Epochs of Modern History ! i'i l ED BY EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. & J. SURTEES PHILLPOTTS, B.C.L. THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE J. M. LUDLOW t:.WOODE AN] . UST THE AVAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 177S-1783 BY JOHN MALCOLM LUDLOW AUTHOR OF ' A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM INDEPENDENCE TO SECESSION' 'PRESIDENT LINCOLN SELF-POURTRAYF.d' ETC. WITH FOUR MAPS LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1876 All rirhti re served CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. I N TROD I (TO R V . PAGE Why the war of American independence forms an epoch in history ! CHAPTER II. TllF. AMERICAN COLONIES (TO 1763). Races inhabiting the colonies 2 I. Tin: Red Man 3 What .the Indian, is 3 What he was ; towns, agriculture . . . . . 4 Arts ; written language ; observation of nature . . 4 Languages, , 6 Forms of government 6 Inferiority of women . . . . . . . . 7 Beliefs 7 Mode of warfare; , , , 8 Absence of the pastoral element .....;; Code of morals . ' . . . ' . . . . . , , Capacity for endurance ....... 9 Influence of the Indian element on the colonists . . 10 General character of relations between the red and white man *. '.'.'. . . . 1 1 vi .huts. Dibtinctioi the ] '.tin and 'I relation to the red man la Roman Catholic nations most successful in Chi in la Most powerful tribes, Iroquois, « : . The White Men m I. 1 ■■' Is . . . . . . 14 1. rhe Spaniards. England and Spain the < Dental powers in North America . . . . . n Eai • E • ties m ttlement oi Florida ........ 1 isional warfare with England 16 a in America after the treat a, J i.r French . > . 16 Importance of the French element 16 Early discover 17 :c missionaries and heroic adventun He 18 Progress of France in the M ■ nisa- tion in the as What colonies . . . . . . . . ... 1 In the coming v. nch colonists will side with the English ] 3. 7 . - . The North ' England . 23 . . . , . 33 The northern and oupsi .... 23 S utharn group : tbirtei and their lit Dist . . . . . . . . ."> .26 . Contents. vii John Smith; Pocahontas 28 Indian wars ; the Stuart kings 28 Submission to the Commonwealth ; growth of landed aristocracy ......... 29 The Restoration ; Bacon's Rebellion . . . . . 30 Distress of the colony ....... 3t Return of prosperity 31 2. Maryland ......... 32 Liberal charter : Lord Baltimore 32 Early prosperity : troubles with Clayborne . . -33 Commonwealth ; Restoration ; Maryland after i6S3 a royal govei nment . . . . . . . . 34 Similarity to Virginia ....... 34 3 & 4. The. Carolinas 34 Early charters ; Shaftesbury and Locke's 'grand model' 35 Turbulent early history of these colonies. Slavery . . 35 The colonists break up Indian civilization in Florida . . 36 Indian wars ; the Carolinas become colonies, 1729 . 37 5. Georgia 37 tst fotinded colony . . . . . . . 37 Oglethorpe ; his charter and his government . . -27 Hostilities with Spain . . . . . . . 38 Failure of Oglethorpe's plans 3 3 6 & 7. New York and New Jersey 39 New York the centre of a sub-group . . . -39 Hudson at Manhattan Island ; the New Netherlands ; New Amsterdam . . . . . . • • 39 New Sweden; eventually annexed to the New Nether- lands 4° The Dutch territory conquered by England, and divided into New York and New Jersey . . . . . 41 History of New Jersey soon connected with that of Penn- sylvania • 4 l 8 & 9. Pennsylvania and Delaware . . . . . 42 Pennsylvania the last founded of the religious colonies . 42 The Quakers in America ; Perm ; Philadelphia ; Dela- ware . . 42 The Pennsylvania constitution ; Pcnn's proprietary rights confiscated in 1688 43 . io. ii. 13, 13. .V Ill .4 ; Pilgrim Fathers ' 4 ; I ; ; Early difficultte lions with ; I . • Indians (!• ..... ment of N< h Ham] '•■ Island ; 1 \. .... . growth of Mas Mrs. Unt- il Settlement d ... Cruel fal The ' United Coloi ind . . . . The oppressive conduct of I tion Ihe l ilth . . . . tion g Philip's war ........ ment The k< volution of 1688 ... V. : n ivith I U 1748 ill. The ]'■'. ss 1 1 • ■ I • ■ ■ f : . klin . . 1 . I • i • rich and In i nkl 60 ' .... Conquest of 1 . ..... Contents. ix i' v.i- The French defeated; Canada conquered; Trace of Paris .......... 62 Pontiac's war . . . . . . . . . 63 The colonies in 1763 64 CHAPTER III. CAUSES OF DISCONTENT.- STRUGGLE BEFORE 'iHE WAR (I763-75)- Montcalm's prediction . . . . . . . . . 64 Mingled loyalty and disaffection of colonies . . . .64 The Navigation Laws . . . . . . . . . 65 Struggle against the Navigation Laws, in New England especially .......... 65 The coming contest prefigured . . . . . . . 66 Other causes of discontent . _ . . . . . .67 .Mutual complaints between themother country and the colonies 63 The attempt to raise a revenue from the colonies; George Grenville ........... 63 The colonial Revenue Act ....... 69 Protests of the colonists ; Otis ; Samuel Adams . . . . 69 The Stamp Act, 1765 ........ 69 Patrick Henry's resolutions . . . . . . . • 70 A congress convened ; riots at Boston and elsewhere . . 7 1 Independence already spoken of; New York Congress and its proceedings . . . . . • . . . . . ji The Stamp Act cannot be carried into effect . . . • 7- The Rockingham Cabinet ; Pitt rejoices -that America has resisted . . . . . . . . . . . 73 The Stamp Act repealed, 1706 ; the Declaratory Act . . 73 Rejoicings in the colonies . . . . . . . . 74 Further obnoxious measures ....... 74 The Quartering Act. Suspension of the New York Assembly . 75 The Chatham Cabinet, 1766-8 . . . ■ . . . . 76 Renewed agitation in the colonies ; non-importation agree- ments ; French intrigues . . . . . . . 7'> The Huston Convention . . . . . . . . . 70 X Troops sent to the colonics ; Hillsborough's and North's policy ; feelini I H 78 ti< 11 agreements ; the S 11th attempts a compromise ; the Tea Act (1770) . . 79 The burning of the * l 779 80 mmittees of correspondence ; destruction of 1 * Bo Indignation of parliament ; t! ■ rtAct. . . . 81 Other 1 . irginia and Massachusi tl . . ntinental < .... 84 Washington .still disclair. aial indepe provincial congn 1 majorities in parliament against concession ; Chath warnings ........... *7 North's new measures ; the prohibitii rted . 89 Virgil for war ; Washington - life Bo. in ready for I 90 chapter iv. lonial powers . a the onl) 1 American struggle ........ ; I nun berbt . 1 .■ corn rioi '. Induct. • ind Contents. England 99 The [acobite party extinct ....... 99 George 11 J. . . . 100 Wilkes. Junijis, (JkuIkuii, Burke, Fox . 100 Literature and art: Johnson, .Hume, Gibbon, Cowper, Mac- pherson, Walpole, Sheridan, Reynolds, Gainsborough . . 101 Industry: the inventors Strutt, Hargreaves, Arkwrigbt, Watt, Wedgwood, I'laxuian ........ 101 Chemistry and Priesdey; engineering— Brindley, Smeaton . . 102 Growth of population ; improved Agriculture ; Arthur Young . 103 Two boys of six, Napoleon Bonaparte and Arthur Wellesley . 103 CHAPTER V. THE WAR : FIRST PERIOD ; TILL TIIF. FRENCH ALLIANCE (1775-3). The war : divided into two periods by the French alliance . 104 The first sliot ; battle of Lexington, April 18-19, x 775 • • io 4 The whole country astir ; Boston invested . . . . . 105 Surprise of Ticonderoga, May 10 ..... . 105 Second Continental Congress ; a Continental army voted . . 106 General Gage proclaims martial law ; Washington commander- in-chief . .......... 106 Washington ........... 106 Rattle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775 ..... 107 Washington in command ; his difficulties . . ... 108 Proceedings in the south ; the governors on board ship . .110 Last attempts at conciliation by Congress ; Richard Penn and the ' Olive Branch . . . . . . . . . 1 1 1 Proclamation against rebellion ; application to German princes for troops . . .111 The English people do not appreciate the crisis . . . . 112 Debates in parliament ; Lord George Germain ; the ministry supported . . . . 112 The General Prohibition of Trade Act ; votes for German troops 1 13 America receives with divided feelings the proclamation against rebellion . . . . . . . . . . . 114 J'hc invasion of Canada by Montgomery . . .114 xii c ntents. , the failure befoi ■ i . ,.115 1 Dunmore in Virginia; N at (Jan. 1, 1 in. v. 1 10 iled, March 17;') . . . . . . -117 res of Congress ; resolution against the : bee 1 18 led by France and Spain . . . .118 ition of t!i :.il governments . n of 11, attack on lort Moultrie ; Am the retreat 1 _• ■> Washin stale of tin- army . . ui Arrival of a British fleet, and of royal commissioners . . taa on of Independence, |uly4, 1770 . . . . raa graph relating to slavery and the si .knit, u; ! ' .' ration ; its unfairness . . i-.; The Declaration in fact one of war . . . . . . rafi Its influence on foreign countrie ...... ta6 eption in America . . . . . . i-"> The n l plan of c • ■ 1 ..... 1 ■ nd, August =7. 177') ia8 I ... Fruides . !.;<-> Congres 1 hington taki \'. treat througt the British . n . I I in England by the 1 >■ oklin in I'.:: iter 1 ! i .... I35 Contents. xiii i \i i: Washington's winter, difficulties ; smallpox disastrous . . 136 The ravages of the British alienate the people . . . . 137 Foreign volunteers ; they become a difficulty .... 137 Tlic Marquis de la layette ; Kosciusko 138 Lord Chatham's reappearance; expedition from Canada decided on 139 Burgoyne's advance ; at first successful 140 Battle of Bennington, August 16, 1777 140 Battle of Brandywine, Sept. n, 1777 141 Philadelphia occupied by the British, Sept. 26; battle of Ger- mantown, Oct. 4 . . . . . . . . . 14 1 Renewed outcry against Washington 142 The battles of Stillwater, Sept. 19, Oct. 7 . . . .142 Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, Oct 16 143 l and Washington ........ 144 Rejoicings in England over the occupation of Philadelphia ; ( hatham's inconsistency ........ 144 Gloomy impressions produced by the Saratoga surrender; France ready to treat with America 145 of an impending crisis ; the king has forebodings . . 140 The scheme of Confederation adopted by Congress, Nov. 15, 1777 147 I mpotency of Congress . 147 Washington's miserable winter at Valley Forge . . . 147 [naction of the English ........ 148 The treaty between France and America, February 6, 1778 . 149 The theatre of the war enlarged ...... 149 CHAPTER VI. 1 HE WAR : SECOND PERIOD ; FROM THE ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE TILL THE END OF THE WAR (1778-83). France and the treaty . . . . . . . . . 149 Lord North's conciliatory bills 150 The king will not have Lord Chatham as premier . . . 151 Death of Chatham, May j i, 1778 152 Preparations for war with France 153 xiv tents. !• ... ( Itory Hills i ; , Arrival i . . . i - 1 i Philadelphia [« • -mh ( |une . and \'. tes . . . 157 . investment F Newport . Indian 1 ......... Failure of 1 1 .... The war jq other q ppel; Paul Jones; Hydei Alt . 158 1 ogress ; it .solicits French ' Soutl ,1h.t . recovered ...... tnd < lharleston tl 1 ngton's .army during the winter of 1778-9. 1 . . toa General Sullivan devastates the Iroquois country . . . 164 lish in Pen 1' 1 . 165 The war in I urope uneventful . . . . . . . 165 S going to war v. tween France and Spain, Api . (66 . \n Spain, I 1 by . dy for war with Spain, but impatient of that with . 1 m the < Ihannel . I'.nil [01 war. .... Failun nch and Am '•■ "77" 17-5 Island evai uated I ■■ ton taken uth • arolina subdued . . ..171 Another gloomy \\mt<-r for Washington, ......... 172 l ........ 174 .1 nglai v nil Holland . 17, 'V . . . . . . . -17'» Contents. xv r VI II Ireland ; the Yorkshire Committee; the Protestant Association and Lord George Gordon 177 Burke's plan of Economic Reform ; Thinning's resolution . 173 The London No-popery riots, June 2-8, 1780 . . . . 179 Spanish negotiations stopped by the riots .... 180 The war in South ( 'arolina ; battle of Camden (August 16, 1780) 180 Cornwallis's march into North Carolina checked. American partisans. Greene in command . . . . • i8t Little doing In the North 183 Arnold's treason, Sept. 1780 183 The war in India and at sea, 1780 ...... 185 'The new Parliament ; war with Holland declared, Dec. 20, 1780 185 The war in Europe, 1781 185 Seizure of St. Eustace, Feb. 3, 178 1 ; the war in the West Indies, Florida, and India, 178 1 . . . . . . 1S6 France anxious for peace. Mediation of Austria . . . . 187 Washington's army during the winter of 1780-1. Mutinies . i3S The crisis tided over; the Articles of Confederation finally signed, March 1, 1781 ■ 189 Greene in the South. Battle of the Cowpens, Jan. 17, 1781 . 190 Lord Cornwallis advances again into North Carolina, Greene ■ retreating 19° Battle of Guilford Court House, March 15, 1781 ; Cornwallis falls back to the coast 191 La Fayette and Arnold in Virginia. Cornwallis leaves Wil- mington (April) 19 2 Greene recovers the greater part of South Carolina . . . 192 Proceedings in parliament ; Fox and the younger Pitt . . . 19+ Weakness of America ; subserviency to France . . . 194 Cornwallis in Virginia. He withdraws to Yorktown (August 1781) 194 Battle of Eutaw Springs, September 8, 1781 ; the war at an end in the South 195 Arnold in Connecticut (September) . . . . . . 196 Junction of Washington and the French ; operations on the Chesapeake decided on . . . . . . . . 196 The march to Virginia, August 178 1 196 Yorktown invested, September 28 ; Cornwallis surrenders, October 19 197 r ■ .ml fall of Lord North's mil 200 I Rockingb S with Franklin .... .... . . .... urne minislr) - nan (July is I ■ tar • Nov. 30, 1782 204 : parliament, Nov. 5; tbekii . . 205 ;>s return to 206 206 ind and with iltan .... 207 Fall ■ • 2 °7 17. 1783) 2o8 208 208 .... 209 Wh it England * - ' ' - tan ■ - ' » Contents. XVI! CHAPTER VII. Mil PARADOXES 01 THE WAR, AND lis TRUE CHARACTF.K. England's success seemingly impossible . England was often on the verge of triumph . Puzzles t" l»' explained ...... Reliance of tin- English mi the loyalists Inadequate support really afforded by the loyalists . Incapacity of the American politicians . Supineness and want of patriotism of the people Why .lid England fail Incompetency of British generals no sufficient reason Ministerial incapacity no sufficient reason Importance of the foreign aid supplied to America . The war ceased when the English nation thoroughly under- stood its character ......... Marly popularity of the war the result of ignorance . The popularity of the war never but skin-deep . . . . Contrast with feelings called out by war with France and Spain The war in fact a duel between Washington and George III. . American success impossible without Washington . George III. the centre of English resistance to American inde- pendence ........... In such a duel, Washington must win ..... Character of Washington's greatness . . . . . . Washington and Wellington compared Washington a thorough Englishman .... 215 217 217 219 220 221 223 223 224 226 227 227 228 228 229 229 230 231 232 233 234 CHAPTER VIII. 1783- State of the world Tin- balance of power but slightly affected by the war New political events since 1775 outside of the war . Other events. .... 234 234 2 34 235 xviii tents. . 1 rum of France The I future .......... . Rnglnnd ; the literary world litical world America .... Quotations for which no source is quo: m Mr. History of I LIST OF MAPS. i in World British < olonies i.\ North America North America before the War m ii.k the War - To fa, ,. page 24 66 THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The war of American Independence deserves on several grounds to be deemed an epoch in history. WIl> . the It was the first instance in modern times of war of . . American the successful revolt of a colony against the indepen- mother-country. ft^S"" It was followed by a series of more or less '» history. similar revolts, which stripped Erance of her largest re- maining colony in the western world, deprived Spain of the whole of her possessions on both continents of America, and have probably not yet been brought to a close, as the pending Cuban insurrection seems to show. It created the first independent state on cither Ameri- can continent which had existed since the downfall ol the great Indian kingdoms of Mexico and Peru in the six- teenth century. By depriving England of her most important colonies in America, it shifted the centre of gravity of her colonial empire from the western to the eastern hemisphere. Through the share taken by Erance in the struggle, m. ir. B 2 T/ie 11 '..'/- oj Independence. \.i>. and its influence on public opinion in thai country, it contributed largely to the French Revolution, and thereby to the complete transformation < f the political and s< f Europe, whi< h has resulted therefrom, and which is still ^oi: It laid the foundation of a polity which is the tion in 1 lend republic on a large ; which exhibits features previously unprecedented in the records of political experience ; but which has in turn been largely followed. It has virtually altered the whole theory of the relal inies to the mother-country. By splitting the English rare into two nations, it has doubled its influence on the destinies of mankind. CHAPTER II. THE AMERK AN COLONI1 WE think, and think rightly of the war of American in- dependence as of a Struggle between thirteen English ., and England their mother-country. •'■■■ Yet, I ,severa] other races had contributed to build up the English colonies; Dutch in New York. Swedes and Tins in Dela- on almost every out Spaniards to the far south : a scattering of Germans in i. Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Among all Dutch is the only race that I m any . giving for instance a President to the • ' '-n. Behind them all lay anotl nt, which can I to ha\ e Cl the Amerii mixture of 1763. The Red Man. 3 blood between the white man and the red, but which must have acted powerfully from without on the for- mation of the American character. This element is found in the North American Indians, or Red Men, whom European colonists found in the seventeenth century on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and whom they are now exterminating from those of the Pacific. And in the midst, another race foreign to the conti- nent had been introduced by European colonists, destined to grow up and multiply ; amongst the white men but not of them ; a leaven of discord, a ferment which should some day seethe and bubble into civil war — the black men of Africa, imported as slaves. Let us consider each type in turn, taking as the start- ing point of our survey the year 1763, the date of the Peace of Paris. At this period the common danger, arising from the presence of France on the North American continent, which had hitherto united the English colonists and the mother-country, had, as will hereafter be seen, passed away; and their jarring interests began to come out more distinctly. We will begin with I. The Red Man. The North American Indian is for most persons now- a-days, and not unjustly so, the embodiment of the un- tameable, irreclaimable savage. Under his what tin: highest aspects, we scarcely see him but as a Indian 1S - wandering robber ; under his lowest, as a lazy, filthy, drunken vagabond, crawling about like vermin on the outskirts of civilisation. From what he is, would-be philosophers spin theories as to why he is so, and invari- ably conclude that it is, and always must have been, his manifest destiny to be swept away before the white man. his superior. It is probable, indeed, that no influence now in the world can stop the extermination of the V. 2 . t T/u War of A in Independence, a.k. Indian race a few tribes acknowl 'civilised' perha] •■ <1 within tl I iblii . But justice is due to the dead, to thi to the dun, more than to the living and the healthy, who can for themseh the red man in a ent light from that in which we see him now. When the Europ met with the North American Indian, lie was no irreclaimabl He ui.it heu. ^ad settled abodes, villaj i iscan monk speaks of a \ ill eight thousand souls in what is now Illinois. So far from bein^ mere wandering hunters, Mr. Han- croft expressly sa\s that • all the tribes south of the St. Lawrence, except remote ones on the north-cast and the north-west, cultivated the earth. The Iroquois or live Nations, who long defied the power of I . dwelt in fixed places of abode, surround* beans and of maize.' Strachcy, in his 'His! iivaile into Virginia,' tells of the Indians of the ( oast, how 'about their houses they have commonly square plots of cleared ground, whid . some loo, some 200 foote square.' The knowledge of two of the main products of American agriculture at the present day, maize ami tobacco. — products which havi ad the due to these n ' ii tbli Without the use of iron, they built huts, boats, pali- for fortification, its and eml them, Hea drew thread from the wild hemp and the • •-. wrought feather mantl< sleets, iish-v. kins to 1 upple- is brilliant pigments, . the vapour bath, ai II, the pipe, appear to be of their in\ for the winter, fruil . meat, smoked fish. had a hind of written 3763- The Red Man. 5 strings of shells known by the name of wampum. The officc of the herald, bearer of the peace-pipe, was sacred among them. They were careful observers of Nature ; their power of interpreting her phenomena has been described as almost miraculous. In striking contrast with the Australian black, whose skill as a path-finder, equally wonderful at first sight, has been found to depend so completely on the rctentiveness of his memory that, when taken into a strange district, he is utterly help- less, the expertness of the Red Indian rests upon generalisations of a truly scientific character, enab- ling him to make his way through a perfectly un- known country with almost the same accuracy as through one with which he is familiar. He is a geographer by instinct, not only understanding maps when shown to him, but tracing them rudely for himself. Thus, the latest writer who has had opportunities of observing the Indian whilst yet undegraded, Mr. Joaquin Miller, says : 'All Indians are great travellers. ... A traveller with them is always a guest. He repays the hospitality he receives by relating his travels, and telling of the various tribes he has visited, their extent, location, and strength. . . . Telling stories, their history, traditions, travels, and giving and receiving lessons in geography, are their great diversions around their camp and wigwam fires at night. . . . Geography is taught by making maps in the sand or ashes with a stick. For example, the sea a hundred miles away is taken as a base. A long line is drawn there, and rivers are led into the sea by little crooked marks in the sand. Then sand or ashes are heaped or thrown in ridges to show the ranges of moun- tains. This tribe is defined as having possessions of such and such an extent on the sea. Another tribe reaches up this river so far to the east of that tribe ; and so on, till a thousand miles of the coast arc mapped out 6 War of American Independence, a.d. with tolerable accuracy.' IK which, in j s when the red men were numerous on the i . used to terrify the colonists, when or thr only would travel hundreds of miles to earn- back a few scalps. If we look to language alone as a basis of nationality. they formed nations rather than tribes. Although the nquin language spread from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from Cape I- ear to the Esquimaux country, over sixty degrees of longitude and twenty of latitude, still within this vast region the Huron-Iroquois occupied a large- tract of country, about Erie and Lake Ontario, besides a smaller one in Tx'orth Carolina. To the south, the Mobilian language extended from the Atlantic to the Southern Missi Cherokees and others, among whom may be mentioned "/, a tribe of Mexican origin, towards the mouth of • ippi, formed subordinate families or lies of more westerly races. Their forms of government were various. When the white men came in contact with them, they had republican ) •- confederacies like that of the live Nations Mohawks, Oi j ugas, and Senecas), extending from the St Lawrence to what '.■ Virginia; or that of the Crocks which almost I the limits of the t oi Mexico to Cape Fear. They had that oi Powhatan, bed by William Strachi reat emperor of Virginia,' at ' thi I un * of wl would tret .. w. uld sometimes strike wonder in our people.' Chief- male line. Among thi and Hurons the chiefs formed a . as being descended from the sun. But the council, 1763. The Red Man. j to which all grown men were admitted, with right of speech, must have formed everywhere a strong counter- poise to any hereditary or caste rights. The rights of the sexes were not equal ; the woman was little more than a beast of burthen, generally a slave. She was the sole tiller of the ground, and inferiority ingatherer of the harvest ; all household work ofwomc "- was hers ; she carried the game, the wood, the hut and its contents on a journey. ' The greatest toils of the men were to perfect the palisades of the forts, to manufacture a boat out of a tree by means of fire and a stone hatchet, to repair their cabins, to get ready instruments of war or the chase,' and, it must be added, the toils of the chase itself, and of war. They had a universally diffused faith in the immor- tality, if it may be so termed, of life in every living thing, and in the existence for every kind of animal r . . , . , Beliefs. of some typical exemplar, larger and more powerful than all other creatures of the same kind, called the manitou. These manitous became chief objects of worship, one man chiefly venerating the manitou of the buffalo, another the manitou of the bear, etc. Besides these, however, all nature was filled for them with spiritua presences, and one Great Spirit was generally acknow- ledged as ruling above all, though too high for worship. As usual with savage nations, the deities really wor- shipped were those whose malevolence was most to be feared. The war god, in particular, was appeased by human sacrifices ; and the frightful tortures usually inflicted on prisoners taken in war seem to have been more or less of a sacrificial nature. They had medicine- men, or sorcerers, who claimed to be familiar with the secrets of the unseen world. The Natchez kept up a sacred fire. Revenge was a leading Indian virtue, and was, indeed, S Thi War of American 1 an he; ity. That which, perhaps, most alienated the white man from the Indian was the of his warfare, turning mainly upon surprises. The Red Indi; ists not in in^ his enemy, but in killing him, and carrying off his by. Hence he will never meet him in open fight if he has a chan< e of slaughtering him unawares or asleep; nor would he shrink from carrying off the scalp of the woman and the child, if it be not worth his while to i .irry the women or children themsi prisoner-. Still, he was not guilty of indiscriminate scalp-hunting like the head-hunting of the Dyak i I oeo who cannot marry till he has cut off a lu ad. it matters not whose if not of his own tribe. On use which to have retarded the development of the Indian races of North America was Abwnceof tnc a hsence of the pastoral element, and of tamed animals larger than the do^. Y< I in thi ' they have given the 1 who treat them as imtcachable. Since the la; lias introduced the horse inl tribes of Indians have thorough horsemen as the wandering Arab or Tartar. Again, when in the beginning of the eighteenth century the South Carolina invaded Florida, they foun 1 the Indians round St. Mark's in possession of cattle. '■■ * ho choosi that b American history which records the drivin Georgia will find that the latter at least were, as indeed the) arc still, tO all intents and pi:' tlture and trade, and with a written langu; I ■ .mi an • i that the Red Indian is no inc. laimable fori ed by the white man to b n in then least advan low in I7 6 3 . The Red Man. 9 availing themselves of those resources of civilisation which suit the condition of a race hunted out wherever it is not hunted down, and compelled always to stand in an atti- tude of self-defence. They have exchanged the stone tomahawk for the steel one, the bow and arrows for the musket or rifle, the ignition of wood by friction for the lucifer-match. Their code of morals, says a writer whom I have already quoted, Joaquin Miller, 'consists chiefly of a con- tempt of death, a certainty of life after death, Codeof temperance in all things, and sincerity. Their "w»ais. fervid natures and vivid imaginations make the spirit- world beautiful beyond description, but it is an Indian's picture. . . Woods, deep, dark, boundless, with parks of game and running rivers ; and above all and beyond all, not a white man there.' In the courage of endurance, no race of men, except the Northmen of Europe, seem ever to have equalled them. In nothing was this more shown than Capacity in the tortures inflicted upon captives when forendu- thcy were not adopted into their captors' tribe. These were expected, whilst fastened to the stake, lacerated, mutilated in every way, not only to give way to no groan or sign of pain, but to chant their war-song and boast of their exploits and those of their tribe against their enemies. On a large scale, the same endurance has been exhibited by the whole race in its struggles against the white man. If it be true, as American writers are of opinion, that at the time of the discovery of North America the Indians south of the St. Lawrence and east of the Mississippi were not more than 200,000 in number, the stubbornness of their resistance has been something incredible. A mere fragment of the old Creek confederacy, the Scminoles of Florida, maintained as late as 1 a harassin"; war against the United States. In our to T/ie War of American Independence. a.v. own days a Modoc war has been carried on in the wot against the American people by literally a score or two of Indian warriors. Cheered by no hope of ultimate tri- umph, the red man has never counted the odds against him, and at ten to one, at a hundred to one, has fought on a fight which after-ages will perhaps recognise as the must heroic of which history bears record, if his courage rather than his manner of waging it be considered. It will easily be seen how strong an influence upon the colonists of North America must have been exercised influence of by the presence of the Indian clement, through 11 the necessities cf constant watchfulness, and t on the colonics, almost constant warfare, against such enemies. The Indians were always too few to overpower a settle- ment, except in its very beginnings ; but a few raiders were enough to keep hundreds of miles of settlements in a state of disquietude The Red Indian was, as it were, the whetstone on which the courage, the wits, anil alas \ too often the ferocity of the white man were sharpened for two centuries. The Spaniard found in Ilispaniola a ' ition which seems to have been one of the gentlest the world has ever seen, and which perished off tl • of the earth almost without striking a blow. In Mexico he found one not devoid of bravery, but accustomed to obey, which accepted his sway after a few sharp les. Hut further north, the Englishman, 1 man, Frenchman found himself confronted by a race of the most stubborn tenacity, for the most pail pa atelyfondoi theii freedom, full of individual hard ea< h v,\.