had seen them, and whom I conversed with, thought that they had plainly perceived a similarity in their features and shape ; the Greenlanders being only somewhat smaller. They concluded from hence, that all these three kinds of Americans were the posterity of one and the same descendant of Noah, or that they were perhaps yet more nearly related." NOTE XI. Page 209. " Vermont has been settled entirely from the other States of New England. The inhabitants have of course the New England character, with no other differ- ence but what is accidental. In the formation of colonies, those who are first inclined to emigrate are usually such as have met with difl[iculties at home. These are commonly joined by persons who, having large families and small farms, are induced, for the sake of settling their children comfortably, to seek for new and cheaper lands. To both are always added the discontented, the en- terprising, the ambitious, and the covetous. Many of the first, and some of^ all these classes, are found in every new American country, within ten years after its settlement has commenced. From this period, kindred, friendship, and former 568 NOTES. neighbourhood prompt others to follow them. Others still are allured by the prospect of gain presented in every new country to the sagacious, from the pur- chase and sale of lands ; while not a small number are influenced by the bril- liant stories which everywhere are told concerning most tracts during the early progress of their settlement. A considerable part of all who legin the cultivation of the wilderness may be denominated foresters or pioneers. The business of these persons is no other than to cut down trees, build log-houses, lay open forested grounds to cultivation, and prepare the way for those who come after them. These men cannot live in regular society. They are impatient of the re- straints of law, religion, and morality ; grumble against the taxes by which rulers, ministers, and schoolmasters are supported ; and complain incessantly as well as bitterly of the extortions of mechanics, farmers, merchants, and physicians, to whom they are always indebted." "In the wilderness to which they have re- treated, they must either work or starve. They accordingly cut down some trees, and girdle others ; they furnish themselves with an ill-built log-house and a worse barn ; and reduce a part of the forest into fields half-inclosed and half-cultivated. On the scanty provision thus afforded they feed a few cattle, with which, and the supplemental produce of the chase, they contrive to keep their families alive. " A farm thus far cleared promises immediate subsistence to a better husband- man, who is induced to purchase it by the little advantages which have already been imparted to it, thoygh he would not plant himself in an absolute wilderness. The proprietor is always ready to sell ; for he loves this irregular, adventurous, half-working, and half-lounging life ; and hates the sober industry and prudent economy by which his bush-pasture might be changed into a farm, and himself raised by thrift to independence. Receiving for his improvements more money than he ever before possessed, and a price for the soil somewhat enhanced by surrounding settlements, he willingly quits his house to build another like it, and his farm, to girdle trees, hunt, and saunter in another place." " The second pro- prietor is commonly a farmer ; and, with an industry and spirit deserving no small commendation, changes the desert into a fruitful field. This change is accom- plished much more rapidly in some places than in others ; as various causes, often accidental, operate. In some instances, a settlement is begun by farmers, and assumes the aspect of regular society from its commencement. This, to some extent, is always the fact. Yet the foresters constitute a part, and frequently the majority, of the original inhabitants of every new settlement." ^ " In a political view, the emigration of these foresters is of very serious utility to the ancient settlements. All countries contain restless inhabitants ; men impa- tient of labor, and readier to contract debts than to pay them ; who would rather talk than work ; whose vanity persuades them that they are wise, and prevents them from discovering that they are fools ;, who have nothing to lose, and there- fore expect to be gainers by every scramble, and, of course, spend their lives in * I have taken some liberty (as little as possible) with the language of this author, which, in spite of his sense, talent, and learning, is invariably prolix, and frequently quaint, vulgar, and indistinct. Dwight possessed all the strong corporate feelings and prejudices, which, in Europe, are so frequently attached to the professional scholar and divine ; and viewed with little indulgence a state of society, in which, from the first, a fixed and liberal provision was not made for cler^men and scnoolmasters How different his representation of the batk- woodsmen of the British settlements from that of Volney ! — which, notwithstanding, he' eagerly transcribes, in another portion of his work, and proudly appeals to, as a confession of the moral superiority of his countrymen to the colonial progeny of France. Williams, the historian of Vermont, thus celebrates the dignity of that condition of life by which the colo- s pr the bounds of the solar system ; but the new settler has, in fact, enlarged the bounds of the habitable creation. The philosophers have expanded our minds with the ideas and evidence that other planets are inhabited ; but the simple and honest farmer has made the earth a place for more inhabitants than it ever had before. And while the astronomers are so justly cel- ebrating the discoveries and the new planet of Herschel, all mankind should rejoice that the peasant in the wildernesa has found out a way to^ make our planet bear ihore men." NOTES. 