\\\ a host in himself, having to be quelled or killed one by one. White weaklings, white cowards, were no match for them. The discipline of the soldier was of small avail against them. The only colonists that could er in their neighbourhood must be sin li as could liidit and win their own 1763- The Red Man. i r The history of the relations of the Indian tribes with the European settlers varies little. As a rule, the new- comers are well received at first by the natives, (] ^ except where distrust has been excited by the racterofre- previous visits of white kidnappers. Contracts ^tlfthe and treaties are entered into before each party red and white man. thoroughly understands the other's meaning, and sooner or later these treaties are sure to be differently interpreted by them. Quarrels ensue, almost universally provoked by the white man ; massacres are perpetrated, seldom on one side alone ; perhaps what the white man calls a war breaks out, which seldom lasts more than a campaign, ending in the white man's victory, and in some fresh treaty, which the red man understands a little better than the first, and hates all the more. The In- dian is pressed back and back ; perhaps allows himself to be driven into some angle of land, with the sea in his rear. Now he feels himself doomed ; but almost invariably another fierce struggle has to be gone through, in which he attempts to use the white man's all-powerful weapon, organisation ; but it is too late, and he is finally crushed, either into slavery or death. The story indeed changes a little when white men of different races or faiths settle in each other's neighbourhood, and gradually come into contact. Here the Indian becomes valuable as an ally, and his aid is contended for by both parties ; he is kept in leash as it were, to be let loose, when the day of con- flict comes, in all his savagery upon the white enemy, and upon his own red kinsmen who may side with the latter. But if this state of things may protract for a time the existence of the tribe as a power, it docs not the less hasten the extermination of the race through the white man's wars. Sooner or later the one white race triumphs finally over the other, and from that day the fate of the red man is sealed. 12 War of ' A.n. Still, a difference is to be 1 between the colonisation <>f the Latin races un the one hand, and • the reutonic races on the other. The !i,: former, as a rule, enslave rather than extcr- minate the na 1 : the latter cxlcrim- . , nate far more than they enslave. Again, the red man. as a consequence of preserving the native races by slavery, the former easily amalgamate with them ; the latter, because they exterminate, have none to amalgamate with. Thus, although th dncss of ferocious cupidity in the Spaniard may have swept away the natives of the West India inlands, and led to many a massacre by the hands of the early ' Conquista- .' it is certain that throughout tin- whole of the Spanish possessions, both in North and South Ami the Indian population has subsisted to this day, mingling more and more in blood with its conquerors. without su« h admixture it has risen gradually in the social scale, till, as now, the whole-blood Indian race is found constantly at i: in Central America and Mexico, to which it has e,ivcn one who may perhaps be h< In North Am« in, tin- French min I • with the natives ; and thus one of the most adventurous : the population in what is now British, ami was I rem b, Ameii a is that of the Canadian largely composed of halt This result has been no doubt owing in great part to the Roman Catholic Church. It must bo admitted that, K,.m.in en temporarily SUC- * . ful, may have been the f indi- vidua! Protestant mission, among the red ,.'/,' men, they have in most I ases I and intermittent, or their results annihilated b) of 1763. Tlu- Red Man. 13 power, such as the displacement of the whole Indian population. There is nothing similar to the wholi Christianising — whatever may have been the means employed, and however low the grade of Christianity imparted — of the Indians in the Spanish colonies, or to the vast network of French missions in Northern America, and to their wide-spreading influence over the natives. It is impossible to read without horror the story of the massacre of Sc'bastien Rasles, the last of the French missionaries in New England, who had gathered round him a flourishing village of Abcnakis, with a church and two chapels. Hounded on to their bloody work by a Government reward of 100/. for each Indian scalp, a party of New Englandcrs, after pillaging and setting fire to village and church, left him, mangled by many blows, scalped, his skull broken in several places, his mouth and eyes filled with dirt. (1724O In 1763, the time of which we arc speaking, the only Indian power deserving the name was that of the Five Nations. These had become Six Nations, Most power- since the migration of the Tuscaroras from Jul tribes, „ ,. . ...... , Iroquois, Carolina in 1715, and their adoption into the Cherokees, Confederacy. They were spread on both sides and Cret;ks - of the St. Lawrence, from the region near Lake Champlain to Lakes Erie and Huron. The Cherokees were, how- ever, strong in the valley of the Tennessee, and the Creeks further south. In the basin of the Mississippi the Indian tribes subsisted still, with the exception of the Natchez, who hail been exterminated by the French, as will be related in the next section. 14 7V.v War of American Independence. \.n. II. The White Men. i. J Of the variou in nations named above as having contributed to people the North American i. The nies, only one besidi I nglish retained, in r tion on the continent Spain. With the exception of die Dutch, the history of her- had merged so soon into that of two or three of the English settlements that it America. deserves no separate treatment. The original settlement of New York by the Dutch unique as having grown out of purely commercial motives— has left its stamp to this day on that state, the chief centre of Ameri- can commerce, and the head-quarters of the commercial spirit within the union. The coast of Florida had been discovered in 151: by Ponce dc Leon, who took | 1 of it in the nai _. .Spain; but the first attempt to form a colony there cost him his life 15:1 . ly, the year before, two Spanish slavers had \ the coast of Carolina, and kidnapped a living freight ; but here too, when they attempted to conquer, th< of the rial their efforts (1525). < attempts failed equally, though the I rdinand de ploration of a l.u . country, and in I very of the Mississippi nearly junction with the Missouri (15 -: Spani live were th< ir n ults as respects 1 ould not 1" The wanton CTUClty displayed at this early I by the Spaniards may afford the key to much ol the opposil offered by the Indian to < olo- turous man li up ,562-5. The White Mai. 15 the valley of the Mississippi, Soto found the Indians, says Bancroft, an agricultural people, with fixed places of abode, subsisting upon the produce of the fields more than on the chase, neither turbulent nor quarrel- some. The Spaniards enslaved them, would cut off the hands of numbers on a slight suspicion, threw to the hounds the unfaithful or unsuccessful guide, set fire to hamlets for any trilling cause, and sometimes burnt a native alive. After these early discoveries, little more is known of the history of the Spanish colonics in North America, excluding of course Mexico — except at those Settlement few points of time when it touches that of the ofF,orida - French or English. Spain indeed had given up all efforts for colonising Florida, when hatred to French Huguenots made her resume them. An attempt at colo- nisation by a party of these was made, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, on the coast of what is now Carolina, a name first derived from a fort erected by these settlers in honour of Charles IX. of France. This attempt was made in accordance with the plans of the Admiral Coligny, the great champion of the Huguenots. Two colonies were founded (1562 and 1564) but home-sickness broke up the first, the Spaniards exterminated the second. The Spanish commander professed to hang the French- men, ' not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans.' When the news of the disaster reached France, a Gascon soldier fitted out three ships with which he sailed for the American coast (1568), and ravaged the Spanish settlements, bang- ing up in turn his prisoners, ' not as Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers, and murderers.' But this time the Spaniards kept their ground, and the town of St. Augustine, founded by them in 1565, is the oldest in the United States. Although, under the name of Florida, Spain laid claim to the whole of the coast northwards, Canada \6 The War of American Independence, a.d. included, then- is little more to l>c said of the hist | the Spanish settlements on the northern cu.i-t of the Gulf of Mexi( o.] • find th< with niards again destroying a Protestant settle- ment, this tiiir h Presbyterii far north as Port-Royal. Ten years later (i< cola is founded by three hundred Spaniards from Vera to become a border town of West Florida. The panisfa Florida belongs really to the the neighbouring English colonies. It is BUfficient to say that, in 1763, when the treaty of Paris concluded that wide-spreading Seven Years War whose centre lies in the struggle between i 1 ' ' the C.reat >•( Prussia and the combined I of Austria and Fr. ,:i, as the ally of France, gave up Florida to England, receiving in exchange from France Louisiana I ■! the Mississippi Whatever right Spain thereby acquired merged in her own indefinite claims to terri- tory in North America as t; ;n of M< The settled population of Florida is said to have sunk by this time to a few hundreds. 2. 7 Although the French flag had, b) 1703, been swept from tin- mainland of North America, the French cle- ment upon it cannot be overlooked, any n than the Indian, with which, indeed, it had :>. singular affinity. l'.y far the the romance of American colonial history belongs to th 1 ither European nation < nterprising as the Fn n< h. ' name to t: . to the ' pi » to I to Louisiana ; to the Iroquois on Lake 1524-34- TJu White Men. — French. 17 Ontario, and to the Grosvcntres on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains ; to the 'portage' and to the 'prairie.' Whilst the English settlers hugged the Atlantic seaboard, French missionaries and traders were estab- lishing communications between the great lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Always ready to spring to arms on the outbreak of every war between the two mother-countries, always seconded by large numbers of Indian allies, the French colonists kept their English neighbours con- stantly on their mettle, although never powerful enough to overpower them altogether. Although France had not been first in the race of discovery, her flag was seen early on the shores of North America. In the first quarter of the fifteenth Early dis- century, Verrazzani, an Italian in the service coveriesand .„.,-„ , . , settlements. of Francis I. of France, reaching the coast about the latitude of Wilmington, followed it north- wards to Nova Scotia (1524). A few years later, hardy Jacques Cartier of St. Malo discovered the St. Lawrence (1534), and settlements were soon attempted in the north of the continent, though they only began to succeed in the early years of the seventeenth cen- tury. With the colonisation of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton by the French this work has no con- cern ; but it must be remembered that the southern limits of Acadia or New France (the present Nova Scotia) extended to the latitude of Philadelphia, thus covering the whole of what became the New England Colonies, and that, in particular, what is now the State of Maine, as well as north-western New York, was first settled by the French. Moreover, notwithstanding one or two attempts at colonisation in the south— such as that ill-fated one of French Huguenots in the latter half of the sixteenth century — it was from the north that French influence in North America was destined to spread. But this influence M. H. C iS •. was no true measure of French power. In 1 | can population of New France amounted only to 8,515 souls, and throughout nearly the whole of the seventeenth century the Indian 1 the- Iro- quois balanced the whole : France in America, were allies of the English, anil to their valour, as Mr. Bancroft admits, the State of New York 'owes its present northern boundary.' Substantially, Canada was almost as truly through religious enthusiasm as the New England States themselves. Following the Franciscans, the Heroic rr.K- ... , , ■ Jesuits (1632), encouraged by the eminent 1 nor, Champlain (whose name has clung to a beautiful lake in the State of New \ attempted first the conversion of the llurons. hereditary foes of the Iroquois, then of the Chip])' then of the Abenakis of Maine, then of the Iroquois them- selves. They crept from shore to shore along the whole I Ices, frequent martyrdom begetting only fresh enthusiasts. They carried the French name to what are now the- States of Mid . I ihio, Wisconsin, Illinois and reached the Mississippi in 1673, 6 down the great river in Indian canoes, beyond the limit I De Soto long before, to a point below the mouth of tin- .1 lose tin tl. adven- turers of th valier de la Salle, who d the- Mississippi to the sea. planted the flag of France on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, named the tc honour of him whom men then called Louis the 1 1 turned t" Frai j the establishment of a colony in the vast and fertile nil. l le was listened to with h 280 colo- . which he took possession of in the nan <:e ( 1GS5), 1687 1 70 1. The White Men. — French. 19 building a fort which he named St. Louis. From this point he endeavoured in vain to find the Mississippi in canoes, mack' an excursion into northern Mexico, from whence he brought back five horses (those animals having already gone wild, and been tamed afresh by the Indians, since the Spanish conquest of Mexico). Finally, with sixteen men, lie determined to travel back on foot to Canada, but was murdered on the way by his com- panions (1687). The events of the various wars between England and France in America belong rather to the history of our own colonies. Towards the end of the seven- r, tecnth century France held possession of the ,','/.' " y {\ '^ whole American coast and islands, from sippi valley. Hudson's Bay and Labrador to Maine, of Canada and the Mississippi valley, the eastern half of Newfoundland being alone excepted. To Illinois, which seems to have been occupied by the French since the time of La Salle, Was soon added a fort at Detroit, in what is now Michigan (1701.) Kaskaskia was the first permanent European settlement in the Mississippi valley, gathering round a most successful Jesuit mission, where marriages of French emigrants with converted Illinois Indians were solemnised according to Roman Catholic rites. On the other hand the gallant Canadian, d" Iberville, sought in France for emigrants to Louisiana, and, more fortunate than La Salle, reached safely the southern coast (1699), and began at Biloxi the European settlement of the present State of Mississippi. Missionaries and others soon descended the Mississippi from the north ; the new comers in turn ascended part of it ; exploring parties, mostly in search of minerals, rambled through western Louisiana, and to \\ hat is now Iowa. The chief settlement was ere long trans- ferred from the arid shore of Biloxi to the western bank of the Mobile river, and what is now Alabama began to c a 20 The War of American Independence, be colonised. The possessions of Spain on the mainland were henceforth regarded as commencing only on the f the last-named river, and running west- ward till they bordered on the English settlements in the debateable land of Carolina. At the Peace of Utrecht in 1713. France ceded to England Hudson's Bay, Acadia or Ni , and New- foundland, and agreed never to 'molest the Five Nations subject to the dominion of Great Britain ; ' but she retained Louisiana, as well as Canada. Cape Bi nised by French refugees from Acadia and Newfoundland ; and, thanks in great measure to her Ear-spread influence over the Indian tribes, France not only held her ground, lreton but her colonists advanced their settlements, occupying western New York, establishing French. : - themselves along the banks of the Alleghany to the I duo, beginning the settlement of what is now Indiana, and DO of all the ^ r reat lines of communication between the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. They claimed the shore of the Gulf of Mexico to the - the Rio del Norte; they pushed up the Red River (of the south . till they reached the Spanish borders. Lou; rted, extended to the head-springs of the Alle- ghany, the Monongahi iawha,and the Tenni mded by Law's famous Miss. Company ( 1 7 1 s, and Arkansas began to be settled. An Indian war followed some years later, in which the thief e, on the one side, th< and Chi< Indians the latter allies of the English on the other, the French and the Choctaws. The Nat.': of Fi their chief (named the un) and more than four hui St Domingo (1732). made with the Chickas ... ; but thej 1748-63- Tlie White Men. — French. 21 French retained their country, and thereby the command of the middle course of the Mississippi, between Lower Louisiana and Illinois. Another war with England left the ever-unsettled boundary as it was. The French sought to win favour with the Iroquois by separately treating with them, established a new mission south of the St. Lawrence, and occupied the valley of the Ohio, whilst border conflicts broke out first on the Acadian (now NovaScotian) frontier (1748-50), and then in theMiamis and Ohio valley (1752-54). But the fall of the French power in North America was at hand. What follows is so mixed up with the history of the great hero of Ameri- can independence that it need not be here dwelt upon. It is enough to say, that the Peace of Paris left nothing to France in North America but a couple of islets off New- foundland. Thus, although the adventurous spirit of her sons had girdled round the English settlements to the north, to the . and partly to the south, and had laid the foundations of almost everyone of the present France had inland States of the American republic east of P ^ia , t c ;'o" ty the Mississippi, still France had only worked ° fher . for England. South of the St. Lawrence (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia excepted), the French population was a mere scattering, not capable even of estimation ; and even of the colonies of the St. Lawrence . the population was insignificant in comparison with that of the region originally settled by the English. Canada is estimated to have had, in 1760, 65,000 inhabitants; in 17S4, after a considerable influx of loyalists through the war, 113,000. Nova Scotia, in- cluding New Brunswick, is reckoned to have had 13,000 in 1764 ; the population of Cape Breton was over-esti- mated in 175S at 10,000. In the year 1763 the whole group together, including Newfoundland, cannot have 22 War of Ami d 100,000; not a twelfth, as will SOOU be seen, ot the population of the English colonies proper. One consequence of this entire di n in popu- lation between the Engl ttg and the French- iking colonies in North Ai. c that the sympathies of the latter were sure to be in the lone run in favou which will 1 hinder their absorption in the former. And since their struggles had after all been not so much with Englishmen, as such, as with their neighbours the English colonists, it followed that if any rupture should occur between the latter and their mother- country, the sympathies of the French colonists would easily be enlisted on behalf of that mother-country. Hence the curious result, that whilst continental France was marked out by every feature as the destined ally of the revolted English colonies, the Trench colonists of what had been New France were carried by the force of circumstances into the opposite camp, and v. made loyal subjects of England by the very events which deprived the latter of her English colon ■ And what was true of the I'rerx h was equally the Indians, their old allies. The red man's I not the Englishman, but the Knj;li.sh colonist. It was not the British parliament, but the colonial governments, which had many a time offered rewards for his sxalp. When thi battle '■ lestincd auxiliary of King nst his revolted Aim- subjects. 3- v of the North American continent be- , if not to an ] ngland I a patent which already contemplate tion,itwas •!i, b;. John Cabot i:. 1497 - 1 763. The 1 1 r hite Mi n. — English. 2 3 The eastern shore of part of the present United States was first coasted, at least as far as the southern border of Maryland, by his son Sebastian ^^can' 1 Cabot in 149S. Yet it was not till eighty years continent , . ,, . .,,,,. discovered later that the first heroically ludicrous attempt by England. at English colonisation on the American shore ' n ><' Eng- , , ,, . T ,,., .... lisli colonies. was made, when Martin rrobisher, believing that he had found an Eldorado near the pole, tried with a fleet of fifteen sail to found a settlement north of Hudson's Straits (1578). Several subsequent attempts were also failures, and it is only from the first expedition sent by the ' London Company' to Virginia in 1606, that the per- manent settlement of North America by Englishmen must be dated. Yet at the period we are treating of (1763) — little more than a century and a half later — we must think of British North America as extending in latitude fr3m the Gulf of Mexico to the far north, in longitude from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and in the northern part of the Mississippi basin stretching away indefinitely into the unexplored west. A line of moral demarcation, substantially the same which now separates geographically British North America from the United States, divided the The north- northern colonies conquered from France ^hern from the southern ones settled by England, groups. This line was formed by the St. Lawrence and the chain of the Great Lakes, except that the northern group of colonics threw out a spur on the right bank of the great river, comprising Nova Scotia and New Bruns- wick. It has already been stated that of the northern group the population cannot in 1763 have reached 100,000. That of the southern group, on the contrary, has been variously estimated at from 1,216,000 to 1,700,000. The settled country proper extended from 52 to .J4 24 TJu War of American Indep* a.d. north latitude. But it was as yet only a mere frit . -Jamie coast. In Virginia, the oldest colony, it did tend further west than the Blue Ridge. Yet these colon: iers for the mother coun- try. They consumed one-sixth of the woollen manufac- ;.n. besides linen, cotton, iron, and other In 1760 their imports were reckoned to I. II . 1 .'.. <>r over 2/. a head. A much lower figure is given for their exports — 761,101/. 1 1 but this probably does not include exports countries, in breach of the navigation laws. Lord t nat- ham estimated the profits of their trade at two mil. year. Thirteen colonies composed the group : Massachu- Connccticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, known Southern together as the New England Colonies ; New t!>c York and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Mary- land and Delaware, Virginia, North -.^A South lhcir li: and < 1 uncs many of them of far larger import then than now, when State after State has been carved out of either the original ments themselves as Vermont out of New York, Maine out of Ma . We tern Virginia " ; :i of Vii or oat of the then unsettled territory claimed by them, and including all the ; : the Union < • .1 the 'i. Mr. Thackeray falls almost short of the truth wh his 'Vir- ginians ' : 4 The 1 d the . inland a I that the British charters onlj urn the 1 them ,11 the lymouth 1 harti i>2o); irolina . i6<35-i;^- The White Men.— English. 25 (1665) ; so did that of Georgia (1732). New York, under its original name of New Netherlands, and New Sweden, which be< ame Delaware and New Jersey, had virtually no boundaries at all, having been founded by companies with unlimited rights of settlement on the American con- tinent. On the other hand, Pennsylvania and Maryland were limited to the westward from the first. So were also necessarily those colonies which were carved out of others during the colonial period itself, as New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Without any actual line of division, there was again a moral distinction between the colonies of the north (New York only excepted) and those of the Distinctions south, with perhaps the exception of Georgia. b«w • ■ , 1 1 r ,11 i colonies of Religious principle had founded the northern the southern colonies, the spirit of adventure the southern, e' 011 ^- Other characteristics distinguishing the two elements may be noted hereafter, but all, perhaps, flow from that one. Otherwise, as has been well observed by a recent German writer, Professor von Hoist, the thirteen colonies varied in some respects ' so widely from each other that almost more essential differences were to be found between them than points of comparison and resemblances.' Their only geographical tic was their separation from all the civilised world besides ; their only moral tie, their rela- tion to a common mother-country. The sense of unity which has sprung up so rapidly in our Australian colonics, ■while as yet no political tics unite them formally, did not exist. There were no ' Americans,' as there arc now 'Australians,' or if the term was used it was by English- men at home in speaking of the colonists, not by the colonists in speaking of themselves. Each colonist, as the writer I have just quoted justly remarks, was first a child of his own colony, then an Englishman. At the same time it must be said that, from about the middle of 26 The War of A .r>. the iSth century, owing partly to the growth of population in the settlements, still more, perhaps, to the of French inilucru e whole rear of them, there begins to I era! colonial history in place of that oi colonies. Let us now briefly sketch the growth of the thir- teen colonies Historically, it will be found that they Three sub- resolve themselves into three sub-groups, of which Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts are the centres. i. Virginia. — Precedence of course belongs to Vir- ginia, the first founded of all, the ' Old Dominion' of the The name planter, the ' Ole Virginny' of his slave. The widcr r 'Ln name is indeed now much narrower than it no*- was at first, since the first atl to colonise the Virginia of the sixteenth century were made on one of the islands of what is now North Carolina. It is not improbable that the abortive attempts of the French Huguenots in Carolina paved the way to the Eng- r . lish colonisation of A Itl bo n no- r.arly at- ;h reached France th< ifter DeG n turn (1569), ami learnt the and Raleigh. ;irl () f war um i cr the great Hu ' 'ito'iy? the planner of French colonisation in Florida, for the benefit of his co-re 1 Nine \> Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigl Mined a colonisat fperpetual validity, if a plan- ilished \\ ithin six ye 'itions and 1583) failed; Gilbert perished in the second, Raleigh took up hi Cher's work, under a new patent, and an actual settlement was formed 15S5) on Roanoke Island, now in North Carolina. Treachery and cruelty, ho Iced th<- brief even this ling Indian 1 liuf and his princi- pal fo' 15S5-1650. The Thirteen Colonics. 27 at which no sign of hostility was shown by the Indians, and the island had to be deserted next year. A second attempt on the same spot (1587) was an equal failure ; the very fate of the colonists was never known, though Raleigh is said to have the times sent vessels in search of them. The next attempt at colonisation was on the shores of New England (1602), and was equally abortive. The hour of success was, however, at hand. There was a strong feeling in England in favour of coloni- sation. Two companies were formed for the , , , , T , The London purpose ; one only succeeded, the London company ; a Company, the real founders of Virginia, whose taw,"U£ first expedition set sail December 19, 1606, Houseof and landed on the shores of a river flowing into Chesapeake Bay. Vet the composition of the colony was absurd. There were four carpenters to forty-eight gentlemen ; only twelve labourers, and very few me- chanics, out of 105 emigrants. The early years of the colony were disastrous, but it was reinforced from time to time by fresh batches of emigrants. Men of high posi- tion were sent out as governors. The introduction of tobacco into Europe became a source of wealth ; even the streets of Jamestown, the Virginian capital, were planted with it ; it was the usual medium of exchange. The first colonial assembly in the New World, the Vir- ginian ' House of Burgesses/ sat for the first time in Jamestown in the year 1619. In 1622, the white popula- tion amounted to about 4,000, and spread nearly 150 miles up the James River. But a canker had already been introduced, which was some day to cat almost into the vitals of the American people. The first negroes were sold as slaves in the James River by a Dutch man of war in August 1620. By 1650 Virginia held fifty whites to one black. Two names must be mentioned in connexion with 2S The War of Am the early I f Virginia. One is that of John • i, : Smith, an adventurer of genius, \\ln> had I • the Spaniards in the Low Countries, the Turks in Hungary, had wandered as far as i and Morocco, had been taken in battle in Wall sent as .1 5] to C01 stantinople, then to the Crimea, and had escaped through Russia and Transylvania. This man is treated by most historians (but ihiclly.it would seem, on the strength of his own narratives] as th< of Virginian story — 'the Father of Virginia, the true r who first planted the Saxon rare within the bor- ders of the United States.' A still more romantic per- sonage is Pocahontas, daughter of the chief Powhatan, who married an Englishman named John Rolfe, was brought to England and received by King James, but died at Gravesend on her way back (161 7 , having given birth to a son, Thomas Rolfe, from whom the ' first families of Virginia' are proud to claim descent. An Indian massacre, planned by Powhatan's suc- cessor, Opcchancanou^h. stopped the growth of Yir- T ,. Lnnian prosperity. In one hour 347 colo- 1 which ei followed by sickness and the return of many emigrants, reduced the population by 1624 to i,Soo. In the same year James I. cancelled the patents of the London Company; but the framework of 1!. I constitution remained on foot, and to protect the growth of Virginian, the import of for gland was prohibited. Charles I., who succeeded the nexi to the throne, confirmed by pi a the moi of the ini: • t' borne ' bread of maize.' Within six months the colony 'had advanced more than Virginia had done in as many years' (1634 . Soon afterwards, however, troubles arose with a man of the name of Clayborne, one of the early Yir- M. II. li 34 The W'iir *f American I ndcpi j^inian settlers, who claimed some jurisdiction under a loyal license of earlier date than the Maryland charter, and it was not till K'4~. after h I nth the Ind and an insurrection which was for a time triumphant, that peace was eventually restored. During the English civil war and commonwealth, the ment of Mars land was disputed between the repre- l . sentatives of the ' proprietary,' Lord Baltimore) wealth; and the republican party, in which Clayhorne : try- was now a leader; but at the Restoration . '. v . ( , Baltimore's authority was generallj i •'•<■ Under his son, the second Lord Baltimore, troubles, more or less conne< ted with 1 '.aeon's rebellion in da, again broke out A rcstri. tion of the suffrage by proclamation of the proprietary gave one ground for discontent ; the creed of Lord Baltimore was another. With the Revolution of 1 688 the proprietary government was swept away, Maryland was declared a n ment (1691), and the Church of England that of the Toleration was continued only I d the exer- cise of the Roman Catholic worship was made illegal About a quarter of a century later, however, the g ment was restored to the Baltimores, who had meanwhile ted to the I faith ; but from henceforth the authority of the proprietaries was but fretfully borne with. Like Virginia, Maryland's chief staple and her social condition was very similar; she had I -.red plantations, but few . as. 3 ok . by woidd |i 1 onne I : l ' th Maryland; but its history binds it rather to 1: Northern Si the Other hand, Carolina i towards Vir- ginia to the south as Maryland to the north. The name, it will be recollected, w; nch, 1663-5- 2^ Thirteen Colonics. 35 though revived at first under Charles I. as Carolana, eventually as Carolina under Charles II. That ... TT . . . . .,. • Kaily 1 nar- Raleigh S earlyattcmpts at Virginian civilisation ters;Shaftes< were made on what became eventually North j^^f Carolinian soil will also be recollected. The , «"" 1 . Carolana charter came to nothing. A different charter, of the year 1663, granted the province of Carolina, from the 36th degree of north latitude to the river San Matheo, to seven proprietaries, the first two named of whom were the Lords Clarendon and Albemarle. But the whole coast was claimed by Spain. There was a previous patent of the year 1630; there were settlers from New England and Virginia, and others came from Bar- badoes. A second and vastly more extended charter ranted in 1665 to the proprietaries, which em- brace. 1 eight whole States of the present Union, parts of three others, and much of Mexico. The powers given as extensive as the territory itself, and gave actual sovereignty, including not only the right of legislation, but that of making war. An elaborate constitution or 'grand model,' devised by Shaftesbury and Locke on an exaggeratedly feudal pattern, with ' starosts,' 'landgraves,' ' caciques,' ' lcctmcn,' the first to be for ever self-elected, the last to be for ever attached to the soil, ' under the jurisdiction of their lord without appeal,' was probably the most absurd that had ever been devised by the stupidity, let alone the philosophy, of mankind. Human nature itself rebelled against it. Hence the peculiar characteristic of the foundation of Carolina, which has remained in a manner attached to her whole history. All other of the American Tui , colonies were founded under charters ; in spite early history of the ■ 1 barters, the two Carolmas founded clonics. themselves. Their history begins with defiance s, *very. of law, not less real becau-c it was necessary. By the War of * m ItuUpcndence. a.d. force of things the one province of Carolina divided governments. The proprietaries vainly endeavoured to enforce the 'grand model ;' there was do rill it was given up, and nothing perhaps rem of it beyond a provision that every freeman should have absolute power and authority over b laves. No colonies have a more turbulent early history. Insui from Virginia found a refuge in North Carolina, and soon fomented an outbreak against the enforcement of the navi- gation laws. In South Carolina too tin:' ■ i stant les, though with less violence, ami both colon I pellcd their governors in [688. South Carolina has the grievous distinction of having been cradled in the pi fery, Africans having been imported into its first plantations in 1671. In a few years the blacks in its terri- tory were as 22 to 12 whites. Kidnappers as well as slave- buyers, the colonists broke the treaties with the Indians, 1 them with what would be now termed razzias OT commandos, and sold them as slaves to the West Indies. n of French Huguenots in South Carolina after the tion of the Edict of Nantes in [685, and a later one of exiled German Protestants in North Carolina (1711), seems to have done little I Carolinian society. When the war of the Spanish six . • tablishment of a French prince on the throne of , Spain, broke out. the English colon outh Carolina threw themselves upon 1 1 he Spaniards 'had gathered the natives into 1 . built for them churches, and instrin ted them by mi The Indians had ! ttlft Fifty volunteer-, with 1.000 Indian allies, swept down on the Indian towns mar St. Mark's, burnt a church, made 150 prisoners, including women . bildren, for the slave marketj received the submi 1705-29- The Thirteen Colonics. U of town after town, and carried the English flag to the Gulf of Mexico (1705). Most of the people ' abandoned their homes, and were received as free emigrants into the jurisdiction of Carolina.' So perished out of Florida the beginnings of Indian civilisation. The Peace of Utrecht, which concluded the war, was in turn followed by Indian wars in both colonies, with the Tuscaroras in North Carolina (1711-3), with the Indinn war , . Yamasseesin South Carolina (171 5); the former *e Caro- „ , ,,. ...... , I111.1S become caused by the parcelling out of the Indians colonies, lands amongst German emigrants ; the latter I?29 ' by the exactions of the English traders. The former ended with the migration of the Tuscaroras to the north- ward, to join their Iroquois kinsmen, who admitted them as the sixth nation in their confederacy (1715) ; the latter with the driving of the Yamassees into Florida. A few later (1719-20) South Carolina openly threw off allegiance to the proprietaries, who eventually sold their lights to the crown (1729). Both colonies now became royal ones. 5. Georgia. — As Carolina had been carved out of Vir- ginia, so was the southernmost and the westernmost of the colonies, Georgia, out of Carolina. The Thelast story of this, the last formed of the British t colonies of North America, reads like a page of Cl the annals of the early half of the seventeenth century transferred to that of the eighteenth. Jam* Oglethorpe was a member of an old English family. He had served as a volunteer in the army of I'rincc ne, and had taken part in his campaigns against the Turks on the Danube. He had shown in England his sympathy fur the oppressed; for he had, in ,, | e thorpe; Parliament, taken up the cause of prisoners for J^d^*"* debt, and by obtaining a commission for in- government, quiring into thejailsofthe kingdom, he had been the means 38 The War of American Independence, a.d. uny hundreds of unfortunates to liberty, ■•..lined in 1732a charter from George II.. 1 ing the country between the Savannah and the Alata- niaha, and from their head-springs '.lie Pacific, into the province of G 1 he \ ine and the silkworm were to be its staples. Ardent spirits were not to be im- ported ; and above all there were to be DO sla . thorpe himself took out the first party of 1 20 emigrants, and chose the site of Savannah for his capital The In- dians from all sides — Creeks, Cherokee-. Choctaws — proffered their friendship. The Moravians of Sal persecuted in their own country, sought a home in < .<- and were followed by many other emigrants, amongst whom the most noteworthy were a party of Highlanders. A few years later, when war was declared by England on Spain in 1739, Oglethorpe invaded Florida, but failed Hoctiiidet ,( > take St. Augustine. A large Spanish fleet with Spain, in turn attacked Georgia, but was beaten off ; and thanks, in great m< . I 1 the support of the Indians, the result of the war [739-42) was to leave the St. John's river as the practical British boundary, although the exact frontier between the British and Spanish colo- nies remained unsettled by diplomacy, thorpe (who had made two intermediate VOJ to and from Europe) finally left his colony in 1743. His v .. , institutions did not last. The liquor-traffic [aves wen- hired, first 1 ' arolina, then for life or for a hundred years, then imported direct from The famous Whitefield, one of the leaders of the Methodist movement, who as well as the tv. . at this )■• ■ ■! the expediency of allowing slavery. The Moravians remained longer op- to it, but at I So failed the. first practical attempt to re ue the American 1 freed i6o<; 25. The Thirteen Colonics. 39 6 ec 7. New York ami New Jersey. — Georgia com- pletes the sub-group of colonics whose history has its root in that of Virginia. The next sub-group to the VT v , or New \ ' irk northward is that of the former Dutch and the centre of ,, ... , . . . - T , . , -. a sub-yroup. Swedish colonics, comprising New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, Here New York is the centre, until Pennsylvania rises to substantive im- portance. The first name in the story of Dutch America is an English one. Henry Hudson, sailing in the service of the Dutch East India Company, discovered Hudson at Delaware Bay, and the river now known by , ] .•'"' ,'"'," ' Island : the his name (1609). At an interview with the New Neth- Indians on the southern point of the island New Ami now occupied by the city of New York, he stcrdain - offered the chiefs rum. One only took it in the first in- stance; but on seeing him reel and fall, then recover, and hearing his account of his sensations, the rest followed his example. The place was afterwards called by the natives, Manhattan — 'the place of drunkenness.' Ships were sent out to trade for furs with the Indians. A few huts were ere< ted for the summer shelter of the traders, then a few of these remained through the winter, then a rude fort was erected, then a settlement was made at Albany, still the legal capital of the State of New York (1615). But although the Dutch came at first only to trade and not to colonise, the Dutch West India Company in [621 was constituted for both purposes. By the coast from the southern shore of Delaware Bay to Cape Cod became known as Xew Netherlands; and New Amsterdam began to grow up where New York is now. The island of Manhattan was bought <>f the Indians by the firsi governor, Peter Minuits, for 24 dollars (1625), To en settlement, every man who in four years should plant a colony of 50 souls was to be 'patroon' or 40 The War of A I a.d. lord of a h tiles in length. The colonists were forbidden to make any woollen. In. in return the Company undertook to supply i could do so profitably. The first relations with the English settlers, whether New Englanders or Virginians, were friendly. Bui Dutch settlements in Connecticut were ere overwhelmed by the increase of English . " the immigration, and the New Netherlands were New Ncth- themselves invaded, whilst a colony of I made its appearance in heir. This colony was beaded l>y Peter Minuits him beinj; deposed lie had sold his services to Sweden. The settlement, prospering for a time, extended itself into what is now Pennsylvania, and became known as ' New Sweden.' The I >utch moreover became involved in an all but fatal war with the Indian I :avated by a lien herons night icre of Algonquins when they were soliciting the pro- I of the Dutch against their enemies the Mohawks time the Dutch had to SU ' only obtained a truce through the mediatioi Williams, whom we shall presently bear under of Rhode Island. But under the leadership of John l'n- dcrhill. a New England fugitive, th< j I the upper uid a solemn treaty was concluded (1645). Under an able and mild governor, Stuyvesant, the New Netherlands obtained at last from the mother-country freedom of trade, ami New Amsterdam began I . . A few- later Stuyvesant annexed \ ln 55)- Although during his absence New Amsterdam was at- tacked by the Indian . tored on his return. This was the most brilliant period of Dut< h colonisation 1 ; but the end wa near at hand At the Restoration, Cha inted the Dutch territory, from the Connect i< lit to tfce Delaware, to bis brothei the Duke 163S-9S. The Thirteen Colonics. 41 of York (1664.) A fleet was sent out, and the Dutch settlers, who had in vain demanded of the mother-country greater political freedom, offered no resistance. The ])lltth The colony and its capital both took the name territory _ -, , , . 11 1 • 1 1 coixiuered ef New York, whilst the territory between the by England, Hudson and the Delaware was granted by the fjj*' Duke of York to Berkeley, former governor of York and _, . . , , , XT Ncwjersey. Jersey, I his territory, under the name of New Jersey, became a proprietary government under Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. New York was indeed recovered for a time (166S-74) by Holland through bribery,but passed finally to the English by treaty in 1674. The first Eng- lish governors, however, allowed the colonists no more liberty than their Dutch predecessors had done, and it n\.i- only in 16S3 that, by William Pcnn's advice to the Duke of York, the authority of the provincial assembly was recognised, after the recall of an unpopular governor, Sir Edmund Andros. But on his accession to the throne James II. made Andros governor of New England, to which New York was united until the Revolution of 168S, when all the colonies subject to Andros revolted, New York among the rest, and he himself was sent to England for trial. In New York a committee of safety appointed Jacob Leisler governor, but after two years he was tried for treason and executed under the authority of a new governor appointed from England, and until the accession to the governorship of Lord Bellamont in 1698, New York was harassed by bad governors. The history of New York, it will be seen, has little to impress the mind. It was from the first above all things iicn ial settlement, in which freedom was n; ■ of late growth, of New Jersey still less is to "be said, although, when separated from New tedwiththai ->• 1 , t^ , • . 1 of I'ennsyl- 1 ork at the English conquest, it became vani rapidly peopled, thanks to a liberal constitution which gave .;- T/ie War of American Independence, .\.i>. .1 of worship and the exclusive li.^ht of self-tax. i- ry, however, soon 1" mixed up with that oft! >ny of the sub- group. ■r,-. — Though lying Pennsyi- smith of New York, Pennsylvania 1>< last founded m orally rather to the more northern than to of the re- the southern col ■ born ot what may be termed the reli There were Quakers in Maryland as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, anil they were at first left unmolested. But by thee those in America; persecutions of the ' Friends ' commenced which dclphia : m New England were carried as t.ir as death. Quakerism, however, took root in America ;and long the proprietary rights of Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret in both West and East New ] were bought by Quakers, William l'enn, son of Admiral Penn, anions the number. In [682 l'enn obtained from Charles II., in exchange for a claim of 16,000/. against the . the grant of a large tract <>f country west nf the Delaware, partly settled already by Swedes and Dutch* men. Km :e sent out, l'enn himself BOOB fol- . and in 1682 founded the city of Brotherly Love, (Philadelphia). He soon afterwards concluded ■; brated treaty with the Indians, which. Strange I b that the history of the Pennsyl- vania Colony knows of no Indian wars. The growth of Philadelphia was extremely rapid ; it is said to have in- 1 more in thr Kan New York in half a century. There wen. | . boundary disputes with Maryland, whit ! t" l'enn of half y .mil the I >i laware. . U rritory, known at ti: ;liice lower counties' 1602-171S. The Thirteen Colonics. 43 of Pennsylvania, was eventually separated fron Pennsyli \atiia, and became the Cdlony of Delaware. The constitution of Pennsylvania was liberal, all sects being tolerated, and the franchise being open xhePenn- to every freeman who believed in God and syivaniacon- abstained from work on the Lord's day. But Penn's pro- after Pcnn's departure for Europe, in 1684, D . n " ar y 1 1 > -t> tights conns- discontents arose ; his rents were in part ap- cated in propriatcd for the public service ; and at the Revolution of 1688 his proprietary rights were confis- cated, lie died involved in debt in 1718. 10,11,12,13. New England; Massachusetts, Con- necticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. We come now to the colonics of the New England , . , rIvat . sub-group, which from the first have formed, tempts at and still do form, the very backbone of the American nation. Their history goes back to the early years of the seventeenth century. Fruitless attempts at settlement were made on the northern coast in 1607-8, and again in 1615; from the second, under Smith of Virginian fame, the name of New England which he gave to the country remained. A Company established by King James, and known as the Council of Plymouth (1620), received enormous powers, and the ownership of a belt of territory stretching from ocean to ocean, between the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude. But the coloni- sation of New England was not to issue from its monopoly. A congregation of Separatists in the North of England, formed towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth (1602), had. to escape religious persecution, and not without much difficulty, taken refuge in Hoi- 'Pugrim land (1608). But the climate, the manners, the language of the country repelled them. Persecuted though they had been by their countrymen, they were Englishmen to the backbone. They durst not return to 44 T/te War of American Independence. .\.r>. English soil. But the spirit of enterpri: they thought they might still live for England, if England. They applied I ipany, the then owners of \"u . on to en thither. ' We are ki 4 in a 1: d covenant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make ascience, and by virtue wl we hold oui trictly tied to all care of ea< h other's good, and of the whole. It is not with us as w ith men whom small things can discount to them by the Company, though, as events turned out, it never became available i ital for the enterprise was obtained on onerous terms from London merchants. Of two ships which set sail in the from Southampton, the Mayflower and thi ".the latter refused to proceed, and when the Mayflower finally left Plymouth on September 6, 1620. the little party vn duccd to 102 souls. Their destination was the 11 river; but after 05 days' sail they saw land far to the north- . and two days later came to anchor within the harbo ' mding, they entered amongst themselves into the following compact, which ed by all the forty-one men, gentle and simple, who, with their families, made up the 102: — * In the name of God, Amen. We whose nanu undermentioned, the loyal subjects of OUI King James, by the 1 ' aving I ment of tl an faith, and honour of our kin;; and count] i to plant thl the northers p ■ irginia, do bj ily and mutually, in the I od, and one of another, covenant and combine • body and furtherance of the 1 ; and by virtue i6io -■ The Thirteen Colonics. 45 hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, arts, (-(institutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 1 1 tli of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland the 18th, and of Scotland the hftie-fourth, Anno Dom. 1620.' It is not too much to say that all that is highest in the polity of the United States to the present day has its root in this 1 ompa< t. by which freemen bind themselves before ( iod to laws which they have freely adopted. There can be no greater contrast than between New England, cradled thus in law, and the Carolinas. cradled in defiance of law. The whole future history of the States in question is in fact prefigured at their birth. The season was far advanced, for those northern lati- tudes, when the Pilgrims arrived. During the month of hardships which was spent in exploration of Earlydiffi- the coast, the water sometimes freezing on cuIti «. their clothes and making them 'like coats of iron,' many of them took, in the language of one of them, ' the original Of their death.' At last they fixed upon Plymouth Bay for a settlement, and on Monday, December 11 (O.S.) or 22nd (N.S.) 1620, now ' Forefathers' Day' in New Eng- land, they landed on that which is now ' Forefathers' Rock.' During the winter many of their number died, the women first. By the end of March 1621, they were reduced to about sixty. An arrival of thirty-five new emigrants in the autumn, without provisions of their own, reduced the w hole colony for six months to half allowances. Indeed their condition was frequently one of starvation until the harvest of 1623, after which ' there was no general m Independence. .