5e9 disturbing others, with the hope of gaining something for themselves. Under des- potic governments, they are awed into quiet; but in every free community, they create, to a greater or less extent, continual turmoil, and have often subverted the peace, liberty, and happiness of their fellow-citizens. In the Roman common- wealth, as before in the republics of Greece, they were emptied out, as soldiers, upon the surrounding countries, and left the sober inhabitants in comparative quiet at home." " The institutions and the habits of New England, more, I suspect, than of any other country, have prevented or kept down this noxious disposition ; but they cannot entirely prevent either its existence or its effects. In mercy, therefore, to the sober, industrious, and well disposed inhabitants, Providence has opened in the vast western wilderness a retreat sufficiently alluring to draw them away from the land of their nativity." " It is, however, to be observed, that a considerable number even of these peo- ple become sober, industrious citizens, merely by the acquisition of property. The love of property, to a certain degree, seems indispensable to the existence of sound morals. I have never had a servant in whom I could confide, except such as were desirous to earn and preserve money. The conveniences and the char- acter attendant on the possession of property fix even these restless men at times, when they find themselves really able to accumulate it, and persuade them to a course of regular industry. I have mentioned that they sell the soil of their iirst iarms at an enhanced price ; and that they gain for their improvements on them ■what, to themselves at least, is a considerable sum. The possession of this monej removes, perhaps for the first time, the despair of acquiring property, and awak- ens the hope and the wish to acquire more. The secure possession of property demands every moment the hedge of law, and reconciles a man, originally Jaw- less, to the restraints of government. Thus situated, he sees that reputation also is within his reach. Ambition prompts him to aim at it, and compels him to a life of sobriety and decency. That his children may obtain this advantage, he is obliged to send them to school, and to unite with those around him in supporting a schoolmaster. His neighbours are disposed to build a church and settle a min- ister. A regard to his own character, to the character and feelings of bis family, and very often to the solicitations of his wife, prompts him to contribute to both these objects. When they are compassed, he is induced by the same motives to attend the public warship of God, and, in the end, perhaps, becomes a truly teligious raan." Dwight's Travels, NOTE XII. Page 215. ' '^^ CoLLiNSON was particularly distinguished by his warm regard for the Ameri- cans, and his anxious desire to illustrate their attainments and promote their im- provement. " Perhaps in some future period," says his biographer, " the account ^hich Gollinson procured of the management of sheep in Spain, with respect to their migrations from the mountains to the plains, and back from the plains to the mountains, may not be considered among the least of the benefits that have Bccrued from his extensive and inquisitive correspondence. ,When x\merica is better peopled, the mountainous parts more habitable, the plains unloaded of their vast forests, and cultivated, the finest sheep in the world may possibly cover the plains of Carolina, Georgia, and East and West Florida, in the winter months, and retreat to the mountains as the summer heats increase and dry up the herbage." Annual Register for 1776. VOL. II. 72 ,, . vv* 570 NOTES. - NOTE Xin. Page 234. Franklin retained a parental partiality for his plan, notwithstanding the unan- imous disapprobation with which it was rejected by his countrymen, and even after the issue of the American Revolution might have tempted him to rejoice that it had not been adopted. His expressions on this subject are remarkable. " The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan," says he, " make me suspect that it was really the true medium ; and I am still of opinion^ it would have hem happy for both sides, if it had been adopted. The colonies, so united, would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves ; there would then have been no need of troops from England ; of course, the subsequent pretext for taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided." Memoirs, Part II. NOTE XIV. Page 250. " Hendrick had lived to this day with singular honor, and died fighting with a spirit not to be excelled. He was at this time from sixty to sixty-five years of age. His head was covered with white locks, and, what is uncommon among Indians, he was corpulent. Immediately before Colonel Williams began his march, he mounted a stage and harangued his people. He had a strong, mas- culine voice, and, it weis thought, might be distinctly heard at the distance of half a mile ; a fact, which, to my own view, has diffused a new degree of probability over Homer's representations of the effects produced by the speeches and shouts of his heroes. Lieutenant Colonel Pomroy, who was present, and heard this ef- fusion of Indian eloquence, told me, that, although he did not understand a word of the language, yet such was the animation of Hendrick, the fire of his eye, the force of his gesture, the strength of his emphasis, the apparent propriety of the inflexions of his voice, and the natural appearance of his whole manner, that himself was more deeply affected with this speech than with any other which he had ever heard. In the Pennsylvania Gazette, September 25, 1755, he is styled * the famous Hendrick, a renowned Indian warrior among the Mohawks ' ; and it is said that his son, being told that his father was killed, giving the usual Indian groan upon such occasions, and suddenly putting his hand on his left bre£ist, swore that his father was still alive in that place, and that here stood his son." Dwight's Travels, NOTE XV. Page 253. " Our answers, as well as his (Morris's) messages, were often tart, and some- times indecently abusive ; and, as he knew I wrote for the assembly, one might have imagined that when we met we could hardly avoid cutting throats. But he was so good-natured a man, that no personal difference between him and me was occasioned by the contest ; and we often dined together. One afternoon, in the height of this public quarrel, we met in the street. 