\a>. want Tlicir shipments for England wci' cured, and their English partners would only supply them with goods at - They (ailed in all their attempts to obtain a royal charter. At the cm! of ten years the colony contained no more than 300 souls. But with stubborn heroism they held on. Space forbids us to linger over the the noblest probably in the annals I 'inn. One of ii Feal < . i ... . . 1 . t not 1 with the looked. The first relations of the Pilgrims with the Indians had been hostile. A shower ' of arrows had been discharged on one of the exploring parties at a place afterwards known as ■ Encounter.' But on March [5, [621, a solitary Indian, it is said, came out from the forest, and advanced towards a party of them, saying the word • welcome.' He had learnt some English from the fishermen who fre- quented the coast, and although his tail Of the usual violence on the part of a white man named Hunt, who, having enticed Indians on board his ships, bad d them off and sold them d him- self friendly, and stayed the night. He left next morning with a few : and returned some days afterwards with five other Indians, including oncof the men kidnapped by Hunt, who became interpr e ter to the English, On March 22 they had an interview with the great Indian sachem of iintry, Massasoit, and .1 I and del n New England.' 1 ems • > obtain allies against his enemies the Nan.! and their chid head of 5,000 warri or s . Probably ■ the alliance, a mes- from Canonii d in the autumn of and left with the English a token of war in the shaj bundle tied in a kc's skin. Governor iC22. TJie Thirteen Colonics. 47 Bradford, the elected chief of the colonists, sent back the skin filled with powder and bullets, and the Indians refrained from war. But the Pilgrims were in the fol- lowing year involved in hostilities through the miscon- duct of another colony of mere adventurers, known as Weston's colony, who wasted their stores, hired them- selves to the Indians to obtain food, and then robbed them. It will be remembered that this was the period when the Virginian colonists were involved in a fierce war with the Indians, consequent upon the Indian massacre (1622). The facts were known to both races, and a con- spiracy similar to the Virginian one was formed for the ex- termination of the New England pale-faces as well. Mas- sasoit revealed the design, and a colonist named Standish, with four othes, < having got the chiefs of the conspiracy into a wigwam, gave the signal, sprang suddenly upon them, secured the door, and buried his knife in the heart' of one of the fiercest of the chiefs. The other Indians were massacred, except one who was hanged. The Indians took to flight, and eventually sued for peace ; but Weston's colonists all perished or disappeared. Friendly intercourse with the Indians seems afterwards to have been renewed, yet to have itself aided in causing the degeneration of their race. The English, The Indians being far superior to the Indians in agriculture, degenerate. soon produced more corn than enough for their own con- sumption, which they sold to the Indians. On the other hand, the only articles in which a profitable trade could be carried on by the colonists with England were beaver and other skins, which the Indians procured for them. Hence it came to pass that the Indians 'abandoned cul- ture.' and betook themselves entirely to the chase, trusting to the colonists for their supply of corn. Their doom was as thoroughly scaled by this step backwards from the posi- tion of a semi-agricultural community into that of mere .; The War of American Independence. hunters, as it would have been by immed rmina- \'arious other settlements followed those of the Pil- grims. Sir Ferdinai s and John Mason obtained from the Council of Plymouth an extensive grant of land, which resulted in the settlement of what i the State of .New Hampshire. John Endicott, under Settlement another grant from the same Company, made a settlement in Massachusetts Bay (i< at Salem, a town which was soon afterwards KiWc^' eclipsed in importance by Boston. A young Vill _ preacher, Roger Williams, who had settled in the former town. v. as sentenced to exile by the Puritans for teaching absolute freedom of conscience. He took to Bight ; wandered about for fourteen week-, knowing what bread or bed did mean.' But the Indians, to whom he had always been friendly, received him. From the Narragan us ami Mi.mto- nomo, he received an extensive grant of land, which eventually into the colony of Rhode Island. It was to be a pure democracy, without any state-worship. All manner of fugitives resorted to him, and the colony inert and prospered, though Cotton Mather, a celebrated New England divine, spoke of Rhode Island as a ' collin i 'everything but Roman Catholii s and true Christians.' 1 1..- ■ owth of Ma 'on attrai numbers of emigranl , Three .thousand came in including two men whose names were soon to lebrated in their mother i ountry, the her Hugh Peters, ami Henr) Vane the Sir Harry Vai Subj< Vane into trouble with the Puritans through favouri Hutchinson, another . a womai • i ' tquence but extreme • 635-7. The Thirteen Colonies. 49 religious views, who was eventually excommunicated. Mrs. Hutchinson took refuge in Rhode Island, and h;u ing after her husband's death moved into the Dutch territory, was killed with all her family, except one daughter, by the Indians. Vane left for England (1637.) Vane's departure took place during the first great Indian war of the northern colonies, arising out of the settlement of what is now the State of Connec- Settlement ticut, by emigrants from Massachusetts. Two cf^X^'' Englishmen had been killed by the Pequod Pequod war. Indians — the first, it would seem, only in revenge for the kidnapping and murder of an Indian chief. An expedition ent from Massachusetts which ravaged the Indian country, burning houses and corn. The Pcquods tried to gain over the Marragansett Indians, their hereditary foes, into .in alliance against the whites. Roger Williams in vain endeavoured to conciliate the red men ; but the Narra- gansetts eventually declined to join the league. Connec- ticut declared war upon the Pcquods ; a body of eighty English set out to attack them. The Narragansetts would not join them, deeming them too few ; but Uncas, chief of the Mohcgans, brought 100 warriors to their aid. The combined body surprised at night the chief village ot the Pequods, set it on fire, ' formed a circle round the burn- ing huts, and slew their enemies without mercy as the fire drove them into sight. Six hundred Pequods, men, women, and children, perished in an hour, while but two of the Eng- lish were lost.' Three hundred more Pequods who arrived the next morning were defeated after a fierce resistance, and the rest of the tribe driven from place to place and but- chered, alike by the red-faces and the pale; 200 surrendered, and were either sold into slavery or incorporated among the friendly tribes, and the Pequod people disappeared from the face of the earth. The turn of the Narragansctts came next. Connec- .v. //. 1 50 Tkt War of American Independi . . ticut a ■ plotting. immoned to I dared bis him • the Mohe I that he i aid be He wat< bed for his opportunity, and But the Mi td the kill him, and took hint to Hartford I till the f tin.- United I later. 'I he < omm doubt, and I five ministers. They quoted the .1 Miantonomo He red over I ither, marching behind him, sunk a hatchet into his brain. Such n tent Indian prin< e th( I New whom a | red that be, ' with his i ■ . ever i Mention made ju I the ' ' United i markable unio the four i the giant ■ m th<- first treat) I Sfc bound 1 of Si ent of • •• l ompany had b ed to be pro- Mi England. £ till ami ra commission had been issued for tin- Am< bbisbop Laud ami others t<> 1643 5 '• The Thirteen Colonies. 51 establish the government, frame the laws, regulate the church, inflict punishments, ami even to revoke charters surreptitiously obtained or harmful to the prerogative. When su< h measures were set at nought, emigration was restrained, no person over the rank of a servant being allowed to leave tor the colony without the permission of the commissioners, (inly with the growth of parlia- mentary resistance to Charles I. did a friendlier spirit prevail. The neighbourhood of the Dutch appears to haw suggested the idea of federation. But of the four settlements which formed ' the United Colonies of New England' in 1643 only two, Massachusetts and Connecti cut, still remain on the list of States, the other two, New Haven and Plymouth, having long since lost any separate existence. Whilst the local self-government of the several colonies was jealously reserved, the conduct of the general affairs of the confederacy was entrusted to com- missioners, two from each colony. These not only had charge of the common relations with the Indian tribes, but concluded an actual treaty with the governor of the neighbouring French colony of Acadia. During the civil war, Massachusetts for a time re- mained neutral, and claimed a large degree of indepen- dence. It refused twice, both before and after the Massachu- execution of the kin?, to accept a new charter s «ts during , , , . . the Com- from the parliament, and through its agent in monwcaith. England publicly denied the jurisdiction of parliament over America; but it acknowledged the Commonwealth, and, on the passing of an ordinance against the royalist colonies, prohibited for a time, by its own enactment, intercourse with Virginia. With Cromwell indeed, who seems to have had a strong sympathy with the New Englanders, the friendliest relations were established, and he even endea- voured to procure settlers for Ireland from among them. His Navigation Act (165 1) — far less oppressive than that of E 2 ;j 'flu- War of American Independen the Restoration eived by the colonies, and indeed scarcely enforced. The American colonies remained in profound peace until the Restoration, and acknowh in turn without demur Richard Cromwell as Pn and Charles II. as king. Some important events in New England b belong to the period of the Restoration ( 1 660-88 . The TheRoto- enlargement of Connecticut by the ration. t j un w j t j, j t ( ,f ^ cw Haven (1665) 111. IV be dismissed in a line. 'King Philip's war' longer notice. me sincere attempts had been made in New England for the conversion of the Indians. John Eliot, known as "the Apostle <>f the Indians,' devoted him- self to those of Massachusetts, and translated the Bible Kin into Algonquin. Vill ' praying Indians ' were established ; an Indian became a Ba< he But «>ther tribe alike of the white man and of his faith The new-comers bout two to one <>f the red men. The Wamp ..: • the English, found themselves crowded into two peninsulas, and almost driven into thi ( Hil MaSSaSOit was dead. < >f bis tWO SOnS, One had died of .1 fever 'brought on by mortification at being an and imprisoned by the English.' His other BOn, wl mained in of the chieftainship, was Philip — Kin^ r Philip, as he is always termed in Am' history the leader in the last of the Indian wars of New England it seems i ertain that there wis no consp the origin of the w.ii dental An Indian informer was killed by his tribe : the murderers were ted, tried, and < om i< :ed bj a I'll \, of which, it must i. In revenge, the young Indian braves attacked an English 1665-84. The Thirteen Colonies. 53 settlement and killed eight or nine Englishmen (1675). King Philip is said to have wept when he heard that a white man's blood had been shed. He had but 700 warriors, and was surrounded by the English ; he knew that victory was Impossible. Within a week the Indians were driven from their quarters ; within a month Philip was a fugitive among the Indians of the interior. But it was only now that the real danger of the war for the colonists began. Philip moved from place to place among the Indian tribes, urging them to war against the English. From Maine to Connecticut they rose, almost to a tribe; the Mohegans forming the one signal exception. The Narragansetts, who had promised neutrality, were dragged into the fray. For a whole year terror reigned. Twelve or thirteen towns were destroyed, and 600 houses burnt. The same number of colonists perished, forming, it was reckoned, one-twentieth of the whole number of able- bodied men. Put the continuousness of civilised warfare soon broke the energy of the Indians. The Narragansetts were destroyed. The New Hampshire tribes gave in. Philip, chased from place to place with the remnant of his . broken-hearted through the capture of his wife and child, turned his face once more to the hunting-grounds of his fathers. Here at last he was surprised in a swamp by a body of partisans, and shot by an Indian among them. His body was brutally treated, his head carried round the colony in triumph, his son sold as a slave in Bermuda. So perished the last of the blood of Massasoit, the first Indian ally of the Pilgrims (1676). King Philip's war lasted but a year. The struggle of Massac husetts against the oppressions of the Restoration may be said to have lasted twenty -eight years. In the Course of it her charter was declared forfeited (1684). The- Assembly of Rhode Island was dissolved ; the sur- render of the Connecticut charter, which was hidden 54 The War of American Indtpendet away in a 'charter oak' till the Revolution of , demanded : and thr< rule, of ich almost ipular nment in New England was swept endured under Sir Edmund Andros, in ment. ine •'■ hands was concentrated the government nf all the northern colonies luth as the frontier of Maryland. Hut on the news of the I lution single wave of insurrection swept away from every colony the who tn, and William and Mary were proclaimed every where with en- thusiastic !• Two years after the Revolution- war having bi out between England and Trance in 16S9 — the g- if Massachusetts establish the fall of Andros WVfrre (1690', summoned together at New York a with the congress of deli I m all the tilt 1748. far as Maryland. The result of their del tions was nothing less than a resolution to attempt the conquest of the then French provii inada, by a land attack on Montreal, while a fleet from M I should assail I ng that the French population of the North American colonies, by the only 11.:. . a twentieth of that of the English colonit m might seem an easy .me. The maritime provin ': soon annexed but the Freni h. a mentioned, win- on friendly terms with the Indian ad a war with Fran< e was nearly the same thing as a general Indian war. A! u tin- [roquois took Montreal, tin- colonist everywhere repelled, and theii [by the • the India; led or not by the I ■ I n^lish vn I m Huds< iy the 1689-1748- ^ c Thirteen Colonics. 55 The result of the war was favourable to France. The Peace of Ryswick (1697) caused little more than a sus- pension of hostilities, and the war that broke out again in 1701 was marked by the conquest of Acadia, and by an attempt to conquer Canada, but was otherwise nearly as disastrous to the English colonists of the north as the former one. It was, however, terminated by a very favourable peace, that of Utrecht (1713)? the terms of which have been already mentioned. From this period till the middle of the century there was only border warfare witli the Indians, during which the French missions in Massachusetts, among their allies, the Abe- nakis of Maine, whose territory had been comprised in the French cessions at the peace, were ruthlessly de- stroyed; cessions of territory being obtained, by fair or foul means, from the Indians. These gave local occa- sion to a war known in colonial history as ' King George's War," corresponding to the war termed that of the Austrian succession in Europe, in which a force consisting of New En-landers only took Louisburg, the stronghold of the then French colony of Cape Breton, and the strongest fortress in North America. It was, however, restored to France (to the great disgust of the colonists) at the peace of 1748. We have now come to the period when there begins to be, for the English settlements of North America, a general colonial history. But before entering upon it, as must be done in order to make our acquaintance with some of the future leaders, military or civil, in the War of Independence, a few words must be said of the third element in the colonial population. III. The Black Max. It has been already said that the first negro slaves were brought by Dutchmen for sale into Virginia in 1620. 56 The War of American IndefS a.d. The New England public generally was .it fit to the practice, and there is even a record of . <•, who had been sold l>y a member of the Boston church, being ordered to be sent luck to . Yet nc re to be found in New England as earl) d Connecti- cut recognised the lawfulness of slavery ; Mas however, only when voluntary, or in the < iptives taken in war. Rhode Island, more . made ille- gal the perpetual service of 'black mankind.' requiring them to be set free after two years, the period of white men's indentures— a condition which, however, would only tend to the working slaves to death in the allotted time. But although there was no importation of negroes on any considerable scale into New England, the ships by whi< h the slave trade was mainly carried on were those from Mas- sachusetts and Rhode Island, which carried rum to and brought back slaves to the West Indies and the south- ern colonies. In Maryland slavery had lished at once ; in South Carolin I ire observed, it came into birth with the colony itself. The failui hide it from < .■ been told already. The guilt of the institution cannot, how fairly charged on the Elizabeth had partner in the second \ John Hawkins, the first English slave captain. 1. chartered a slave trading company tries I. a second 1631 ; Charles 1 1, a third which the Duke of York "as president, and rth, in which I f, as well as the Duke. Nor did the expulsion of the Stuarts tg in thi land's sharp. 1 Utrecht 1 7 ' 3) hameful monopoly of i>. the slave trade with the Spanish i63S-i75°- The Black Man. 57 Indies undertaking 'to bring into the West Indies of America belonging to his Catholic Majesty, in the space of thirty years, 144,000 negroes,' at the rate of 4,800 a year, at a fixed rate of duty, with the right to import any further number at a lower rate. As nearly the whole of the Gulf of Mexico were still Spanish, England thus contributed to build up slavery in most of the future Southern States of the Union. Whether for foreign or for English colonies, it is reckoned that from 1700 to 1750, English ships carried away from Africa probably a million and a half of negroes, of whom one-eighth never lived to see the opposite shore. In the same spirit England dealt with her colonies. When Virginia imposed a tax on the import of negroes, the law had to give way before the interest of g rtof the African Company. The same course was siaveryand followed many years later towards South Caro- tr ^je by the Una, when an act of the provincial assembly mother r country. laying a heavy duty on imported slaves was vetoed by the crown (1761). Indeed the title to a political tract published in 1745, 'The African slave trade the great pillar and support of the British plantation trade in America,' appears fairly to express the prevalent feeling of the mother country on the subject before the War of Independence. The most remarkable relaxation of the Navigation Laws in the eighteenth century was the throwing open the slave trade by the act 'for extending and improving the trade to Africa ' (1750 ; 23 Geo. II., . which after reciting that 'the trade to and from is very advantageous to Great Britain, and neces- sary for the supplying the plantations and colonies there- unto belonging with a sufficient number of negroes at ;iahle rates,' enacted that it should be lawful 'for all his Majesty's subjects to trade and traffick to and from any port or place in Africa, between the port of Sallee in The War of American Independence. South Barbaiy and the C 1 Hope.' By 1763, there were about 300,000 n< the North American color: Cent) \xl Colonial Hist When ' Kin:,' 1 War 1 ended by the restoration of Louisburgto the French, it seemed as if it had been fought out for nothing. Yet it was destined to have a place in the history of the world, through •: e onnexion with n of a certain ex-pni Franklin, devil. wh<> - ome one of the leaders in the coming stri: Dgland and he Tins w.i^ Benjamin Franklin. Franklin represents, under its nobli t, the shrewd side of the American character, before it has developed into ' cuteness ' or ' smartness.' The theaut'hor son °^ a soa P anc ^ c;lIlc '' e manufacturer in Bos- ofthefii iorn 1706), he had been empli ■ • in cutting wicks and filling candle- ; :< -"~- mould .m in--.iti.iMc reader. At twelve he was apprenticed to an elder brother, a printer, who in 17^1 established a paper called the id Courant,' and young Benjamin at fifteen both ; in printing, distiibuted tl . and contributed But the paper got mi" trouble ee criticism <-f the ministers of religion. thrown into prison for a month, and forbidden to print the epl undei Benjamin escaped with an admonition. The • promising, and moreover his brother was ■1 Benjamin ran aw 1 emplo) incut, and after various Philadelphia with a dollar in his 1 .1 situation in 1 pered. 1748-64. General Colonial History. 59 He was able to come to Europe, and after eighteen months 1 residence in London returned to Philadelphia, and set up a printing press of his own. Besides being read) to put his hand to any branch of the printing trade. ikl ' make types and woodcuts, and engrave vig- nettes in copper. 1 He became printer to the Assembly ; established .1 newspaper ; the first American circulating library (1730) ; a celebrated almanac, called ' Poor Richard's Almanac' (1732), which he continued for twenty-five years ; and the American Philosophical Society ( 1 736). He also became clerk to the Assembly. To him again was due the first permanent military organi- sation in the colonies, through the establishment, during King George's War, of a militia in Pennsylvania (1747), comprising over 120 companies of 100 men each. Frank- lin was elected to the command of a regiment, but would only serve as a private. A few years later his discoveries in electricity, crowned by the feat of drawing lightning from the clouds by means of a key and a silken kite (1751 .rendered his name famous in science throughout the world. Like King George's War, a desultory colonial warfare known as the ' French and Indian War,' which preceded and at last merged in the war known in ., he , French Europe as the Seven Years War, has be- ^d Indian come historical, as having first brought into George prominence a young surveyor named George Washin s ton - Washington. The boundary between the French and ih colonies to the west of the latter had never been fixed. A company called the Ohio Company, of which Augustine Washington was a member, had obtained from the English crown a grant of 500,000 acres on the Ohio. Hut the valley of that river had already been taken possession of by the French, who broke up a h post on the Miami river, one of the northern 60 The War of American Independence, a. i>. affluents of the < >hio, carrying off i;s occup nada, and severely punishing the Ind of the English Two posts were even established in north-w< Pennsylvania, i . son of Augustine Washington, had attracted the notice of Lord Fairfax, an extensive landowner in Virginia, and through his influence had been appointed at nineteen adjutant- general. He was now sent by Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia 1753 to the two new French | >k the reason of the French intrusion on British territory. The French commanders made no secret of their pur| they were to take possession of the whole of the Ohio . and destroy every English ; tidst many 5, Washington found li - k. and reported the results of his mission. By his recommendation, the Ohio Company ' nstructing a fort on the I what is now Pitti ' the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela rivers. But it was taken by the French before the spot could be reached by a body of soldiers to whose command Washington had succeeded on the march ; and the fort was completed by the French under the name of Fort Duq I ' night skirmish with the Fren< h and a gallant defence in a StOCkai which Washington had thrown up with his own ha: first shovelful of earth, only resulted in h to march away with the honours of war. retaining andba l he French occupied the whole country to the Allegh The 9 felt to be from all 1!. north of the Po Ubany to the conned. \ rward by Benjamin I : nklin, and to the ording to this plan romp '" Illcet a "- 174S-64. General Co/on id! History. 61 Dually at Philadelphia, with power to originate all laws, appoint civil officers, issue money, deal with the Indians, regulate trade, govern new settlements, raise soldiers, and levy taxes, subject, however, to the veto of a govcrnor- .1 appointed by the crown, each colony retaining its own legislature and independence in internal affairs. Nothing came of it at that time ; the seed was one which needed yet nearly a quarter of a century for its growth. The English Government became alarmed, and sent over troops under General Braddock. Four ,. . , , , . . , funeral expeditions at once were planned, the principal i: r .uidock's one, commanded by General Hraddock himself, dcfeat with George Washington as his aide-de-camp, against the French in the Ohio valley. Braddock derided all warnings of Indian surprises, and with his 2,000 men advanced slowly, striking tenor at first both into the French and the Indians. On July 9, 1755, moving along the back of the Monongahcla river, on a path about twelve feet wide, with wooded ravines ten feet deep on each side, which eventually met, he was suddenly attacked at the point of junction by a much smaller force of French and Indians, extending on both sides. The war-whoops and the shots from unseen foes struck a panic terror into the English troops, and only the Virginia Rangers, a colonial corps, offered an effectual resistance. Braddock, after seeing all his aides-de-camp disabled except Wash- ington, after having five horses wounded under him, and receiving a musket ball through the lungs, at last by Washington's advice gave the signal for a retreat. The retreat became a rout, and stores and artillery, and the private papers of the general, were left behind. The loss amounted to 26 officers killed, 37 wounded, and 714 privates, while the enemy lost only 3 officers and 30 men killed, and as many wounded. Washington, alter dis- placing conspicuous bravery on the battle-field, did his 62 The War of. American In a.d. ; but the p.m. to t lie m of Will on which the fugitives fell back. Will's deck was evacuated, and ioo.ooo/. of artillei I the fourth his defeat. Of the other tluv ed in the rebuilding :■■■ oing of a fori ai , at the ith-easl end ■■! Lalo i tory over the French in the election of Fort William I n ol of Lake i The third, landing the Hay of Fundy, subdued the country known as New Brunswick, between Maine and Nova This was followed by the barbarous measure of pulsion of the A or French of Nova £ 7,000 of whom were shipped offtO the southern colonies, an event to which Mr. Longfellow's well-known p • Evangeline ' owes it-- sul War was only formall) declared in 1756. and its fust operations were again entirely favourable to I who under the distinguished general, Mont- calm, reduced successively both F< and Fort William Henry, the latter being followed by a i e of the Indian allies ■ • .■ h. At tl 1 that the Engli h ons in America were to those of the ( >n the ac< ession to power of the elder Pitt, the ' Lord Chatham ' of history, mon 1 taken by the English, and the tide of fortune .v in their favour. upied Louis] urg,and took I dw.ird's I An attai k on I on 1... . ■ ■ ed; but Washington, with his Virginia 1748-64. General Colonial History. 63 Rangers, forming part of an army under General Forbes, drove the French out of Fort Duquesne (1758), and changed the name of the place to Pittsburg, in honour of the great minister. On his return from this expedition, he was elected (at twenty-seven) a member of the Vir- ginian House of Burgesses. The next year was marked by the driving of the French from the country between Pittsburg and Pake Erie, from their fort of Niagara, from Ticonderoga and Pake Champlain, and still more by the magnificent achievement of the battle and taking of Quebec, in which the commanders en both sides, Wolfe and Montcalm, perished. This event was followed in 1760 by the surrender of Montreal, with the whole of da, and the two important posts of Mackinaw, at the junction between Pakes Michigan and Huron, and Detroit, which commands the water communication be- tween Pakes Huron and Erie. When, three years later, peace was concluded (February 10, 1763), Spain gave up Florida to England; and France formally ceded, in Ninth .America alone, Pouisiana to the Mississippi (without New Orleans), all Canada, Acadia, Cape Breton and its islands, and the fisheries with a few reservations. Never it was said, was so glorious a war, so honourable a peace. Although extending beyond the period of which we have been speaking, there is a sequel which belongs to it, in the shape of a war with the Indians, p ont j ac ' s d after their leader, an Ottawa chief, ^ V: > r - ' Pontiac's war.' Misled by his eloquence, a number of Indian tribes suddenly rose on the English, surprised nine garrisons in a day, occupied the- fort of Mackinaw, and Pittsburg and Detroit. But the garrison of the latter held out for months, and, as usual, the Indians could not keep together. Pontiac held on till all but his Ottawas deserted him. All the hostile tribes, two only excepted. 64 The War of American Independence. a.i>. successively treated with the English (1764). Pontia among the Illinois, and tried to form another con- federacy against the English, but was stabbed at a council by an Indian who was friendly to them. This was Vir- ginia's last Indian war, a-, King Philip's war had been the last Indian war of New England. At the close of this period the most populous of the American colonies were Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Boston and Philadelphia containing nearly ues m 1763. !g )000 inhabitants each, while New York had as yet only 12,000. The population was chiefly agricultural, though manufactures were already largely carried on in the North. There was a brisk coast trade, and the New Englanders had engaged in the whale fishery. Rice, indigo, and to some extent cotton, were produced in the South; tar and turpentine in North Carolina: tob as well as the almost universal maize, in Virginia and .Maryland. CHAPTER III. fUUSES OF DISO'NU Nl. 5TRUGG1 nil WAR (176; MONTI ILM, it is said, predicted that if France lost .„■% America, in ten years more America would be in revolt against England. He was not far out in his prediction. It may have already appeared from the preceding sketch that the histor) of the English colonies in North America pi curious blending of loyalty f nd and disaffection. The colonists were always to fly to arms for the honour of the British name — and the enlargement of their own borders — 1660-79. Causes oj Discontent. 65 against their French and Spanish neighbours ; but within their own limits there was a constant straining, rising not unfrcquently to rebellion, against the authority which the crown, its representatives or grantees, sought to exercise over them. One abiding source of irritation, since the latter half of the seventeenth century, lay in the English Navigation Laws. The Navigation Act of the Common- The Navi- wealth had had for its object the securing to s atlonlaws - English vessels the carrying trade of the colonies with England. The Navigation Acts of Charles II. confined to English vessels, navigated by Englishmen, all importation of merchandise into and exportation from the colonics, and even forbad any importation of European commodities into colonies except from England, whilst aliens were also for- bidden to act as merchants or factors in the colonies (1660, 1662). Still more monstrous was a subsequent act, which forbad all the principal colonial staples to be exported otherwise than to England, so that a duty equivalent to the English customs duty was laid on the importation of such articles from one colony into another. All the colonies soon began to suffer under this legis- lation. We have seen by what wild expedients Virginia sought to defend herself against its ill effects. Struggle The struggle against it in New England de- a « a ". ,stt . he ot> b & Navigation serves closer notice, as having been carried on Law . in by means of legislation. On the first passing f a nd espe- of the Navigation Act the General Court of c,all y- ichusetts published a declaration of rights, which included that of rejecting 'any parliamentary or royal imposition pit judicial to the country, and contrary to ony just act of colonial legislation.' It was only after this that Charles II. was proclaimed. Ten years after the passing of the Navigation Act it was not enforced in Massachusetts. It was only in 1679 that the General M. //. f a. n. I an invasion ol ted in •Ji.it • tla- laws of ] .n. Then n of the charters <>f tl i : Edmund Andi • f the / lerican, or, ■ ■ ment of the Restoration has •nark- ably that I % from the mother count: principle al i me — I the mother country to interfere in the internal d with the carrying on of their olution ■ I [ad • • k>. the rul 'i«i Andros might ml. Mon 1 by the ■ with whi< li William had been prc- >rs in inder it the 1 poinb '1 by ra. In N< * ill be • ruling f<>r ■ 1 upon as .i mart] I ■ ■ ■ ' : . X7I3-4S. Causes of Discontent. 6 J were so far relaxed that trade was permitted between Great Britain and Spain, and their respective plan- othercauses tations and provinces, 'where hitherto trade ofdi and commerce had been accustomed' — a clear indication of the habitual violation of the law up to that time. Sir Robert Walpole indeed made it a maxim to encourage the trade of the American colonies, passing over some of their 'irregularities' in trading with Europe. But the growth of manufactures in the colonies was dis- couraged on the express ground, as stated in a resolution of the House of Commons, that it ' tended to lessen their dependence on Great Britain.' The transport of hats, for instance, from one colony to another, was forbidden, because the manufacture of them was 'daily increasing in the British plantations in America' (1732). An absolute prohibition of the manufacture of iron wares was all but carried. Any relaxations of the navigation laws that were enacted, were mainly in favour of tropical products, as sugar and rice ; but parliament went so far as to impose a customs duty on the import of foreign wines and sugars into any of the American colonies (1793). If bounties were given on the import of naval stores from the North American colonies, the timber trade was hampered (as was indeed that of Scotland also) by the rights of preemption of the Commissioners of the Navy, and also by the requirement of a license for cutting down white pine. To these causes of discontent were added the impressment laws, the enforcement of which during the war of 1744-8 was openly resisted. Sir Charles Knowles, the British naval commander, finding his sea- men desert while lying off the Massachusetts coast, sent his boats to Boston to impress men in their stead. The people seized on the officers of the fleet who were in the town, and detained them for three days. The House of Representatives had to mediate before they were re- A.D. t the impressed im ■ • under t! • .until that the-!: them against th< l the worst • medonly to their j);in ned by th( pply to make the representatives of the crown their depen< ment in Ai only a burden on the osively of tea from England, wl i the ■ i he to h< >ltl • r the , ■ man who ■ who I allowing ■ • the world fur the intolerable ■ A. I VI- 1763-4- Causes of Discontent. 69 gation.' In other words, he was incapable of knowing a nation when he saw one, so long as it was an offshoot from another ; he could not admit that slips and cuttings would ever grow into trees. The act of 1733 by which a customs duty was laid on certain foreign imports into the American colonies had been continued from time to time. In The co]onial 1763, on the ground that it was 'just and ne- Revenue cessary ' that a revenue should be raised in his Majesty's dominions in America, ' for defraying the ex- penses of defending, protecting, and securing the same,' a new act was passed which, whilst reducing some of the existing duties, levied new ones on a number of other articles, including wines, besides enacting many harassing regulations. The navigation laws were at the same time more strictly enforced. The colonists protested, but submitted. What they claimed as yet was only representation in the British parliament. James Otis of Boston, who had Protests of been advocate-general for the crown, in a th e . c °'° nis ts: ( His; Samuel pamphlet entitled ' The Rights of the British Adams. Colonies Asserted and Proved' (1764), wrote : 'When the parliament shall think fit to allow the colonists a repre- sentation in the House of Commons, the equity of taxing the colonies will be as clear as their power is at present of doing it without.' With Otis, Samuel Adams was the most prominent of the protesting colonists. ' We claim British rights,' he said at a Boston town meeting, ' not by charter only, for what is that but a parchment ? but we claim them because we were born with them.' The dislike to the new customs duties was, however, far enhanced by the announcement already made (March 1764) by Grenville as Chancellor of the Ex- The Stamp chequer, of his intention to apply the stamp Act ' I?6s - duties to America. This intention was carried into effect 7° ■ -in the A ■ I a malady which is ..f his ■ duties, m a halfpenny pi r copy on e\ i".'."n the admi of any * ica with Franklin thought that ' the sun of liberty red it to be the dut] 'humbly and silently to in all the I the supra men v ading and In the k Henry, ii hts <>f ■ :i has 1. had HI ■ III. defl i on. dan hou» i I in N i being the The ; while, till, in July, v ted the in> 1765. Struggle before the War (1763-75). 71 other legislatures gradually did the same. Meanwhile agitation spread amongst the people. At A Boston, in August, Lord Bute, the English cpnvei minister, and Oliver, the Boston stamp-master, Bostonand were hung in effigy, left hanging all day, taken elsewhere - down at night, and carried on biers, in a great torchlight procession through the streets, to the cry of ' Liberty, Property, and No Stamps.' The stamp office, then being built, was levelled and set tire to, and the windows of Oliver's house broken, after which the figures were burnt amid the cheers of a vast multitude. Notwithstanding Oliver's public announcement that he would resign, riots broke out a few days later, in which the house of Governor Hutchinson was sacked; the rioters when arrested were rescued, and remained unpunished. The stamp-masters of New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, voluntarily resigned their offices ; those of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut were forced to do so. The last, a man named Ingersoll, being threatened with death by some 500 mounted farmers and freeholders, each armed with a white club, kept them at bay for three hours, but at last gave in, as it was ' not worth dying for.' As he rode back into Hartford on his white horse, with the crowd after him, he said that he now understood the meaning of ' Death on a pale horse, and hell following him.' There was more in all this than mere rioting. Already it had been written in a Boston paper that ' North Ameri- can liberty was dead, but she had left one son, Inde Independence, the hope of all when he should dence come of age.' 'Join or die' was the motto of spoTeifof; a new paper published at New York. And -V w York 11 ■ Congress on October 7, the Congress met at New .-»nd its pro- York, twenty-eight delegates strong, represent- M ing nine colonies— Massachusetts, Rhode 1 bland, Con- 72 '•■"■ • A.n. .■.\arc, I ■ . •■ irliament in wl the ' ' den, a. ■ nts drawn from royal . -li parliament « med as im- . and whilst '.ill due subordination to the par- r its 1 their dele- It] I neither be bent nor i n and all the royal goven any the J I into November i there was not a stamp- • imp to 1" • ■ ■ j ing the Stamp A ng the berty, whi( n with th< ■ • look it his | ■ ':■ t in ■ilincil. ho | ' rourt i hould be iwhile all went on as 1766-7. Struggle before the War (1763-75). 71 twccn the passing of the Stamp Act and the date appointed for carrying it into execution. The Rocking- ham Cabinet was far weaker than its prede- ingham cessor, but better disposed towards America, ^rejoices During the recess (January 1766) Pitt's advice that America was asked by the Cabinet as to the measures to be taken with regard to America. He gave it from his seat in parliament, which he had not for a long time attended. ' He could not be silent,' he said, ' on a question that might mortally wound the freedom of three millions of virtuous and brave subjects beyond the Atlantic Ocean. The Americans were the sons, not the bastards of Eng- land. They were entitled to the common right of repre- sentation, and could not be bound to pay taxes without their consent.' Later on in the debate, in reply to Gren- ville, who had charged the seditious spirit of the colonies to the factions in the House, Pitt uttered his famous words, soon echoed from shore to shore of the Atlantic : 'The gentleman tells us America is obstinate ; America is almost in open rebellion ; I rejoice that America has re- sisted? Yet even he, whilst recommending the absolute repeal of the Scamp Act, added : 'At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation, that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent.' His advice was followed on both points. A' year after it was passed, the Stamp Act was re- pealed, on the ground that its continuance The Strim 'would be attended with many inconveniences, Act re- and might be productive of consequences \\^\ \ greatly detrimental to the commercial interests tory Act - of these kingdoms.' (6 Geo. III. c. 11.) Put at the War of American Indep a. p. same time the I ty*s dominions i upon the crown and parliament ed that th< and planta ■ ight t>> be, sub- ordinai tent upon the imperial • and parliament of Great Britain ; ' and that the I with the advice and if parliament, 'had, hath, and "i ht to have, full power and authority to laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subje* ts of the if Great Britain, in all ca ever;' and; that all 'resolut. ■ 1 proceedings' in any -. whereby the power and authority of the parliament Britain to make laws denied or drawn into question, are ' utterly null and void to all intents and purposes whatsoever. 1 In the lir>t instance the repeal only of the obnoxious Stain: ed by the :atory i Act 1 '.. The i" them- 's uptojoy. Instead of the funereal tolling which e arrival imps, inerrs I m church to church. The « who had resolved n ir any doi stuff, bought iv r the Icing's birthday June 4 , giving the old to the rated a : bolid arable temper was ed to la->i long. The i il lent had not i< ot in : the 1 olonies, nor had . the right of taxation and of inti ' •• ade. An a< t of y, under | f forfeit ire of both I, the importation into Jamaii a -i l >o- iplesol the North Ann !,. a I 1766. Struggle before the War (1763-7$). 75 If another act of the same session somewhat reduced certain import duties payable in those colonies, it was more than counterbalanced by an act of the following session, known as the Revenue Act, imposing duties on the import from Great Britain into any colony or planta- tion in America, of glass, tea, paper, and other articles, and directing the application of the duties 'for defraying the charges of the administration of justice, and the sup- port of the civil government.' But there was another source of dissatisfaction. The American colonies had hitherto, for the most part, de- fended themselves against aggression, and had often undertaken, of their own accord, ex- tering Act. peditions against England's enemies. When ^','hc':w British troops had been sent over, quarters YorkAssem- had been found for them under provincial acts. y ' During the Seven Years War, Lord Loudoun, as com- mander-in-chief, had set the example of insisting on free quarters for his officers (1756). In 1765 the first ' Quar- tering Act' — afterwards continued yearly — was passed, requiring the colonies to provide the king's troops with certain stores, and with barracks. Massachusetts refused to supply stores in accordance with the requirements of the act ; New York did the same, passing an Act of Assembly of its own for similar purposes, but with incon- sistent provisions. In retaliation, the British Government now resorted to the severe measure of suspending the New York constitution ; an act being passed 'for restrain- ing and prohibiting the Governor, Council, and House of Representatives of the province of New York, until pro- vision shall have been made for furnishing his Majesty's troops with all the necessaries required by law, from passing or assenting to any Act of Assembly, vote, or resolution for any other purpose.' Strange to say, most of the above measures were The W ah. I under the admin of Pitt, now Earl of invitation had, although enf« byillni headofa Cabinet containing several to America Lord Shelburne in par- the Rockingham V. Lord Chatham's infirmities so increased upon him that -. « I . in for Bath, minister in the House of Lords, rilliant hw I ownshend, taking the lead in his venue from America. Chatham in vain tried to get rid of '1 . and instead of resigning, withd business, leaving the leadership to the Duke of March ii. 1767). He was even led to dc- clare that he would not retire from the ministry 1 - 7). Virtually the Cabinet forth the kin..; himself, 1 ally when, d death of Charles Townshend by the cl( ■ ment H I Shelburne ai to 1-ord I Lord Shelbun ttham, • ■ >h in • ient to l( for l I for 1 time in tin ' ' French prime in- : Jb, an Alsatian, wh< ! in the ■'■ 1767-S. Struggle before the War (1763-75). fj his minister in London, was paying court to Franklin. Before the time appointed (Nov. 20) for the collection of the new taxes, after a vain attempt to obtain an early- convening of the Legislature, the inhabitants of Boston met (Oct. 28, 1767), and resolved to forego the importa- tion and use of many articles of British production and manufacture, appointing a committee to obtain signatures to an agreement for this purpose, and direct- ing their resolutions to be forwarded throughout the colonies. The Massachusetts House of Assembly (Jan. 12, 1768) adopted a letter to be sent to their agent for communication to the British ministry, protesting, amongst other things, against all acts of the British parliament for taxing the colonies. A month later they sent a circular letter to all the colonies, requesting them to join in some suitable measure of redress. Petitions to the king, re- monstrances to the parliament, began to pour in. A sloop was discharged in Boston of a cargo of wines, whilst the tide-waiter on board was kept a prisoner in the cabin. The sloop was seized by the collector ; the collector's boat was dragged through the streets and burnt on the common (June 10). The captain was prosecuted, but no evidence was forthcoming, and his ship was restored to him. The Massachusetts Assembly, when requested by the governor, under the direction of the Secretary for the Colonies, to rescind the circular letter, refused to do so by 92 votes to 1 7. The Governor dissolved the Assembly. The merchants of Boston entered into an agreement against importation, and < appointed an influential com- mittee, who took measures to induce or force all to come into the agreement.' Women — 'daughters of Liberty' — gave up the use of tea. Choiseul was already thinking of offering a treaty of commerce to the Ameri- cans. Just at this time, moreover, the French population of Louisiana had risen upon the Spanish authorities, 7 s : The //". "/ Indepi and cl.iiim ; ublic, I 1>\ the French to t sh colonies. 1 The attempt was quelled in A ' the following but it showed that there \\a-< revolution in the air of the nent nard having refused to i^sue writs I a convention was called in Boston, after a precedent I n, at- from nearl) ev< inent in the colony, refused to break up at the bidd ir, and the members conducted their pn so adroitly that Attorney-General de Grey, when consul' whether they had been guilty of tr declared that he doubted whether they had been guilty of ert act, though he was sure they hail come 'within a hair's breadth awhile the ie, that a standing army I mi Septemb ent after the Convention broke up, I irrived in Boston from Halifax, with on board, and drew up in line, n, the gun ling to with lighted m rhey landed 1 r II, but quart* d, and ■-. that an. found, the end of the year then four tl ard, on ncd It was the ad an unl of Indian I I ■■■ ■ ' Lord North in parliamen' ■■ i think America ibly met in 1769 ; but finding itself surrounded bj to do i7f<9-7°- Struggle before the War (1763-75). 79 business. The feelings which had by this time been aroused in the breasts of men by no means of impulsive temperament, may be judged of by a letter of Washington to George Mason, dated April 5, 1769. 'At a time when our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom,' he wrote, it was clearly his opinion ' that no man should scruple or hesitate a moment to use arms in defence of so valuable a blessing,' although only as 'the last resource.' Yet for years after, as will be seen, he deprecated the idea of American independence. Nor did New England stand alone. Virginia passed strong resolutions, which were followed by others in both Carolinas, Delaware, Maryland, New York. The non-importation agreements spread everywhere non-impona- — Washington laid one before the Virginia As- tlon agr f!!" ° ments ; the sembly — and home manufactures sprang up. Boston The graduates of Harvard College, in Massa- chusetts, stood up to take their degrees, clad in New Eng- land black cloth. The imports from England into all the colonies fell off to a serious extent. Bitter feelings grew up between soldiers and citizens. There was rioting at New York; in the 'Boston massacre' three citizens were killed, and several wounded (March 5, 1770). The victims had a public funeral, and the troops were sent to their barracks. Lord North, who had succeeded to the premiership, thought to appease the discontent of the colonists through a compromise, by which all the obnoxious Lon , North duties were removed, except that on tea. attempts a To this henceforth the non-importation agree- the lea Act' ments (which indeed had only been fully f it:- I tie William surrendered by him to the royal mander-in-chief. The popular party in North Carolina, known as 'r cibly put down. Fugitives : among them, however, I the Alleghanii scended into the valley of the Tennessee, and there by written agn founded a small republic of their own of Illinois did not go quite so far, but refused to submit to the crown authorities, and claimed institutions like those of Connecticut. Virginia ted against the royal instructions which forbad the governor to assent to any law by which the importation es should be in any respect prohibited or obstructed. The spark of a new conflict flew out horn tiny Rhode Island, en for trade, whether legal or not. An Thebuming act had just been passed which made it a tal offence wilfully and maliciously to burn or destroy any ship or vessel of war, or any military, naval, or victualling d allowed trials for any SIN h offence committed out of the realm to lake inty within it. In the teeth of I , Rhode Island, a royal schooner, thi stationed on the < oast i>< prevent smuggling, 1. .huh she was pursuing into shoal : . and burnt by night (Jl of 500/. failed to | ■ >f the OUtJ Samuel Adams dow propounded a plan, which h< 1 been maturing for a whi I >r 1 reating ton set the example, Uy followed by the Massachu- 1 towns, then by Virginia, by i Una, and by all New England. Scarcely any ls consumed but Dut< h ; the Revenue Act proved a 1772-4- Struggle before the War (1763-75). 81 dead failure. In vain, to encourage consumption, did parliament grant a drawback on the export of tea to the American colonies (as also to Ireland), first of three-fifths of the English export duties, then of the whole ; in vain were shiploads of tea consigned to the colonies, instead of waiting for the orders which did not come. The ' Sons of Liberty' organisations, which had now been in existence for some years, determined that it should not be landed, or if landed, not sold. At Philadelphia and New York the ships were sent back without breaking bulk; at Charleston the tea was landed, but left to rot in damp cellars. At Boston, where Governor Hutchinson's sons were the con- signees, the governor gave orders that the ships should not sail till the duties were paid. For weeks the people kept watch on the docks to prevent the landing of the tea. At a great meeting of 7,000 people (December 16, 1773), to which men poured in from twenty miles round, fervid speeches were made by Samuel Adams, Josiah Ouincy, and others. Towards evening, at a war-whoop from the gallery, the meeting broke up, and some fifty sham Indians proceeded to the wharf where three tea-ships were moored, boarded them, and threw the contents of 342 chests of tea into the water ; the whole proceedings being carried on in perfect order, in the presence of a vast multitude. The Boston newspapers were pressing meanwhile for a Congress of American States to frame a Bill of Rights, or to form an American commonwealth. A month later (January 25, 1774), a Scotch preventive officer was tarred and fea- thered, and paraded under the Boston gallows. The news of this proceeding was received with indig- nation by the English Parliament, and there indignation was a talk of arresting Franklin, now the agent of Parlia- of four colonies. A petition which he had pre- Boston Port sented from the Massachusetts House of As- Act ' sembly to the Privy Council for the removal of the governor M. H. G 82 The War of American Independence, a.d. was dismissed, as 'groundless, vexatious, ami scandalous,' and he was himself deprived of 1 1 i — offii e of deputy post- • bid temporarily ' the landing and dis- charging, lading or shipping of goods, wares, and mer- chandise, at tlie town and within the harbour i which were placed in a state of quasi-blockade, oe of a group of five statutes of the same session 14 George 1 Undirected against the colonics, which were now virtually in a state of ubellion, ■.r_ The second aimed at securing the impartial ad- ministration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the c\r< ution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of Massai husetts B ty. It gave prote< tion to •rates and others against local process for acts done in the execution of their duty, allowing the taking of bail and the changing to am other colony, or to Great Britain, of the place of trial of magistrates, revenue officers, or ers indicted for capital offences in Massacfc A third act, 'for the better regulating the govern- ment of the pi 1 Massachusetts Bay in New Englai ed in part the Massachusetts charter. It transferred from the assembly to the governor t pointment I ted in him the I ntment and removal ol all judges of the infi 'id other legal officers, as well as of the chief justice after the firsl va .n the sheriffs so appointed the right of returning the ji and forbade m< thotit the 's consent, ■ fir tli«- ell CI On ntatnes and petty A fourth legalised the quartering of troops in the North American colonies. The fifth, professing to make ion f>r thr government ol the pro- ,n North Ami 1 i« a, 1 extended the limits of 1774- Struggle before the War (1763-75). 