'Franklin,' said he, ' you must go home with me and spend the evening ; I am to have some company you will like ' ; and, taking me by the arm, led me to his house. In gay conversa- tion over our wine, after supper, he told us jokingly, that he much admired the idea of Sancho Panza, who, when it was proposed to give him a government, requested it might be a government of blacks ; as then, if he could not agree NOTES. 571 with his people, he might sell them. One of his friends who sat next me said, * Franklin, why do you continue to side with those d — d Quakers ? Had you not better sell them ? ' ' The governor,' said I, ' has not yet blacked theni enough.' " Franklin's Memoirs. " Morris had been trained to disputation from his boyhood ; his father, as I have heard, accustoming his children to dispute with one another for his diversion, while sitting at table after dinner. But I think the practice was not wise ; for, in the course of my observation, these disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs." Ibid. NOTE Xyi. Page 256. We have already adverted to the differences of opinion which existed among the Quakers themselves with regard to the legitimacy of defensive war, and which, slumbering in seasons of peace, have been always developed by the approach of danger and hostility. I knew a Quaker captain of a trading-ship, who was ex- communicated by his fellow-sectaries in Shields, for carrying guns in his vessel during war. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the French, after an ob- stinate engagement at sea. On the restoration of peace, he contrived by strata- gem to obtain readmission into a Quaker society at London, without professing penitence for the fault which had occasioned his expulsion from the brotherhood at Shields. So far was he, indeed, from cherishing any penitential sentiments on the subject, that he defended his conduct to me, and inveighed with some con- tempt and displeasure against the juggling hypocrisy of men who excommunicat- ed tneir brethren for carrying arms in self-defence, and yet readily embraced the protection of convoy for their own vessels at sea, which he described as the universal practice of the Quakers. " I would rather," said he, with more of the feelings of an Englishman than of a Quaker, " fight in defence of my own life and livelihood than hire others to fight for me." A remarkable, and, as far as I know, a solitary instance of offensive war, pro- moted and conducted by a Quaker, occurred in the beginning of the year 1758 ; when Thomas Gumming, a Quaker merchant of London, persuaded the British government to despatch an expedition, which he accompanied, for the reduction of the French settlements on the river Senegal. Gumming declared his aversion to bloodshed, and his conviction that the French would surrender, as they actually did, without obliging their invaders to resort to such extremity. Smollett. " On this occasion," says Smollett, " Mr. Gumming may seem to have acted directly contrary to the tenets of his religious profession ; but he ever declared to the ministry, that he was fully persuaded his schemes might be accomplished with- out the effusion of human blood ; and that, if he thought otherwise, he would by no means have concerned himself about them. He also desired, let the conse- quence be what it might, his brethren should not be chargeable with what was his own single act. If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be re- membered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacific system of the Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side." " In 1745," said Dr. Johnson, " my friend, Tom Gummmg, the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart ; and we know that the Quakers have sent flannel waistcoats to our soldiers, to enable them to fight t)etter." Boswell's Life of Johnson. W* gj2 NOTES. NOTE XVII. Page 258. "It was urged in support of this act, that many of the foreigners settled in^ America had served in foreign countries, and acquired experience in the mili- tary profession ; and that the soldiers who might enlist from this class of people could not be so well disciplined by any other persons as those who were acquaint- ed with their language and manners. " A very zealous opposition was raised to the act by many respectable members of parliament ; and the agent for the province of Massachusetts Bay joined them, petitioning the House of Lords to be heard against it. The reasons which they urged were, tliat the bill was inconsistent with the act for the farther settlement of the crown and better securing of the rights and liberties of the subject, which expressly providied that no- foreigner, even although he should be naturalized or madle a denizen, should be capable of enjoying any office or place of trust, civil or military ; and this provision had been considered and reverenced as an essen- tial and sacred part of the British constitution ; — that the incorporating of these emigrants into a separate regiment [which was contemplated] would tend to keep up their ignorance of the English language, and of the laws, orders, and usages of the country, and prevent their uniting with the old subjects ; — that many of the settlers, for the sate of whose services the employment of foreign officers was proposed, had not resided the full time requisite to entitle them to naturalization, and they would, without such residence, be improper persons to be made part of his Majesty's forces; — that the supposition, that these new subjects would be more easily induced than the native Americans to become part of his Majesty's standing forces, and that they would be particularly serviceable in garrison, wa» ill-founded ; becausie the cheapness of land, the high price of labor, and the value of civil liberty, being the chief causes which prevented the Americans becoming soldiers for life or for any indefinite time, and the new subjects having come to the colonies with an intent to enjoy these great advantages, it was probable that the same causes would produce the same effects upon their minds ; or if any of them should be engaged in the service, it would probably be those who had no property, little industry, and whose motive for going to the war would be supplied by their idleness ; — that such persons wanting the love which natural-born subjects have for their country, their fidelity would be proportionally insecure ; and that they would be particularly unfit to garrison the forts upon the frontier, which were erected in parts remote from the English settlements, and intended to preserve and cultivate a good correspondence and promote a commerce with the several Indian nations which frequent them, and where all circumstances conspire to make it necessary that the garrisons, with every thing else, appear as much En- glish as possible; ^-- that the raising and disciplining a regiment in the colonies by foreign officers would be disagreeable to the colonies in general, and especially to those in which the chief strength of his Majesty's arms in America lay ; to the officers at large in tJfte provincial corps, as well as those who, after distinguishing themselves by their good behaviour, might derive the honor and favor of receiv- ing those commissions which were proposed to be given to the foreigners ; and to the main body of the Americans who were in arms, whose general sentiments concerning foreigners were such that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile their minds wholly to this measure." Minot. Minot's History of Massachusetts (embracing the period from 1749 till 1764) is a performance creditable to the sense and talent of its author. But the style is frequently careless, and even slovenly and ungrammatical. NOTES. 575 NOTE XVIII. Page 265. " Such are the connections, dependencies, and relations subsisting between the mechanical arts, agriculture, and manufactures of Great Britain, that it requires study, deliberation, and inquiry in the legislature, to discern and distinguish the whole scope and consequences of many projects offered for the benefit of the com- monwealth. The Society of Merchant Adventurers in the City of Bristol alleged, in a petition to the House of Commons, that great quantities of bar^iron were im- ported into Great Britain from Sweden, Russia, and other ports, chiefly purchased with ready money, some of which iron was exported again to Africa and other places, and the rest wrought up by the manufacturers. They affirmed that bar- iron imported from North x\merica would answer the same purposes ; and the importation of it tend not only to the great advantage of the kingdom, by increas- ing its shipping and navigation, but also to the benefit of the British colonies ; — that, by an axjt passed in the twenty-third year of his present Majesty's reign, the impoilation of bar-iron from America into the port of London, duty-free, was per- mitted ; but its being carried coastways, or farther by land than ten miles, had been prohibited ; so that several very considerable manufacturing towns were de- prived of the use of American iron, and the outports prevented from employing it in their export commerce. They requested, therefore, that bar-iron might be imported from America into Great Britain, duty-free, by all his Majesty's subjects. This request being reinforced by many other petitions from different parts of the kingdom, other classes of men, who thought several interests would be affected by such a measure, took the alarm ; and, in divers counter-petitions, stated many ill consequences, which, they alleged, would arise from its being enacted into a law. Pamphlets were published on both sides of the question, and violent disputes were kindled upon this subject, which was justly deemed a matter of national importance. " The opposers of the bill which was solicited observed, that large quantities of iron were yearly produced at home, and employed multitudes of poor people, there being no less than one hundred and nine forges in England and Wales, be- sides those erected in Scotland ; the whole producing eighteen thousand tons of iron ; — that, as the mines in Great Britain are inexhaustible, the produce would,, of late years, have been considerably increased, had not the people been kept under continual apprehension of seeing American iron admitted duty-free ; a supposition which had prevented the traders from extending their works, and dis- couraged many from engaging in this branch of traffic. They alleged that the iron-works already carried on in England occasioned a consumption of one hun- dred and ninety-eight thousand cords of wood, produced in coppices that grew upon barren lands, which could not otherwise be turned to any good account ; — that, as the coppices afford shade, and preserve a moisture in the ground, the pasture is more valuable with the wood than it would be if the coppices were grubbed up ; consequently, all the estates where these now grow would sink in their yearly value ; — that these coppices, now cultivated and preserved for the use of the iron- works, are likewise absolutely necessary for the manufacture of leather, as they furnish bark for the tanners ; — and that, according to the management of these coppices, they produced a great number of timber-trees necessary for the purposes of building. They asserted, that neither the American iron, nor any that had yet been found in Great Britain, was so proper for converting into steel as that which comes from Sweden, particularly that sort called ore ground ; but as there are mines in the northern parts of Britain, nearly in the same latitude with those of Sweden, furnished with sufficient quantities of wood, and rivers for mills and engines, it was hardly to be doubted but that people would find metal- of the same