83 the province to the Ohio and the Mississippi, so as to include five of the present States of the Union : Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Although some of these bills were vigorously opposed in parlia- ment by Burke, Band, and others, all were carried by large majorities. Yet the issue seemed to be clearly seen. In the debate on an address to the crown which had preceded the five measures, Wcdderburn (afterwards Lord Loughborough) had declared the leading question to be ' the dependence or independence of America. Outside of parliament, two men of very different opinions were bold enough to advocate American independence : Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, a well-known free-trader, and John Cartwright, afterwards an equally well-known radical. But public opinion ran the other way, and as a concession to it, the reporting of debates in parliament was allowed for the first time. The singular fact, that England thus owes one of the greatest safeguards of her freedom to the attempt to coerce America, has often been noted. Lord North had declared that if his measures were firmly sustained, ' peace and quietude ' would ' soon be restored.' The result was far otherwise. On . - r 1 —, „ _,„ , .... Protests of the first news of the Boston Port Bill the Vir- Virginia and ginian House of Burgesses entered a protest ^s Sa a hu ~ against it on their journals, and set apart Congress June 1 as a day of fasting, 'to implore the divine interposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights and the evils of civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind firmly to oppose, by all just and proper means, every injury to American rights.' The governor dissolved the House. The members met elsewhere, and resolved that an attack on one colony was an attack on all, and that it was expedient to call together a general Congress. Mas- sachusetts took a similar course, and it was decided that S4 The War of American Independence. a Co: • Philadelphia, in September. In the i: mty meetings were held— the most re- markable of which was that of Fairfax County, pn over by Washington. This assembly adopted twenty- four resolutions, which had been drawn up by G< tting forth the points at issue between England and her colonies. The 'Continental Congress.' as it was termed, met accordingly at Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia (Sept. 5, , and it is somewhat remarkable that in the ncnul Con- Quaker city it opened with the celebration of the Church of England service. Fifty-three phia(Scpt. delegates attended, Georgia alone not being represented. The - 1 be by colonies, whatever might be the number of delegates. ' All America,' Patrick Henry declared, 'is thrown into one mass I am not a Virginian, but an American.' Among the delegates were, besides himself, Samuel Adams and George Washington. A de< 1. nation of the rights of America was drawn up. It claimed the : station through provincial assemblies; 00 ing indeed to the regulation of trade by act of parlia- ment, but denying the right of internal or external taxa- : raising a revenue in America. It claimed further the right of trial by jury on the spot, and of holding public meetings to consider gru tition the king. : the maintenance of a standing army in lony in time of peace without the cons* the 1< •■ of the l< by a nominate: like illegal; and it cited as ins) oial rights the Sugar Act, the Stai Quartering Act, the T( ng the New York •tare, the il in Great Britain of es committed in America, thi Port Act, 1774- Struggle before the War (1763-75). 85 the Massachusetts Government Act, and the Quebec Act. Resolutions were adopted for a non-consump- tion and non-importation agreement, for an address to the people of Great Britain, a memorial to the in- habitants of America, and a loyal address to the king, besides one approving the resistance of Massachusetts to the acts of parliament, and declaring that if these were enforced, all America ought to support her. In addition to the above addresses, one was drawn up to the people of Canada, inviting them to join the colonial league. After sitting for fifty-one days, the Congress broke up, to meet again on May 10, 1775. It might have been thought that the calling together of a Congress to protest against and sanction resistance to the government of the mother country was Washington itself an act of independence. Although this still disclaims ,, c , , , t, the idea of was generally felt to be the case in .Lurope, colonial in- the Americans themselves did not yet under- de P endence - stand what they were doing. While the Congress was sitting (Oct. 9, 1774) Washington wrote to an old comrade, who looked upon the proceedings of Massa- chusetts as aiming at independence : ' I think I can announce it as a fact that it is not the wish or interest of that government, or any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence. .... I am well satisfied,' he repeats, ' that no such thing is desired by any thinking man in all North America.' Yet at the same time he declared that none of the colonies would ' ever submit to the loss of those valuable rights and privileges which are essential to the happiness of every free state, and without which life, liberty, and property are rendered totally insecure,' and predicted that if the ministry were determined to push matters to extremity, 'more blood would be spilt than ever had been in the annals of North America.' SO The War of American Independence* a.i>. Ma t this turn bold nvoked to mi October 5. Under the charter it should have Of the mi latter, who were henceforth to sit under writs f the crown, a third refused their appointments, and the greater part of those who aco them ed by public indignation to resign, while the new judges appointed by the < rown were not allowed to sit. General Gage, the governor, now countermanded by proclamation the writs for the Assembly. The elections were held nevertheless, and the members met ; but the governor not making his a] e to open the st they resolved themselves into a provincial con-:. ler the affairs of the colony. Although Go . besides being governor of Massachusetts, wa commander-in-chief for all North America, with foui ments of regulars under his orders, measures were taken sing a militia of 12,000 men, one qua: . were to be enlisted as ' minute-men.' bound to Me in arms at a minute's warning. General named, lai ind two committees appoii to determine when tl of the mil;' call them out, and the army; the other of suppl < . I nt to New Hampshire, Rhode Island. and Com.. |uest- ing aid to make up 20,. • ■ : lined in Virginia, Rhode Island, and Carolina. Dartmouth November 2) that I of the ; • '.' that arts of justi ■■ ■ i ll •,'ne whole country 'in a ferment, many parts of it actually in arms, and ready t<> unite.' N'. 'obseived in an;. ..' whi( li indeed had 1774- Struggle before the War (1763-75). 87 alone disapproved of the resolutions of the Continental Congress. Parliament met on November 30. The king's speech complained bitterly of the spirit of resistance and disobe- dience to law in the American colonies, and Large ma _ announced his firm resolution to withstand any joriues in parliament attempt to weaken or impair the supreme au- against con- thority of the British legislature. The House Chatham's of Lords declared its ' abhorrence and detesta- warnings. tion of the daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the law' which so strongly prevailed in Massachusetts, and humbly thanked the king for taking measures to enforce the laws. The House of Commons followed suit. In vain did Chatham, coming forward after a long retire- ment, urge conciliation, and the withdrawal of the troops from Boston. ' I contend,' said ' the old man eloquent,' ' not for indulgence, but justice to America. . . . Resist- ance to your acts was as necessary as just ; and your vain declaration of the omnipotence of parliament, and your imperious doctrines of the necessity of submission, will be found equally impotent to convince or to enslave your fellow subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, whether ambitioned by an individual part of the legislature, or by the bodies who compose it, is equally intolerable to all British subjects. . . . Woe be to him who sheds the firstj the inexpiable drop of blood, in an impious war with a people contending in the great cause of public liberty ! . . . The Bostonians have been condemned unheard. The in- discriminating hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent and guilty ; with all the formalities of hostility has blocked up the town, and reduced to beggary and famine 30,000 inhabitants. ... I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master-states of the world, and I must declare and avow that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, SS The War of American Indep a.h. under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or bodv of nun t an stand in preference to the gene:. Philadelphia. All attempts to impose servitude upon such men sh despotism i mighty continental nation— must be vain, must be futile. hall be forced ultimately to retract; let US r while we can. not when we must' But he preached to I lis motion to address the king for a n of the troops from Boston was ncgatn • is also a conciliation bill which he brought forward. In the Commons, urgent petitions from the merchants of London and others for inquiry into the commercial policy pursued towards America were, notwithstanding Lurkc> i shelved by reference to a committee. To 1 I Walpole conduct such as that of the ministry seemed to be 'that of pert children; we have thrown a pebble at a tiff, and are surprised it was not frighten' The policy of the ministry was indeed pitiful. Lord North, conciliation, proposed and carried by a large majority, in spite of Lane and new Lurk- . lution that parliament should j forbear to tax any colony that might of its ' own accord provide for the ■ "f its ' ' to divide tin- < ince 'if one consents, a link of the great chain i> broken.' <>n the other hand, the attem] I I crippling her trade I failed, the -am'- system of quasi-blockadi led first t I K cncr - l "y' tlun ' i . 1 ennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carol imilar but somewhat less extensivi i. al- though as yet I the pale of the restrictio mained so ■ er. It is a) less to say that counter-]'! rke and H 1775- The Colonial Powers in 1775. 89 allowing the colonies to tax themselves, or even for only suspending for three years the act for the better regulation of the government of Massachusetts Bay, were rejected. Of the reception of the restraint of trade bills in parliament, Burke wrote bitterly : — ' We talk of starving hundreds of thousands of people with far greater ease and mirth than the regulations of a turnpike.' In America events were rapidly ripening. Massachu- setts continued to lay in stores and prepare for war, pro- viding even linen rags for the wounded of the coming conflict, and issuing provincial bills of credit for 50,000/. As early as February 27, 1775, the first blood might have been shed. There was a depot of military stores at Salem. General Gage sent Colonel Massachu- Leslie with 140 men to take possession of settsp / e " ^ r pares for them, but they had been removed before his war ; a arrival. Going then to the place to which they barely" had been taken, he found a drawbridge which averted - he had to cross drawn up, and when he attempted to cross the river, his boats were split up by the axes of the peasantry who awaited him on the other side. By way of compromise he was at last allowed to cross, but left the stores uncaptured. In Virginia the convention met again (March 26, 1775). Patrick Henry introduced resolutions for putting the colony in a state of defence. A committee was named for the purpose, which included George Washington. A letter of his of the 25th of this month, v . ■ • •* ' V lrgima addressed to his brother, shows him to us prepares already in command of the Independent Com- Washington pany of Richmond, and ready to accept that ^/h^ li '",' of another, ' if occasion require it to be drawn to the out, as it is my full intention to devote my life and fortune in the cause we are engaged in, if needful.' 90 The War of American I ndipendence. a.d. The train was laid ; there needed but a '-park to kindle it. Before, however, aarratingthe circumstances which constituted the actual outbreak of the war, let us cast a glance at the state of the world in this fateful year 1775. CHAPTER IV. »775- the Peace of Paris in 1763, which virtually blotted France out from the list of the greater colonial The cv: rare reduced to four ; England, Spain, Portugal, and Holland. England and Spain divided the North American continent bel them — since the Indians and their chiefs were only 1 reatures to be protected if friendly, and put out of the way or out of existence if troublesome. Spain anil d in like manner divided South America, with the ■ in of I >uti li ( ruiana, comprising both English and Dutch Guiana of the day, and French Guiana, then a mere foothold for France on the continent. The : ir.il European natioi I on the West Indian islands, and in mo from those where still they wave ; but that of France was far more prominent than .- ular she held the 1 • p. m of St. 1 >Omi] 1 t island of the whole group, win! '. .111 islet or two on the Newfoundland waters, and the right offishi In Africa the prepoi lonial power i linion was still a reality on :i as on the v. Spain also I loll.uul had the Cape of Go d Hope, and the Guinea and (.old 1 1775- Europe in 1775. 91 were studded with as many different flags as the West Indian islands themselves — slave-catching and slave- driving being then deemed to be the two most profitable businesses in the world. In the eastern hemisphere the only real colonial empire was that of Holland in the eastern islands ; and if she had not yet completed the subjugation of Java, she had on the other hand a flourish- ing colony in Ceylon, and various settlements on the mainland of India. Spain had then, as now, her Philip- pines ; Portugal had her Goa and her Macao, and was still rather more than a name in India ; the English East India Company was already at Bombay, at Madras, at Calcutta, had acquired rights of territorial sovereignty, had possessed itself of the viceroyalty of India's three richest provinces, Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and was virtually sovereign of them in the name of the Mogul emperor. France, lastly, though retaining some territory in India, was reduced to struggle rather for influence than for power, but through her possession of Bourbon and the Isle of France (now Mauritius) she still held a strong position as a naval power in the East. Hence, though she could no longer be said to have a colonial empire, she could still, through her navy and her yet numerous possessions abroad, hold her own with the great colonial powers themselves. Let us now give a glance at Europe. Great Britain and Ireland were still two kingdoms under one king, who was also king of Hanover. France, within limits „ , j.* ■ , Europe. not much differing from her present ones (except that Savoy and Nice had not been annexed, nor Alsace and Lorraine torn away) was still a congeries of provinces, and had recently (1768) acquired Corsica. Germany retained her clumsy federal empire of the middle ages, but in her midst Prussia had sprung from an electorate of Brandenburg into a kingdom, and under 92 The War of American Independence. Frederick the Great had d race the two greatest tental powers, Austria and France, riveted on her- self the attention <>f Europe, and given a I if that energy which in our own days lias placed her at the- head of a new German em] and had still the name of a kingdom, but the lir^t partition of her territory between '.. Prussia, and Austria had taken place, and 3,925 square miles of country had been stripped from her by these kind neighbours (1772). Unable to bear their counti : atiun. many 1 'dies were emigrating, and the names of more than one will appear in the history of the war of American independence. Russia, which had for the first time entered into the sphere of western politics during the Seven Years War, was making herself felt as ;>ower under Catherine 11. Turkey had vainly endeavoured to support Poland ; but the Ru had invaded Moldavia, \\ and the Crimea, had sent a fleet into the Mediterranean, roused the Morea into insurrection, and burnt the Turkish tleet in v chipelago. The I Kainardgi, concluded through Austrian mediation ( 17 74 , had restored in great mi the status q . 1 ept that Ru and a . with the right ligation in Turkish wal The territories of the three Europe, tria, had thus greatly enlarged, whilst their fellowship in a common • them a bond of union, which, though snapped asunder more than once, lias always nd of magneth I and binds them to this day. In Austl the Spanish Netherlands, tl.< h had . Maria '1 i 1 [osepfa was a pi his fellow ■ ine 1 1, a: II. bul he could 1. 1767-1775- Europe in 1775. 93 brought to favour the revolted colonists, frankly averring, philosopher though he might be, that ' his trade was to be a king.' In Sweden, which had yet lost but a fragment of Finland, and retained a part of Pomcrania, a half-mad despot, Gustavus III., imagined himself destined to renew the fame of a Gustavus Adolphus or a Charles XII., but was never to realise his dream. Denmark, with Norway united to her, under Christian VII. had scandalised the world by the imprisonment and divorce of a queen, herself an English princess, and the beheading of two noblemen accused of intriguing with her (1772), and had tieda knot which the sword alone has cut through in our days, in the arrangement for connecting Holstein and Sleswig with the Danish monarchy (1767). Italy, parcelled out into states of all sorts, two or three republics included, had not even the nominal unity of Germany, and was literally — though the insolent phrase had not yet been uttered — a mere ' geo- graphical expression ; ' but Sardinia, the Italian counter- part of Prussia, was already a kingdom ; and Bourbons reigned over the two Sicilies, as they did over France and Spain. Spain, under Charles III. (formerly Charles I. of Naples), generally followed the lead of France, for whom, thanks to her yet vast colonial empire and not inconsider- able fleet, she was by no means a despicable ally. She was at this moment engaged in an unprofitable war with the Barbaresque powers. England, besides Gibraltar, held Minorca, but Malta still belonged to its knights. Por- tugal,, under Joseph I., was what it is. The Swiss con- federacy and Geneva were separate republics. The Netherlands were also a clumsy republican confederation under a stadtholdcr. Clearly, in any struggle which might break out be- tween England and her American colonies, the powers most directly interested would be France and Spain, the only near neighbours to those colonies ; and more re- 94 The 11 a.d. motely, Holland, tin trade. N< power would be likely to t.ike more than an indirect interest in t] 1. with the < cceptiorj of Russia, .Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal, could, through the possession <>f .i navy, take any part in it ; and sill Spain in her wake, the disputants could ; tally let the intellectual centre of Europe. : i was not onlj the universal language of diplomacy, but that of near! iurt in Euro] I rederick the wrote in it, and on tl his great battles composed an epistle in French \> Itaire. h had been the habitual Lai .enan to whom English was .i native tongue. Gibbon had begun bj writini Voltain with aim . lirope, and with nearly the whole world 1" idi I Italian dramatisi of the age, Goldoni, had b all Ins Utter German literature had begun, it w. known .is yet outsi Franc world Old the i in the literature of the .century ■■ those ol V*oI« .< eil not French but 1760-I775- Europe in 177$. 95 French-Swiss. If there was a recognised pope at Rome, there was an unrecognised one at Ferney, near Geneva, whose edicts were in fact far more authoritative with the world at large. Yet the ' patriarch of Ferney,' as Voltaire was often termed in the language of the day, now eighty- one years of age, was near the end of his reign. The in- fluence of Rousseau went far deeper than his. The one might rule in princely style over two leagues of terri- tory, enriched not only by the sale of his works, but by speculations of all sorts : the other, a prey to morbid and misanthropic delusions, might be eking out a pension of 58/. a year by copying music. But the one addressed himself solely to the intellects of men, the other to their feelings. The one supplied the age with denials, the other with new beliefs. Voltaire's writings might inspire a passionate hatred towards what existed ; those of Rousseau excited a passionate desire for a better future, and a belief that it could be realised. One noteworthy feature of the age in France for many years now had been the sense of a coming revolution. ' After us the end of the world ; after us the de- bense of a luge,' Louis XV. used to say. ' We are approach- coming re- ing the age of revolution,' wrote Rousseau volutlon - in 1760; 'I hold it impossible that the great monarchies of Europe can have long to last.' 'All that I see,' wrote Voltaire in 1762, 'is casting the seeds of a revolution which must come without fail.' M. de Tocqueville, in his admirable work, ' L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution,' has convincingly shown that this revolution was actually proceeding long before it was recognised as existing; that France had been already revolutionised m her adminis- tration before she was so politically. But in the political sphere blows had been already struck in 1775, though as yet from afar, which served to familiarise the public mind with the idea of change, and Malesherbes had gone so The War of American Independence, a.d. : to propose to Louis XVI. the calling together of the ational assemblies which had been disu-' For the moment indeed all was hope. The court was pureed from its scandals. Among the ministers trhom The new the young Icing had called to his counsel two of the uui' l rs of Frai and Malesherbes. of the former it has that he proposed all the im] which the Revolution effected. But when evil 1775. is long-rooted, the very upro I I may create convulsions. The corn trade in France d with all manner oi on& There had under Louis XV. a hideous secret society, in which the king was chief shareholder, for keeping up the price of corn and speculating upon the hunger of the people. It seems to have lasted till 1774. Turgot, in the latu of that year September 1 i. 1774 declared the trade in corn and tlour absolutely free in the interior. Grain in be little doubt, by the corn monop led. The hungry people up to don the king for cheap ; of the petitioners n I them I i on a new gallows forty f< they climbed to the scaffold, they called out that they the peoj \\\ omei the 1 well- meaning kin^ and : In another year Turgot will I , e old par- liaments meanwhile have . to be finally pi away bd in have passed by. . approai bing 1 to explain theint Mi-ii. an Revolution ; while the desire of that overthrow called forth the sym- J75Q-75- France in 177$. 97 pathy or enthusiasm with which it was greeted by many. But it would be a mistake to think that that 1 1 1 1 /• i_ * rench sym- mtercst and sympathy dated only from the pathy with Revolution itself. Turgot, in an oration de- ^dedthT*" livered before the French clergy twenty-five American , . ... . si, , , Revolution. years before it broke out (1750), had used the following words : ' Vast regions of America ! Equality keeps them from both luxury and want, and preserves to them purity and simplicity with freedom. Europe herself will find there the perfection of her political societies, and the surest support of her well-being.' There were moreover reasons why that sympathy should take a specially passionate form in France. Eng- land was not only the triumphant political rival _ . , t- 1 i p 1 i -i Special of France ; she was the envy of her phuoso- grounds for phers and her patriots. Montesquieu had —thyTad- pointed to the British constitution as substan- miration for tially the most perfect embodiment of political wisdom. His assertion that it was depictured already in the pages of the ' Germania' of Tacitus, that it had been 'found in the woods' (a hyperbole whereat Voltaire has not unnaturally his laugh), just fell in with Rousseau's declamations about the need of a return to nature and the primitive goodness of man. But Voltaire himself had as it were discovered England for France, had proclaimed the barbarian genius of Shakespeare, the greatness and bad taste of Milton, had patted Tillotson on the back, and exalted Locke and Newton to the skies. Anglomania had become the fashion of the day. But by a just'retri- bution for the extermination of all free faith in France under Louis XIV. and Louis XV., it was only the nega- tive side of the English mind that could influence the French. England being Protestant, whatever of faith might come from her was contraband ; only her infidelity M. 11. H 9S War of American Ind 1 through the custom-house. Hence, not only the rful rise of Methodism, but all that rich under- growth of genuine Christianity, springing up in tin ms beneath a crust of formalism and sceptii which is so marked and peculiar a feature of the eighteenth century in England, never I iy Fiance. This then was the temper by which France animated. Overshadowed nationally by 1 Ameri ompelled to look up with longing to her political liberty, her untrammelled science, her freedom of speech and thought What if to a France there should come to be revealed another England, still freer than the one already known in her political institutions, still bolder in speech, with men of science of her own, and withal belonging to a new world, living as it seemed to Europe on the very fringe of the wilderness, and nearer to that nature which Rousseau cried up, and, to crown all, breaking out into a life-and-death Conflict with the England of the old world ? Is it iv I that when such a country w ed in such a sir. I •■ would give full play to all the contrary f< i which England roused in her. and that all her resentment and hatred would go towards the older England, all her admiration and love towards the ne then is the true secret of ti . whi( h thi of American independei ■ up in Fi which afterwards influent • illy her own I lution. ! jealou land could have iitrary the scttii feelings and . '. political . ;it under -75. England in 1775. 