quality, and, in a few years, be able to prevent the necessity of 574 NOTES. importing iron either from Sweden or Russia. They inferred that American iron could never interfere with that which Great Britain imported from Sweden, be- cause it was not fit for edged tools, anchors, chain-plates, and other particulars necessary in ship-building ; nor diminish the importation of Russian iron, which was not only harder than the American and British, but also could be afforded cheaper than that brought from our own plantations, even though the duty on this last should be removed. The importation of American iron, therefore, duty-free, could interfere with no other sort but that produced in Britain, with which, by means of this advantage, it would clash so much, as to put a stop, in a little time, to all the iron- works now carried on in the kingdom, and reduce to beggary a great number of families whom they support. " To these objections the favorers of the projected bill replied, — that, when a manufacture is much more valuable than the rough materials, and these cannot be produced at home in sufficient quantities, and at such a price as is consistent with the preservation of the manufacture, it is the interest of the legislature to admit a free importation of these materials, even from foreign countries, although it should put an end to the production of that material in this island ; — that, as the neighbours of Great Britain are now more attentive than ever to their com- mercial interests, and endeavouring to manufacture their rough materials at home, this nation must take every method for lowering the price of materials ; other- wise, in a few years, it will lose the manufacture, and, instead of supplying other countries, be furnished by them with all the fine toys and utensils made of steel and iron ; — that, being in danger of losing not only the manufacture but the produce of iron, unless it can be procured at a cheaper rate than that for which it is sold at present, the only way of attaining this end is by diminishing the duty payable upon the importation of foreign iron, or by rendering it necessary for the undertakers of the iron mines in Great Britain to sell their produce cheaper than it has been for some years afforded ; — that the most effectual method for this purpose is to raise up a rival, by permitting a free importation of all sorts of iron from the American plantations ; — that American iron can never be sold so cheap as that of Britain can be afforded ; for in the colonies labor of all kinds is much dearer than in England : if a man employ his own slaves, he must reckon in his charge a great deal more than the common interest of their purchase-money ; because, when one of them dies or escapes from his master, he loses both inter- est and principal ; — that the common interest of money in the plantations is con- siderably higher than in England ; consequently, no man in that country will em- ploy his money in any branch of trade by which he cannot gain considerably more per cent, than is expected in Great Britain, where the interest is low and profit moderate ; a circumstance which will always give a great advantage to the British min.er, who likewise enjoys an exemption from freight and insurance, which lie heavy upon the American adventurer, especially in time of war. With respect to the apprehension of the leather-tanners, they observed, that, as the coppices generally grow on barren lands, not fit for tillage, and improve the pasturage, no proprietor would be at the expense of grubbing up the wood to spoil the pasture, as he could make no other use of the land on which it was prodyced. The wood must be always worth something, especially in counties where there is not plenty of coal, and the timber-trees would produce consideraWe advantage ; there- fore, if there was not one iron-mine in Great Britain, no coppice would be grub- bed up, unless it grew on a rich soil, which would produce corn instead of cord- wood ; consequently, the taxiners have nothing to fear, especially as planting hath become a prevailing taste among the landholders of the island. " The committee appointed to prepare the bill seriously weighed and canvassed these arguments, examined disputed facts, and inspected papers and accounts re- lating to the produce, importation, and manufacture of iron. At length, Mr. John Pitt reported to the house their opinion, implying that the liberty, granted by an NOTES. 575 act passed in the twenty-third year of his Majesty's reign, of importing bar-iron from the British colonies in America into the port of London, should be extended to all the other ports of Great Britain. The house having approved this report, and a bill being brought in accordingly, another petition was presented by several noblemen, gentlemen, freeholders, and other proprietors, owners, and possessors of coppices and woodlands in the West Riding of Yorkshire, alleging that a permis- sion to import American bar-iron duty-free would be attended with numberless ill consequences, both of a public and private nature ; specifying certain hard- ships to which they, in particular, would be exposed ; and praying, that, if the bill should pass, they might be relieved from the pressure of an act passed in the reign of Henry the Eighth, obliging the owners of coppice-woods to preserve them, under severe penalties ; and that they might be permitted to fell and grub up their coppice- woods, in order to a more proper cultivation of the soil, without being restrained by the fear of malicious and interested prosecutions. In consequence of this re- monstrance, a clause was added to the bill, repealing so much of the act of Henry the Eighth as prohibited the conversion of coppice or underwoods into pasture or tillage : then it passed through both houses, and received the royal sanction." Smollett. NOTE XIX. Page 274. As Franklin's Historical Review of the Constitution of Pennsylvania is not easily to be found, except in a voluminous edition of his works, nor indeed has a place in every edition of them, some readers may be gratified by the following transcript of a few remarkable passages from it. " To obtain an infinite variety of purposes by a few plain principles is the characteristic of nature. As the eye is affected, so is the understanding ; objects at a distance strike us according to their dimensions, or the quantity of light thrown upon them ; near, according to their novelty or familiarity, as they are in motion or at rest. It is the same with actions. A battle is all motion ; a hero all glare : while such images are before us, we can attend to nothing else. Solon and Lycurgus would make no figure in the same scene with the king of Prussia ; and we are at present so lost in the military scramble on the continent next us, in which, it must be confessed, we are deeply interested, that we have scarce time to throw a glance towards America, where we have also much at stake, and where, if anywhere, our account must be made up at last. " We love to stare more than to reflect ; and to be indolently amused at our leisure, rather than commit the smallest trespass on our patience by winding a painful, tedious maze, which would pay us nothing but knowledge." " A father and his family — the latter united by interest and aflfection, the for- mer to be revered for the wisdom of his instructions and the indulgent use of his authority — was the form in which Pennsylvanian society was first presented. Those who were only ambitious of repose found it here ; and £is none returned with an evil report of the land, numbers followed : all partook of the leaven they found ; the community still wore the same equal face ; nobody aspired ; nobody was oppressed ; industry was sure of profit, knowledge of esteem, and virtue of veneration. " An assuming landlord, strongly disposed to convert free tenants into abject vassals, and to reap what he did not sow, countenanced and abetted by a few desperate and designing dependents, on the one side ; and on the other, all who had sense enough to know their rights, and spirit enough to defend them, com- bined as one man against this landlord and his encroachments, is the form it has since assumed. 576 NOTES. " And surely, to a nation born to liberty like this,i bound to leave it unimpaired as they received it from their fathers in perpetuity to their heirs, and interested in the conservation of it in every appendage of the British empire, the particulars of such a contest cannot be wholly indifferent. " On the contrary, it is reasonable to think that the first workings of tyranny against liberty, and the natural efforts of honest men to secure themselves against the first approaches of oppression, must have a captivating power over every man of sensibility and discernment among us. *' Liberty, it seems, thrives best in the woods. America but cultivated what Germany brought forth." " It is not, indeed, to be presumed-, that such as have long been accustomed to consider the colonies, in general, as only so many dependencies on ihe Council Board, the Board of Trade, and the Board of Customs, or as a hot-bed for causes, obs, and pecuniary emoluments, and bound as effectually by instructions given to governors as by laws, can be prevailed upon to consider these patriot rustics with any degree of respect. But how contemptuously soever these gentlemen may talk of the colonies, how cheap soever they may hold their assemblies, or how insignificant the planters and traders who compose them, truth will be truth, and principle principle, notwithstanding. Courage, wisdom, integrity, and honor are not to be measured by the sphere assigned them to act in, but by the trials they undergo, and the vouchers they furnish ; and, if so manifested, need neither robes nor titles to set thexn ofif." The following sentence expresses the principle on which, little more than ten years after, the revolt of the colonies from the dominion of Britain was justified : — " The birthright of every British subject is, to have a property of his own in his estate, person, and reputation ; subject only to laws enacted by his own con- currence, either in person or by his representatives ; and which birthright accompa- nies him wheresoever he wanders or rests, so long as he is within the pale of the British dominions and is true to his allegiance." With grave, yet pungent and animated satire, Franklin unfolds the changes which William Penn gradually introduced into the constitution of Pennsylvania, and the dissensions that had ever since prevailed between that great man and his descendants, on the one hand, and the colonists and provincial assemblies, on the other. But it would be impossible to do justice to these passages, without transcribing from them more largely than my limits will admit. " It is not necessary, in private life, to bargain that those who purchase for their own use and advantage should pay the price out of their own pockets ; but in public it is. Persons who stand on the same ground will insist on the same rights; and it is matter of wonder, when any one party discovers folly or insolence enough to demand or expect any preeminence over the other : whereas preroga- tive admits of no equality, and presupposes that difference of place alters the use of language, and even the very nature of things. Hence, though protection is the reason, and, consequently, should be the end, of government, we ought to be as much upon our guard against our protectors as against our enemies. " Power, like water, is ever working its own way ; and whenever it can find or make an opening, is altogether as prone to overflow whatever is subject to it And though matter of right overlooked may be reclaimed and reassumed at any time, it cannot be too soon reclaimed and reassumed." " The true state of Pennsylvania is now before us. It is apparent the assem- blies of that province have acted from the beginning on the defensive only. The defensive is what every man, by the right and law of Nature, is entitled to. Jeal- ousy is the first principle of defence : if men were not to