99 make France restless. I have already indicated the direct connexion of the fate of Poland, through the , „ ... r Influence of emigration of some of her sons, with the war of the partition independence in America. Its indirect in- ° n ' uiaiuJ - fluencc through France was far greater still. There was a traditional friendship between France and Poland. Choiseul, till 1771 the French Minister of Foreign Affairs (whose desire to interfere in favour of the American colonies has already been mentioned), had been ready to go to war for the sake of Poland, and had indeed sent thither 1,500 men under a commander whose name will figure both for honour and disgrace in the still distant revolu- tionary wars of his country, Uumouriez. But Louis XV. had steadily opposed war, and the partition of Poland, though applauded by some of the philosophers, had been felt as a disgrace to France by all the more generous-minded of the young nobility. There was an uncomfortable feeling that France was playing an inferior part in European policy, and therefore also an impatience for some daring effort to restore her tarnished honour, which in a cause capable of enlisting largely the public sympathy might ere long prove irresistible. Let us now consider England herself. England. Culloden (1746) had blown to the winds all reasonable hopes of the Jacobite party. The ' Old Pretender' was dead (1776.) The ' Young Pretender,' the once xhe Jacobite brilliant Charles Edward, now a drunken partyi debauchee, had been long since expelled from France. His younger brother (Cardinal York) was a Romish priest, and could beget no more claimants to the English throne. Since 1767 the English Roman Catho- lics had begun to pray for the Hanoverian royal family. The purchase of the Isle of Man from the Duke of Athol had brought the last outlying portion of the ioo The War of American Independence, a.d. i Isles u:. 1 he if England was no longer a German prime, lie had proclaimed in h. parliament — III. . ' . . ' . that, burn and educated in the country, he gloried in the n..- m. But although upright, pains- taking, and methodical, he was ill • . prejudiced, and violently self-willed. Perhaps the most noteworthy element in the politics of the country was the development of his influence. From a young man of twenty-five, ruled by Lord But ,< ■ [II. has grown into a man of thirty- seven, with high ideas of his own prerogative, i he< Iced only by his hatred of theWhigaristOCracy. Minutely acquainted both with the details of administration and the party organisation, he combines with his stubbornness a cunning probably nearly akin to that madness which eventually obscured his reasoning powers. In a few he will be seen chaining Lord North to office like a :ier. long straggle of the crown and parliament against John Will.' iblished the illegality ! war- rants, and after three expulsions had left the famous demagogue still member for Middle and Lord Mayor ol London 177.}- 'Junius' had run his meteor-like < ■ virulent rh< nst the king ai one "I his ministers by tun rille, for whom no terms ofeuli • warm beneath his pen. The sun of : og ; th.it of Burke on the other hand was in its meridian splendour, and he was now the most prominent memtx ition, whilst the In the I : Id a kind of primacy ans\\< somewhat to that <>f Voltaire on tin c ontinent hail fallen nt man, the Tory, Johnson. Hume. filling for two years li. : Under Secretary of State «766-75- England in 1775. 101 (1766— S), had withdrawn from public life, and was this year attacked by the malady which the next would carry him off. A far greater historian, Gibbon, had Literature entered parliament last year, and in another andart: iii- 1 r 1 /• 1 • Johnson, year would bring out the first volume of his Hume. masterpiece, the ' Decline and Fall of the £ ihhon > r Cowper, Roman Empire.' Adam Smith had published Macpheison, his 'Wealth of Nations' in 1766. Macpher- shendan ; son's Ossianic fabrications or adaptations, so ^*3 rnolds > tasteless to the present age, were at the height borough, of their popularity. Cowpcr, with reason already im- paired, was taking part in the composition of the Olncy Hymns, to be next year published. Boswcll was taking note of Johnson's proceedings, as Horace Walpole of the proceedings of England's literary and courtly classes. Sheridan was achieving this year his first stage triumph in the ' Rivals.' In the world of art Sir Joshua Reynolds was supreme ; but a not unworthy rival in portraiture, and the first great chief among English landscape-painters, Gainsborough, had come up from Bath to London last year. The Royal Academy had been founded in 1768. In regions mostly beyond the ken alike of Johnson, the surly literary autocrat of Bolt Court, or Walpole, the aristocratic letter-writer of Strawberry Hill, those poets •of the labour-world, the inventors, whose genius was needed to enable their country to bear the burthen of a debt more than doubled by the last war, and soon to be again nearly doubled by the coming the Lawn- struggle, had already begun their wondrous ^^ triumphs. Jcdediah Strutt had improved the Arkwright, ' stocking-frame; Hargreaves' carding-engine Wedgwood, had been followed by his spinning-jenny ; the '' L [xnan - first patent of Arkwright the barber for spinning by rollers had been taken out, and its validity established at Jaw. The import of cotton, from 3,870,392 lbs. in 1764, had risen 102 The War of American It vce. \.r>. to an average of 4.71.0,000 lbs. in 1771—5. Calico-printing' had been introduced into Lancashire id theprint- 9s wholly made 1 had been allowed by an act of the previous year. Yet more, that mechanical had been mastered which alone would devt on their full scale the results of all previous invent Watt, who in 1763-4 was already examining and im- provii nen's clumsy old steam-engine, had in 1765 completed his own; and ten years later had ecured for himself by at I of parliament ' the ind property of certain steam-engines, commonly called fire-engines,' for twenty-five years. He had be- come in the previous year a partner with lloulton, and the famous Soho Works, near Birmingham, wen bably very nearly what they were when Boswella year tw there about 700 men at work, and noted down tic words : ' 1 sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have, power.' < >ur pottery and porcelain manufactures were in their full splendour, ire was dearer than silver. Wedgwood, with truria and his warehouse in St. James's Squa: the height of his renown, ami w.. ploying, as a modeller, Fl - lllptor, - lly, under an old name, the new science ■: fully contribute to the develop- .11 new ind 1 y, the I . without > undci >l anding what he h.. Smc.i: . , . hand, nnpro\ ed nu in were ^ivin^ r a new impetus to trade, and the race engineers had been called into : the muiii- • of the I >ukc of B . Brindley trucl ter part of 1 759-75- First Period. 103 the Bridgewater Canal. Smeaton, whose Ecldystone lighthouse has braved the winds and waves since 1759, was at the height of his reputation. Many of our great canals had been projected, several of them had been cut, and though the country was still infested by highwaymen, every session had its crop of road bills. The wonderful growth of population, between 1760 to 1770, had given an impetus to agriculture to which the increasing number of Enclosure Acts in each , . 1 /- , Growth of session bears witness, and our first popular population; writer on agriculture, Arthur Young, had already l,™^"^. . published several of his works. Junius in 1768 Arthur had declared that England would be ' undone ' if the American colonies were suffered to open their trade to the world. Yet, by the various means above indicated, a silent revolution was going on, which would ere long expand English trade to dimensions never yet attained, and in no direction more remarkably than in that of Eng- land's emancipated colonies. Meanwhile, two boys of six years old were growing up to be, the one the conqueror and scourge of Two boys of Europe, the other the ultimate victor of that con- j^nB^na- queror himself — Napoleon Bonaparte in Cor- pa rte and sica, Arthur Wesley (afterwards spelt Wei- Wellesley. lesley), in the north of Ireland. CHAPTER V. THE WAR : FIRST PERIOD ; TILL THE FRENCH ALLIANCE (1775-8). The history of the war of American independence divides itself naturally into two periods. In the one (1775-S) the struggle is only between the mother country and her re- volted colonies, and hostilities arc confined to the continent The II Independence. a.i>. df America, with & In the other (17; ad Spain descend into the fray, Holland is < L into it, allii ranee in the far Mast, and warfare extends to all parts of the world. In the I the story is simple, interesting, and in many instances heroic : in the latter it is < omplex to the la . and with a few brilliant c tamer ever >>n. 1 i- was aware that a depot <»f aims and ammunition had been established . miles from Boston. To dot my it, as also to secure the person, of Hancock ami Samuel Adams, whom he sup- posed to be in the neighbourhood, and the latter of whom he had vainly endeavoured to buy over, ',,, he sent 800 men under Lieut-Colonel Smith, it eleven o'clock at night, April is, 1775. '" But the colonists were on the alert, and before long Colonel Smith heard the bells ring the alarm in advaiv e of him, and SO ments, throwing out ichment in ad> an <■■ At Lexington, ten miles from Boston, the guard thus thrown out met a body of ' minute-men,' upon. u bed .1! j \.m.. but only part • I and ammun I, and a 1 skirmish with minute plai e. I he 1 expedition being as far a now fell back, until t!. what i ^ i ailed the batik- of ] I ' rare 1 irrels irder and 1/75- First Period. 105 artillery, and the burning of a tree of liberty. They had 65 killed, 1S0 wounded, and lost 28 men taken prisoners ; ■whilst on the opposite side there were 59 killed, 39 wounded, and 5 missing. Above all, the prestige of the British regulars was dispelled. Militiamen, mere armed peasants, had stood up to them, and in a manner pursued them. Franklin wrote to Burke from Philadelphia (May 15), speaking of General Gage : ' His troops made a most vigorous retreat, twenty miles in three hours — scarce to be paralleled in history — and the feeble Americans, who pelted them all the way, could scarce keep up with them.' The whole country was now astir. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts resolved that no obedience was in future due to General Gage, but that Thc h « •'he ought to be considered and guarded country against as an unnatural and inveterate foe to Boston the country.' Before long 20,000 colonists sur- mvcsted - rounded Boston, and threatened to starve out the British army. Far away in the south, on receiving, a month later, the news of the battle of Lexington, a North Caro- lina town judged the time come for independence, and declared itself freed from all allegiance to the king ; but this was going a little too fast for the people generally. The first blow on the offensive was struck by Con- necticut. There was a feud of some standing between New York and the settlers in the northern Surprise of part of her territory, inhabiting what is now the Ticon j[|" State of Vermont, in which one Ethan Allen 10. led the ' Green Mountain Boys ' (as the Vermonters are called). To Ethan Allen was now given thc command of a force, 270 strong, which was to surprise thc fort of Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain. There were not boats enough to carry them all over, but with his officers and eighty-three men Allen pushed on, sur- prised (May 10), the sleeping garrison, and claimed of thc 10G The W an Indepi commancLv ender 'in the name of the Croat Je- hovah and the Continental Dd without the loss >>f a man the col obtain 122 t.mr. siderable quantit der. Two days later anothei iwn Point, was taken without i The Continental Congress met for its second s< at Philadelphia on th( I y 10 . when Ethan Allen was invoking its authority at Ti< Besid W< . Thomas Jefferson and • v. John Adams, two future presidents of the United States, were among the members. ind other colonies, the i red for war, voted 15,000 men as a Continental . lude 13,000 men of the New England ments encamped before I ind issued bills for 2,000,000 dollars. Whilst they were deliberating, a fleet stood 25), with 2,000 men on board, commanded by rate Hall, Clinton, and Burgoyne. 1 . tee. on lime 12. proclaimed martial law, , ,,1111 offering. 1 a to all who should . .- imucl Adams and John H. 1 (formerly president of the Massai huset) . and now of the Continent. A The pro* tarnation bad lit! rough the unani- . by whu h it a] ■ .f Yir^i:. bington ■ , n. in height, still fond of athl luy, a pa fox-hunter and duck- atured count' ' taken three . by the tri : 1775 First Period. 107 command into the severity that marks his later busts or portraits, especially about the lines of the mouth. He was unquestionably the best known among colonial officers. After his services in Braddock's campaign he had been spoken of from the pulpit by an eminent preacher of the time, as 'that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto prc- served in so signal a manner for some important service to his country.' He had served his apprenticeship of command during five years of warfare (1753-8) at the head of the Virginian troops. He had sat for fifteen years in the Virginia House of Burgesses (1759-1774), always returned by large majorities. Punctual in his attendance, studying every question, he seldom spoke, but then he spoke clearly and firmly. Naturally quick-tempered, he had by the effort of a strong will schooled himself to a studious moderation both in language and conduct. Elected a delegate to the first Continental Congress, he so soon made his weight felt, that Patrick Henry, whilst naming Rutlcdgc of South Carolina as by far the greatest orator in Congress, declared that, 'if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestion- ably the greatest man on that floor.' Appointed comman- der-in-chief, he refused all pay for his services, only re- serving the right to claim reimbursement of his expenses. Before Washington could take up his command, a new blow had been struck in the contest. The celebrated though misnamed battle of Bunker's (now p, a tticof oftcner called Bunker) Hill, had been fought ! ; ."!! kc , r ' s ' ° hill, June (June 17). Bunker's or Bunker Hill is an 17, 1775- eminence 1 10 feet high, near the neck of the peninsula on which Charleston is situated, and which is divided from Boston by the Charles river. Learning that General Gage intended to occupy and fortify it, Colonel Prescott with 1,000 men was sent at night from Cambridge, the 10S The War of Am iettdertce. ad. ■ I .'icipate tl But they mi Bunker Hill another eminence called [ill, to the south of it, standing nearer to Charlestown ami Boston, and intrenched them- the morning. The emini mandedthe British cam]), and, if armed with bar would pelled the evacuation of Boston. . When the intrenchments were discovered, 3,000 regulars were sent to attack them, under Generals Howe and ! of landing at the isthmus of Charl- in take the Americans in the rear, the trooj by the tire nut only of the British batteries but of the ht up the hill. Two assaull the intrenchments failed, but General Clinton having joined the assailants with 400 men, a third The Americans had exhausted their ammunition. Colonel Prescott ordered a retreat, which was effected in good order, and though only one piece of artillery uld be carried off, they encamped at I Hill, a mile from the battle-ground. As wa natural, the loss of the assailants was the greater • 115 killed and 337 tiers 0:1 the Amerii The battle had taken p] and uning of Charli 'ked. it is I On I ! four major • to the Indians ■ ' 1775- First Period. 109 battle of Bunker's Hill. The day after reaching the army lie issued a general order, reminding his forces that ' they arc now the troops of the United Provinces of North America;' expressing the hope 'that all distinctions ot colonics will be laid aside, so that one and the same spirit may animate the whole, and the only contest be, who shall render on this great and trying occasion the most essential service to the great and common cause in which we arc all engaged.' His first task was to establish discipline. Although he found fewer men than he expected (16,000, of whom only 14,000 were fit for duty, instead of from 18,000 to 20,000), the forces under his command were far larger than those with which in after times he would have to keep British armies in check. But his lines formed a semicircle of eight or nine miles, within which lay between 11,000 and 12,000 of the enemy, who commanded the water entirely. The officers were inefficient, the men insubordinate. The commander-in-chief showed himself strict even to severity. Frequent courts martial, and daily hard work upon fortifications, were the chief means by which he gradually welded into an army a crowd of men enlisted for short periods under different conditions, which as freeholders or freeholders' sons they claimed the right to construe for themselves. The lines were drawn so close round Boston that the British and American sentries could almost have spoken together. Frequent raids and skir- mishes gradually inured the provincials to war. Yet the situation was almost desperate. There was less than a ton of powder for the whole army, making about nine rounds per man, and Washington had to write to Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, for every pound of powder and lead that could be spared. ' No quantity,' he declared, ' however small, is beneath notice.' By September the first troops enlisted by the authority of Congress, twelve companies of riflemen, had joined the I io Tlu /.' an Independence, a-u The army seemed about way. The term of service of the con tii it, and of Rhode Island, would expire on December i, that of the M chusetl n the 31st. The paper of the Coi • ing daily ted in value, and even of this de- : the paymaster had not a dollar in hand. The country was expecting to hear of the occupation <>f n, and it would have been madness to attack it. At length, on Washington's urgent representations of the seriousness of the crisis, a committee was appointed l>y Congress, with Franklin at their head, to confer with Washington and the New England colonics. A scheme was now devised for raising a new army of nearly 23,000 In the south the royal authority had been practically shaken off. The governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, having seized on the powder in Williamsburg Procct . ,, , r . ' magazme, was (impelled to pay for it. and the amount paid was transmitted t< >!'• Soon after he took refuge on board of a British I, to which he summoned the legislature ; they 1 to come, called a convention, and fori ment 'I he immanded threat- ened tli'- co. 1st. th< Walpole, v.i d William Ma little I with some.. her scnite to proclaim America a ite it should 1>< it will drink tea with only army to be 1 i in one of . and half her :' the terra Jirina; but orders her army to do nothing, in hopes that the American senate at Philadelphia will b frightened at 1775. First Period. in the British army being besieged in Boston that it will sue for peace. At last she gives her army leave to sally out ; but being twice defeated she determines to carry on the war so vigorously till she has not a man left, that all Eng- land will be satisfied with the total loss of America.' Franklin on leaving England (April 1775), in paying a last visit to Burke, had warned him that sepa- ration was inevitable. Burke, however, did tempts at not yet agree with him ; and there was indeed b^Con-" " still room for conciliation. Richard Pcnn, late fress ; r ,-. i • • t* 1 j Richard governor of Pennsylvania, was in England as p e nn and the bearer of what is known as the Second ^..j,!" Petition of Congress, or the ' Olive Branch,' adopted after Bunker's Hill (July 1775). In this document the colonists offered to submit to every enactment of par- liament up to 1763, including the Navigation Acts and the Acts for regulating trade, on condition of being freed from the new system of government. Vergennes, the French minister, deemed it impossible that such terms should be refused. The French ambassador, De Guines, persisted in thinking the contrary, and he was right. Penn could not obtain an audience. When he ap- plied for an answer to the petition, he was informed that 'no answer could be given.' But an answer p roc i ama . was criven, and a bitter one, exactly ten days li ° n against o J 1 j j rebellion ; after Penn's arrival in England. A royal pro- application clamation was issued (August 23), for sup- princesfor pressing rebellion and sedition. Gage was t ro °P s - recalled, his command being divided between Sir Guy Carlcton (afterwards Lord Dorchester), in the north, and Howe. A body of Hanoverians were enlisted. German princes were ready to sell their subjects. Applications were made to Holland and to Russia for the loan of troops, but were refused. The English people generally hardly understood the 1 1 j T/t: War of American Indep a.d. gravity of the crisis. There were those who, like the The F.n-iMi ' )ll ^ e °f Richmond, looked on Amei already, but could comfort themselves with thinking ' that in <>ur present re not ■ rn ourselves, and much less d aces ; and if ours emancipate, it will at least be to humanity that so many millions of brave men ind happy. (Duke of Richmond to Burke, June 16.) Merchants, sharing the same conviction that America was lost, were already looking to the Govern- ment for an indemnity. (Burke to Rockingham, Aug. 23.) Others I saw nothing in what was taking place but a third non-importation agreement. The two former ones, they said, ' had broken up, much to the advantage of the merchants, and particularly the second.' They hail then had 'a demand with 20 per cent, advani e on every* . which paid them amply for the delay.' They hail ' even sold at that advanced pri ha quality Other times they could not sell at any price at all. (IUirkc to Rockingham, Sept 14.) Why .should they be alarmed? The popular idol, Wilkes, was a friend to the Ameri Bui .< gn il ;•:: of the nation was plunged in a ' shocking indifference and neutrality.' (Burke to Duke of Ri< hmond, Sept. 26.) The king was full of < ■■ ; nothing could equal h unpo- sure, and even gaiety.' (Burke to Rockingham, A 1 imation had been hissed on tin- Sttw It, : 1 Lord North's . loyal addresses in from tin- ( ountry. Liament n 1 » h was th levying a ..t; rebellious war for the pui I establishing indent empire. The announcement of the employment "f Hanoverians to »ui>t>ortca. pjgQj, Gibraltar and Minor 1 afforded a strong ground of attack to the Op] Barre*, Charh 1775- First Period. 113 and General Conway, led the attack. Fox declared that neither Lord Chatham, the King of Prussia, nor Alexander the Great had gained so much in a campaign as had been lost by the ministers. In the Lords, Lord Shelburne strongly condemned the ministerial policy, and the Duke of Grafton, still Privy Seal, took the opportunity of an- nouncing his disapproval of it, which he soon followed up by resignation. The American department was trans- ferred to Lord George Germain, formerly known as Lord George Sackville, who, though he had distinguished himself at Dettingen and Fontenoy, had misconducted himself at Minden, and had been cashiered and struck off the list of the privy council. Loyal addresses poured in more and more. Everything seemed to encourage the king and his ministers in their present policy of what Lord Strafford would have called ' Thorough.' One of the earliest acts of the new session enabled the crown to call out and embody the militia, ' upon occasion of the present rebellion in America.' It was followed by the Prohibition of Trade Act, Shibiti^ 1 termed by Burke, in his passionate language, °l c J^ e the ' most wicked and sacrilegious of all mea- for German sures,' ' to prohibit all trade and intercourse tr °° ps ' with the colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the three lower counties on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia;' i.e. with the whole of the thirteen colonies. When the bill was brought in (Nov. 10), Lord Mans- field spoke of it as ' passing the Rubicon,' but crudely justified the measure on the ground that ' if you do not kill them they will kill you.' The votes of the session included payments, not only for Hanoverian troops, but for '4,300 Brunswickers,' a 'regiment of foot of Hanau,' a 'regiment of Waldeck,' the 'artillery of the Landgrave of M. H I ii4 The War of American Independence, a.d. Hesse-Cassel/the' artillery of Hanau.' < >n the other hand a step w.is taken in the direction of conciliation. In the Prohibition of Trade Act itself a pi authorising any persons named by the Crown, to pardons, or t>> declare any colony or province, county. Strict, or place, to be "at the pea. c of his Ma I The intention of this provision, which was shortly after- carried out, was to appoint royal commissi who should have power to put a stop to the war. In America the kind's proclamation against rebellion eceived Nov. r) with divided feelings. In autho- rising New Hampshire and South Carolina to frame new constitutions. Congress virtually asserted inde- rcccivcswith pcndencc. Penns) lvama. on the other haml, [the instructed her delegates to dissent from and I utterly reject any propositions which might t re- - - .ii union. cause or lead to a separation from t lie mother-country, or a change in the fern- inent. New lersev followed the example of Pennsylvania, and her influence paralysed Delaware and Maryland. But rules were adopted b ~s for the government of oavy. Authority was given for enlisting two battalions of marines, for seizing ships carrying for the lintish army or navy, and for appointing tribui their on. The most important warlike undertaking on the Anu-i during the autumn was the invasion of -Iv dis< 1. tuned the int. Of all the • ' the war. tins was the most gallant an. American force were taken prisoners. But Arnold re- mained encamped outside the walls with the fragments of the army, declaring that he would not leave the place till he entered it in triumph, but asking for 10,000 men, whom he was little likely to bieve his triumph. The new year did not open more auspiciously for the American cause than the old year had closed There had been some hostilities in the south, in South Carolina and Virginia. Dunmore, the governor of Virgin whom Washington wrote (Dec. 26), that if he were not ( crushed before spring,' he would prove 'the most tor midable enemy of America,' issued a procla- mureinTir. mation declaring martial law, and offering Si n kbunu r " P ar d° n to 'all indented es, or others, appertaining to rebels,' if they would American* join him. Driven out of Norfolk on New Year's n *«- day, he cannonaded and burnt it, as Gage had cannonaded and burnt Falmouth six weeks 1 like these stirred far and wide among the Americans feelings of hatred towards the mother-country, and longings for revenge. <>n the same New Year's 1776 on which Norfolk was burnt, the Amei s first unfurled, having no stars as yet, but with thirteen stripes of alternate red and white, the crosses of St. George and St Andrew being still retained on a blue ground in the corner. Th( had in the DP month voted the building of thirteen ships of war. Washington was still bel m, struggling always against the difficulties of slum enlistments, insufl .;. ammunition, and want of money ; credited with an army of 20,000 nun. and actually in com* continue. inand of less than half that number. The Con- necticut men wen Uy unruly, and many would not f enlistment to return home. The desire of 'retiring into a chimney corner' as Wash- i 77 6. First Period. WJ ington graphically expressed it, ' seized the troops of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, so soon as their time expired.' In vain did Congress authorise him to attack Boston, even at the risk of destroying the town ; he had not more powder than was absolutely necessary to defend the lines if attacked (Dec. 4, 1775), and he durst not say so. ' Search the volumes ot history through,' he wrote to a friend, ' and I much question whether a case similar to ours can be found ; namely, to maintain a post against the flower of the British troops for six months together, without powder, and then to have one army disbanded and another to be raised within the same distance of a reinforced enemy. It is too much to attempt.' If he should be able to rise su- perior to his difficulties, he wrote to the same correspon- dent ' I shall most religiously believe that the hand of Providence is in it to blind the eyes of our enemies.' About three weeks later he had nearly 2,000 men in camp with- out firelocks (Feb. 9). Still he had come by this time in his slow way to a conviction which would be worth many victories to America, that independence must be declared. His patient toil was at last rewarded. On March 4 he succeeded in one night in occupying and in- trenching Dorchester heights, which com- Boston manded the city and harbour of Boston. A March'"" 1 ' violent storm prevented an early assault by 1776. the British, whilst the lines of the Americans were pushed forwards; and on the 17th General Howe with the British troops evacuated Boston, which was at once taken possession of, the main body of the Americans en- tering on the 20th. The British fleet remained ten days longer in the harbour or in the roads, but attempted nothing further. New England was from henceforth substantially free. Congress, which some months before had authorised 1 1 S The War of American Independence. a.d. Washington to employ armed vessels (the crews of which seem to have been even greater trouble to him Mc.i-urcs of , , . ... . i , , , , Congress: than his own soldiers), now took the DOl .;,. of authorising privateers to cruise, but against •'■■ the -hips of Great Britain only, and Ireland (March 23). A still more important resolution — the result probably in great measure of Go- vernor Dunmore's offer of freedom to the slaves — was one against the import of slaves 'into any of the tfa united colonies.' Last of all, on April 6. the trade of the colonies was thrown open to all the world 'not sub the King of Great Britain,' a step which must be con- sidered to have been the virtual death-blow to the old colonial system throughout the world, as well as, what Mr. Bancroft calls it, * a virtual declaration of indepen- dence.' The commercial interests of the world al were henceforth engaged in the struggle on behalf of the revolted colonies. Already a ' committee of secret correspondence' had appointed Silas Deani hoolmaster, 'commercial America commissioner and agent,' to solicit from 1 clothing and arms for 25,000 men, 10 1 aided by . . .uid pieces, and ammunition. But long before his arrival, the question of aiding the Am- : was being di& ussed in the Frem h cabinet < m the day when the colonial trade was thrown open April 6 . the far-sighted ami benevolent Turgot signed a memorandum in which, whilst insisting that nothing could arrest the course which sooner or later would 'certainly bring about the absolute independence <>i tin- English colonii an inevitable consequei i total •ion in the relations of Europe and America,' he- Net d< 1 any me. is; : tending to involve 1 :i Irs, Spain, in the war. But the spirit of intrigue was strong amo b diplomatists, and I77 6. First Period. 