suspect, they would rarely, if ever, be upon their guard." " And this be ing the truth, the plain truth, and nothing but the truth, there i$ 1 Britain, where the work was published. NOTES. ^Yt no need ta direct Ihe censures of the public, which, on proper information, are always sure to fall in the right place. The parties before them are the two proprietaries of a province, and the province itself. And who or what are these proprietaries ? In the province, unsizable subjects and ips^iiicient lords. At home, gentlemen, it is true, but gentlemen so very private, that in the herd of gentry they are hardly to be found ; not in court 5 not In office ; not in ps^rlia- ment. , "And which is of most consequence to the community ; whether their private restate shall be taxed, or the province shall be saved ? whether these two private, gentlemen, in virtue of their absolute proprietariship, shall convert so many fellow- subjects, born as free as themselves, into vassals ; or whether so noble and useful a province shall for ever remain an asylum for all that wish to remain as free a^ the inhabitants of it have, hitherto, made a shift to preserve themselves ? ^Stf^ judice lis e$ty This eloquent and ingenious performance was generally ascribed, at the time, in England, to James Ralph, a sprightly, entertaining, and once popular writer, but now almost entirely forgotten. His birthplace is unknown ; but he is sup^ posed to have been a native of Philadelphia, which he quitted in company witlji Franklin, in 1725^ for England, where he acquired mvch consideration, ai\4 earned a pension by his political and historical compositions,. Ashamed of blame^ less poverty and humble usefulness, on his arrival in England, he assumed for ^ while the name of his companion, Franklin, whose friendship has eventually been the means of rescuing the name of Ralph from entire oblivioft. Franklin's Jl|e» moirs. W9,t]ans's Biographical Dictionary, NOTE XX. Page 28^ " After the taking of Fort Duquesne, General Fqrbes resolved to search for the relics of Braddock's army. As the European soldiers were not ^o well quali- fied to explore the forests, Captain West, the elder brother of Benjamin West, the painter, was appointed, with his company of American sharpshooters, to asr sist in the execution of this duty ; and a party of Indian warrjors, who had re-r turned to the British interests, were requested to conduct him to the places where the bones of the slain were likely to be found. In this solemn and affecting duty, several officers belonging to the forty -second regiment aiscompanied the detacL ment, and with them Major Sir Peter Halket, who had lost his father and a brother in the fatal destruction of the army. It might have been thought a hopeless task, ihat he should be able to discriminate their remains from the common relics of the other soldiers ; but he was induced to think otherwise, as one pf the Indian warriors assured him that he had seen an officer fall near a remarkable tree, which he thought he could still discover ; informing him, at the same time, that the incident was impressed on his memory by observing a young subaltern, who, in running to the officer's assistance, was also shot dead, on his reaching the spot, and fell across the other's body. The Major had a mournful conviction in fjis own mind that the two officers were his father and brother; and, indeed, it was chiefly owing to his anxiety on the subject, that this pious expedition, the sec- ond of the kind that history records, was undertaken. " Captain West and his companions proceeded through the woods and along the banks of the river, towards the scene of the battle. The Indians regarded the expedition as a religious service, and guided the troops with awe and in pro- found silence. The soldiers were affected with sentiments not less serious ; and as they explored the bewildering labyrinths of those vast forests, their hearts were often melted with inexpressible sorrow ; for they frequently found s^teleton^ VOL. II. 73 WW 578 NOTES. lying across the trunks of fallen trees, — a mournful proof, to their imaginations, that the men who sat there had perished from hunger, while vainly attempting to find their way to the plantations. Sometimes their feelings were raised to the ut- most pitch of horror by the sight of skulls and bones scattered on the ground, — a certain indication that the bodies had been devoured by wild beasts ; and in other places they saw the blackness of ashes amidst the relics, — the tremendous evidence of atrocious rites. " At length they reached a turn of the river, not far from the principal scene of destruction ; and the Indian who remembered the death of the two officers stopped : the detachment also halted. He then looked around in quest of some object which might recall distinctly his recollection of the ground, and suddenly darted into the wood. The soldiers rested their arms without speaking. A shrill cry was soon after heard ; and the other guides made signs for the troops to follow them towards the spot from which it came. In a short time they reached the Indian warrior, who, by his cry, had announced to his companions that he had found the place where he was posted on the day of battle. As the troops ap- proached, he pointed to the tree under which the officers had fallen. Captain West halted his men round the spot, and, with Sir Peter Halket and the other offi- cers, formed a circle, while the Indians removed the leaves, which thickly cov- ered the ground. The skeletons were found, as the Indian expected, lying across each other. The officers having looked at them some time, the Major said, that, as his father had an artificial tooth, he thought he might be able to ascertain if they were indeed his bones and those of his brother. The Indians were there- fore ordered to remove the skeleton of the youth, and to bring to view that of the old officer. This was immediately done ; and, after a short examination, Major Halket exclaimed, * It is my father ! ' and fell back into the arms of his compan- ions. The pioneers then dug a grave, and the bones being laid in it together, a Highland plaid was spread over them, and they were interred with the customary honors. " When Lord Grosvenor bought the picture of the death of Wolfe, Mr. West mentioned to him the finding of the bones of Bmddock's army, as a pictorial subject capable of being managed with great effect. The gloom of the vast forest, the naked and simple Indians supporting the skeletons, the grief of the son on recognizing the relics of his father, the subdued melancholy of the spec- tators, and the picturesque garb of the Pennsylvanian sharpshooters undoubtedly furnished topics capable of every effect which the pencil could bestow, or the im- agination require, in the treatment of so sublime a scene. His Lordship admitted, that, in possessing so affecting an incident as the discovery of the bones of the Halkets, it was superior even to that of the search for the remains of the army of Varus ; but as the transaction was little known, and not recorded by any histo- rian, he thought it would not be interesting to the public." Gait's Life of West. NOTE XXI. Page 283. " Nor was encouragement refused [in England] to those who distinguished themselves by extraordinary talents in any branch of the liberal arts and sciences, though no Maecenas appeared among the ministers, and not the least ray of pat- ronage glimmered from the throne. The protection, countenance, and gratifica- tion secured in other countries by the institution of academies and the liberalities of princes, the ingenious in England derived from the generosity of a public en- dued with taste and sensibility, eager for improvement, and proud of patronizing extraordinary merit. Several years had already elapsed since a society of pri- vate persons was instituted at London, for the encouragement of arts, manufac- NOTES. 579 tures, Euid commerce. It consisted of a president, vice-president, secretary, reg- ister, collector, and other officers, elected from a very considerable number of members, who paid a certain yearly contribution for the purposes of the institu- tion." — " The funds thus contributed, after the necessary expense of the society had been deducted, were expended in premiums for planting and husbandry ; for discoveries and improvements in chemistry, dyeing, and mineralogy ; for promoting the ingenious arts of drawing, engraving, casting, painting, statuary, and sculpture ; for the improvement of manufactures and machines, in the vari- ous articles of hats, crapes, druggets, mills, marbled paper, ship-blocks, spin- ning-wheels, toys, yarn, knitting, and weaving. They likewise allotted sums for the advantage of the British colonies in America^ and bestowed premiums on those settlers who should excel in curing cochineal, planting logwood-trees, cultivating olive-trees, producing myrtle-weix, making potash, preserving raisins, curing safflower, making silk and wines, importing sturgeon, preparing isinglass, planting hemp and cinnamon, extracting opium and the gum of the persimmon- tree, collecting stones of the mango, which should be found to vegetate in the West Indies, raising silk grass, and laying out provincial gardens." Smollett. NOTE XXn. Page 283. " In the legal history of a commercial country, the fortune of the only bankrupt law which could ever be obtained becomes a matter of curiosity. This law, hav- ing been laid before the king for the royal approbation, agreeably to the charter, was referred to the Lords of Trade. After mature consideration, they gave it as their opinion, that, although a bankrupt law be just and equitable upon its abstract principle, yet it had always been found in its execution to afford such opportu- nities for fraudulent practices, that, even in England, where, in most ceises, the whole number of creditors were resident on the spot, it might well be doubted whether the fair trader did not receive more detriment than benefit from such a law. But if a like law should take place in a colony, where (as they were in- formed) not above one tenth part of its creditors were resident, and where that small proportion of the whole, both in number and value, might (as under the present act they might), upon a commission being issued, get possession of the bankrupt's effects, and proceed to make a dividend, before the merchemts in England, who composed the other nine tenths of the bankrupt's creditors, could even be informed of such bankruptcy ; it was easy to foresee that such a law would be beneficial to the very small part of the creditors resident in the colony only, and that the rest of them, who resided in England, would be exposed to frauds and difficulties of every sort, and might be greatly injured in their proper- ties. This opinion prevailed, and the law was accordingly disapproved by the king, to the great inconvenience of many debtors, who had actually surrendered their effects under it." Minot. NOTE XXIII. Page 285. On this occasion, the assembly of Massachusetts presented the following ad- dress to Governor Pownall, who had communicated to them the wishes and so- licitations of Amherst. It is a curious and interesting document to the student of American history. " The several reasons and motives which your Excellency has from time to tim» laid before the two houses, in order to induce an augmentation of the forces m6\ NOTES. for ih^ Sfervfcfe of the present year, have betti maturely weighed and considered' by lis. " \Ve have liicewise had an opporftinify, in the recess of the Court, of ac- quainting ourselves with the state of the several parts of the province, and its abil- ity for raising an additional number of men. We acknowledge with gratitude, that the interest and ease of the people has been considered by your Excellency in ftiaking the last levy, as far as could consist with his Majesty's service, and the purposes for which the men are raised. The distress brought upon the inhabit- ants is, notwithstanding, extremely great. The number of men raised this year, we are sensible, is not equal to that