119 there was money to be gathered by fingering contracts. Vergennes, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, was strongly in favour of aiding the Americans. Turgot was overruled. In May, Louis XVI. announced to the King of Spain that he was about to advance a million of French livres to the Americans. The King of Spain, ' assigning a false reason at his own treasury for demanding the money,' sent a million more. The chief go-between in the matter had been a wondrously clever jack-of-all- trades, the watch-maker, musician, playwright, financier, Beaumarchais, the creator of that personage of Figaro, whose name is now naturalised in every European language. From this time to that of the Declaration of Indepen- dence (July 4, 1776), the dissolution of the old fabric of colonial government proceeds apace. South Carolina had established a constitution for itself of the old as early as March 26. In North Carolina ^SSlSi the Chief Justice, in his opening charge to the Declaration , 1 /"i ttt oflndepen- grand jury, declared to them 'that George III., dence pro- King of Great Britain, has abdicated the go- posed - vernment, that he has no authority over us, and we owe no obedience to him.' The General Assembly of Rhode Island (May 4) discharged the inhabitants of the colony from allegiance to the king. The Virginia House of Bur- gesses, on the ground that the ancient constitution of the colony had been subverted by the king and parliament, dissolved itself (May 6). A convention of delegates which assembled the same day instructed the representa- tives of Virginia in congress to propose that the United Colonies be declared ' free and independent States, ab- solved from all allegiance or dependence upon the crown or parliament of Great Britain' (May 15); and issued (June 12), a celebrated declaration of rights, which became substantially the foundation of the still more celebrated 120 The War of American Independence. a.p. Declaration of Independence. Meanwhile the Coi had adopted a resolution proposed by John Adai allowing the colonies to frame their own governments, with a preamble that it was 'absolutely irreconcilable with reason and good conscience 'for the people of the colonics to bear allegiance to -any government under the crown of Great Britain,' and that it was necessary that the ex< of every kind of government under the crown should illy suppressed. On June 7 Kit hard Henry Lee, on the part of Virginia, proposed, and John Adams seconded, a resolution declaring the independence of the United Colonies, the expediency of forming f< alliances, and of framing a plan of confederation. The two latter portions of the proposal were at once assented to. and committees appointed for carrying them into < the consideration of the first was postponed for three weeks, but a committee was also appointed for dra up a declaration to the effect proposed. Whilst the committees are sitting, let us cast a glance at military events. Perhaps that which most afl men's minds was the attempt of a British fleet and troops upon Charleston, and the rannon- ade, though by the fl< a Sullivan's Island, since known a rctrc.it. Moultrie, in honour of the gallant and su ful re- mmander. One of the frigates which had run aground had to be deserted and set on tii. 1 British loss in killed and wounded was ] against 37 on the Amerii an side. This success, small as it w dee up for the disastrous results of the expedition to Canada, where, as bd Arnold, afb had been left below ■ with a fen hundred men. Of the r 0,000 men asked for by Arnold, only 1,500 had real bed Montreal hv the middle of March. The general in chief command] 1776. First Period. 121 Woostcr, was aged and inefficient ; he had as usual neither money nor supplies ; the peasantrywere irritated byrequisi- tions ; the population, at first favourably disposed towards the invaders, soon became hostile almost to a man, and a party of Canadians attempted, though unsuccessfully, to raise the blockade of Quebec. In vain by the orders of Congress did Washington send more than 3,000 men as reinforcements from the continental army. Smallpox broke out, a retreat was ordered, which a sally turned into a rout, and although the Congress still made further efforts to send more men, the remnants of the army, which in little more than two months had lost by desertion and death more than 5,000 men, had to fall back within the American frontier in a most pitiable con- dition, so that an eyewitness declared that he did not look into a tent or a hut in which he did not find 'either a dead or a dying man ' (early days of July 1776). Not long after the evacuation of Boston, Washington had removed his head-quarters to New York (April 13), which it was supposed would be the object of „, ,. J Washington the next attempt on the part of the English, as at New the State contained many Loyalists or Tories, „We stT e e " and the late Governor Tryon (who like several of the army - of his fellows had taken refuge on board ship), was able, active, and influential. Washington began by inducing the New York Committee of Safety to prohibit all intercourse with the king's ships, and then proceeded to fortify the town and the Hudson river. But the condition of Wash- ington's army itself, notwithstanding his late success, was most precarious. On April 28 the whole number of rank and file, present and fit for duty, was only 8,101. On June 12 it was only 6,749, all under temporary engage- ments. Many men were without arms ; ' one regiment had only 97 firelocks and 7 bayonets ; ' the artillery con sisted of only one regiment and one company. Conspi- [22 The War of American Independence, a.d. racy even existed, in which some of Washington's own guard were involved, and one of them was hanged after •ion by court martial in the presence of 20,000 persons. This was the first military execution of the war (June. ards the end of June Congress autho enlistments for three years or for the war. On June 29 Washington informed the Congress that General Howe, who with Lord Howe had received a joint A "valor a commission under the conciliatory provisions British fleet, of the Prohibition of Trade Act, had arrived at .sandy Hook with forty-live ships or more, the : the fleet being expected in a day or two. Thirty thousand men were supposed to be <>n board. Joseph Reed, Washington's adjutant-general, deemed the odds hopeless, and declared that had he known t! n of a ffairs, no consideration would have tempted him to take part in them. A few months before Man the same officer had written to Washington that he was ' infinitely more afraid ' of the British commissioners ' than of their generals and armies.' It was under these circumstances, when most of the te colonies had by this time passed resolutions in • ivour, that the Looted the dependence! famous Declaration of Independence, penned by Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. It declared as self-evident truths that all men are created equal; that tlu-y are endowed by tl. r with certain inalienable whicb are ' life, liberty, and irsuit of happiness; thai to secure these rights re instituted among men, deriving their oed ; that when- ive of • d , it is the right of the ; alter or to abolish it, and to institute It enumc- with which the Kit 1776. First Period. 123 Britain was charged, 'all having in direct object the esta- blishment of an absolute tyranny over these States;' as for instance, ' He has abdicated government here by de- claring us out of his protection, and waging war against us ; he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people; he is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilised nation ; he has con- strained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the execu- tioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands ; he has created domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabi- tants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.' It recounted the petitions for redress which had been presented, the appeals to the ' native justice and magnanimity' of ' our British brethren,' who had been ' deaf to the voice of justice and consan- guinity,' and concluded as follows : — ' We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that the 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 poli- tical 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 com- 124 The War of American Independence, a.d. mercc, and do all other acts and things which independent may of right do. And for the support claration, with a firm reliance on the protection of 1 lence, we mutually pledge to each other oui our fortunes, and our sacred honour.' . one important paragraph had been struck out of Jefferson's draft — one charging upon the king the guilt of the slave trade, which it characterised A paragraph , . , ,. , . relating 10 cruel war against human nature itself; and :,! speaking of the recent offers of freedom to the trade struck negroes as the ' paying off former crimes com- mitted against the liberties of one ; crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.' Reading it at the present day, we can see how the passionate and declamatory rhetoric of the Declaration of Independence has left its stain to this hour via- , • i j trac- on most of the political writing and 01 . , n . of America, and may wish that the bin': great nation had not been screamed into the world after this fashion. Nothing would have been easierthan,in the like rhetorical language, to draw upa ■ be various a< ts oflai fitted by the colonists. Some of the charges will not tear ex- amination. For instai d of the Indians had willingly accepted by the n ex- pedition since September 1775: the general quest their employment had been considered by Washington in and deleg the New Englan ments in October of the same ad the main obje< tion whii h Washington and other a letter of his to ■ iiiyler, January 27, 177''. and the answ< 1 the latter, was that - He had Qi idvised Congre a our side, 1 1776. First Period. 125 as ' they must, and no doubt soon will, take an active part either for or against us ; ' and Congress itself had, on June 3 — not a month before the Declaration of Inde- pendence was actually accepted — passed a resolution to raise 2,000 Indians for the Canada service, which shortly afterwards was extended by another (referred to in a letter of Washington's of June 20) authorising General Washington to employ such Indians as he should take into the service, in any place where he might think that they would be most useful, and to offer them bounties — not indeed for scalps, but for every officer and soldier of the king's troops whom they might capture in the Indian coun- try, or on the frontiers of the colonies. When all this had been done, it needed the forgetfulness and the blind hypocrisy of passion to denounce the king to the world for having 'endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages;' yet the American people have never had the self-respect to erase this charge from a document generally printed in the forefront of their constitution and laws, and with which every schoolboy is sedulously made familiar. Perhaps indeed it would have been otherwise, had not the charge been one which circumstances appeared to confirm. For in fact, owing to causes already indicated, the Americans never could make friends of the Indians in the contest, and consequently the ' merciless savages ' continue in history to figure on the side of the British. Who could wonder at it? At the date of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, the Indian child had only just reached man's estate, who in the year of his birth might have escaped being a victim to the bounty of 20/. held out for the scalp of every Indian woman and child by Massachusetts in 1755, whilst one of 40/. had been offered for that of his father, raised in 1756 to 300/. It did not require the retentive memory of the redskin to make him look with suspicion 126 The War of American Independence, a.d. on solicitations to friendship from men who might h.ive been panics to such schemes of extermination to his race. But Jefferson's violent pamphlet should in fact be looked upon less as a declaration of independence than as a declaration of war — less as an assertion of right than The rv- as a cry of defiance, uttered in an hour of j," grave peril, in th i formidable foe. The »•"■■ spirit in which it was adopted IS well in. in some words of Joseph Reed's : ' I have do notion i>f being hanged for half treason. When a subject i his sword against his prince, he must cut his way through.' Viewed in the light of attendant circumstan< es, the declaration itself, and the unanimity with which it was adopted (by twelve States out of thirteen, New York alone abstaining) became heroic. But it would be entirely dwarfing the importan the declaration to consider it with reference to America in imiurnce a ' one - Through the general principles which it put forth, it appealed to all peoples that should deem themselves oppressed, and be- came as it were the charter of revolution throughout the world. The French declaration of the Rights ol flows directly from it. It virtually. XVI. his - well as half a continent to George 111. Throughout the revolted colonies the Declaration of Independeo d with unbounded enthusiasm. Its adoption was rung out to Philadelphia from real hell of Independence Hall, which bore for motto ' Liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants I id the i ■ • > . 1 1 anus wen- brought i and limned publicly. In Virginia an act was passed to substitute the Commonwealth for the kin^ r in the liturgy. At New York the leaden statue of George III. was pulled down and cast into bullets. 1776. First Period. 127 On the evening of the day when he received the decla- ration, Washington had the troops paraded, and each division listened bareheaded whilst it was being read (July 9). Nevertheless, few saw the truth that the independence of the States must be a dream unless based upon their union. A draft of confederation was brought into The need of Congress by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania ""-iirci'tlit on July 12. So feeble was the sort of union Postpone- proposed, that all power of taxation was to be plan of con- withheld from the ' United States assembled,' "deration, except for postage. Yet Rutledge of South Carolina, in language characteristic of his State, treated the plan as ' destroying all provincial distinctions, and making every- thing of the most minute kind bend to what they call the good of the whole,' and thus in fact saying ' that these colonies must be subject to the government of the eastern provinces,' the force of whose arms he held ' exceedingly cheap,' while he dreaded ' their low cunning, and those levelling principles which men without character and with- out fortune in general possess.' The whole secession war of our days is prefigured in these words. As it was, Congress only deliberated on the plan, and then postponed it. Meanwhile, the Declaration of Independence was signed (Aug. 2) by every member of Congress. Dark days were at hand. On July 8 General Howe landed 9,000 men on Staten Island. On the 12th, part of Lord Howe's fleet stood in, and two men of war with their tenders sailed up the Hud- commit son, passed the batteries of New York unin- ?v ne / s a ? d ' r Washington; jured, took soundings, and returned. Before New York proceeding to hostilities Lord Howe sent ashore a proclamation promising pardon to all who should come in. Washington forwarded it to Congress, which caused it to be published. Attempts were even made to 12S The War of American Independence, a.d. communicate with Washington, by letters directed to 'George Washington, Esq.,' or 'George Washington, Sec, &c. ; ' but he refused to receive any that did not recognise him as commander of the American army. Before hostilities began, some weeks more elapsed, during which the English received further reinforcements, making up their forces to about 24,000 men, besides the fleet, whilst Washington strengthened the fortifications of New York. Many of the king's troops were Hessians and other ners ; and — perhaps as a set-off to Lord Howe's proclamation of pardon — resolutions of Congress were circulated offering citizenship and bounties in land to all foreigners who should leavethe British service Aug. 14,27). The city of New York, divided on the west from the coast of New Jersey by the Hudson river, a channel Battle of of which, further south, called the Narrows, AuKus I t S 27 nd ' se P arates Staten Island from Long Island, 1776. is itself divided on the east from the latter by East River, a ferry over which connects it with the village, now suburb, of Brooklyn. Here General Putnam had his camp, and in front of it were 9,000 Americans under General Sullivan and General Stirling commonly called Lord Stirling, though his claim to the title had been rejected by the House of Lords). Wash- n rem. lined in New York with a garrison alreadj too small for its defence. On 22 the British under :'. Clinton (rossed from Staten Island, 1 0.000 strong, to the south of Long Island, which was undefended, and in thn ns advanced through the island. An ■nit mad. which led to the rear of the American position, called the J.iman a load, had been left open. In the engagements which ensued August 27 the Americans found themselves surrounded; both their generals were taken prisoners, with 1,070 men including some militia taken after the action), and their total loss was 1,650, i77<3. First Period. 129 against 379 on the British side, of whom 94 were killed and missing. Washington crossed from New York during the battle, but could only save the remnant of the army. General Howe did not attack the fort on Brooklyn Heights till the next day, and a heavy fog interrupted hostilities. On the night of Aug. 29-30 Washington succeeded in embarking the whole army for New York, but the heavy artillery had to be left behind. The loss of the battle of Long Island is ascribed partly to the ill- ness of General Greene, who had superintended the works and knew the ground thoroughly, whilst his hastily ap- pointed successor, General Putnam, knew neither. In fact it appears that during the engagement no one officer was actually in command. Worse than the defeat of Long Island were its effects. ' Our situation,' wrote Washington to Congress (Sept. 2), 'is truly distressing. The check our detach- Discourage- ment sustained on the 27th ultimo has dis- mentofth e troops ; pirited too great a proportion of our troops, Washing- and filled their minds with apprehension and tfoVdespe- despair. The militia are dismayed, intractable, rate> and impatient to return. Great numbers of them have gone off; in some instances almost by whole regiments, by half-ones, and by companies at a time Their want of discipline, and refusal of almost every kind of restraint and government, have produced a like conduct but too common to the whole, and an entire disregard of that order aiid subordination necessary to the well-doing of an army. .%. . I am obliged to confess my want of confidence in the generality of the troops.' He was convinced, he went on to say, that no dependence could be put in a militia, and ' that our liberties must of necessity be greatly hazarded if not entirely lost, if their defence is left to any but a permanent standing army, I mean one to exist during the war.' On September 8 the Connecticut militia had M. II. K 130 TJl War of American 1 tee. ld. become reduced in a few days from 6.000 men to less than 2,000. At least one-fourth of the army were sick. Pay was two months in arrear, and the military chest was empty. Admiral Howe, after the battle, had anchored with the fleet in New York harbour, within cannon shot of the city. On September 11 a fruitless conference peace con- with a view to ] '' on States t rcnc . c . ; , Islan 1 Lord Howe. Franklin, Rut- .... ledge, and John Adams. But hostilities were '" not suspended. On September 13 some of Lord Howe's ships sailed up East River, and began can- nonading. Two days later a large body of troops was disembarked, and the Americans were so demoralised that eight regiments left their lines without firing a shot on the approach of seventy men of the British. Washi tried in vain to check their flight, threatening them with sword and pistol, and in endeavouring to set them an example he rode so near to the enemy that he had to be forced away by an aide-de-camp. Fearing to be again taken in the rear. Washington, supported by tin- majority of a council of war, now ordered the evacuation of the city. Greeni ily the ablest commander after V 1 \a< na- tion, and- made a ' miserab . lerable ring behind most of their heavy cannon and part of their stores and proi (Sept. 15). Wash;: d with the mam on the ncclBl hind forming the northern end of New York or Manhattan) Island, which be proceeded to fortifj ; a fort called Fort • m, in pan ted on a rocky height overlooking the Hu mwhilc General (now Sir William Howe, hment to occupy New York (in which a tire broke out five da) later, and dc- *776. First Period. 13 1 Stroyed about a tenth part of the city), encamped in front of the American lines. A successful skirmish between advanced parties of both armies somewhat in- spirited the American troops. At the urgent entreaty of Washington, who declared success impossible unless the military system was changed (Sept. 24), Congress now ordered a new army ,, c ■ 1 • 1 , } Congress of eighty-eight battalions to be raised, which raisesanew was to serve throughout the war, bounties both *l?Z Siring of money and land being offered to soldiers and the war - officers. Yet the plan thus entered upon seemed likely to defeat itself. The States in turn offered additional bounties, particular towns higher bounties still, and in this competition for soldiers men began to hang back for the sake of obtaining better terms, whilst the different conditions of enlistment produced jealousies and bicker- ings. The different States quarrelled about the appoint- ments, without regard to the qualifications of officers, and nominated, to use Washington's words, such as were * not fit to be shoeblacks, from the local attachments of this or that member of Assembly.' Sir William Howe was not sleeping on his laurels. He sent up the Hudson two ships, which cut off Wash- ington's communications by water, and moved up himself to the north-east of Washington's HWs'ad- camp, in order to take him in the rear. The ™ m \l , Tj 1 tt • i t , rort Wash- Haarlem Heights lines now became untenable, mgton taken and giving— against his own judgment— a - l6) ' strong^arrison at Fort Washington, Washington with- drew northwards to White Plains, and again, after an engagement (October 28), in which the Americans had to fall back, to the heights of North Castle. Howe now fell back, and Washington profited by the occasion to cross the Hudson with part of his army, at the only place left free by the British ships, and took up his position at Fort Lee, 132 Tfy War of A xn Independence. \.v>. opposite Fort Washington, in order to cover Philadelphia! But from this spot again he had to witness di- Fort Washington was attacked (November 16) from four points at once by a large force, the ammunition failed, and after a few hours' defence the fort surrendered, with 2,8 1 S men, besides artillery, arms, and ammunition ; the British had, however, lost nearly 1,000 men in killed and wounded in the action. Washington, it is said, cried like a child at seeing the slaughter of his men, whom he could not relieve. Three days later, 6,000 British troops under Lord Cornwallis crossed the Hudson above Fort Lee. which Washin Washington had to evacuate in haste, leaving treat a large booty behind. All the troops he had Nc°" jjcrsey: with him were only about 3,000 men, without tents, baggage, or entrenching tools, many of Island re- ' °° ° ' ° : povered by them without shoes. With these he had to fthe retreat across New Jersey, the inhabitants of can.ii.iign. wa ich, a-> he afterwards wrote, ' either from fear or disaffection, almost to a man, refused to turn out' to his aid. He was pursued so closely by Lord Cornwallis that the advance guard of the latter entered Newark before the American rear-guard had left it. Having crossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania he sent one of his generals to represent in person to the Congress the weakness of the army and its n< early succour. Fortunately perhaps for the American I Cornwallis did not attempt tip cross th* river. Sir Guy Carleton, meanwhile, had from CanacHj occu- pied Crown Point October), and Sir II. Clinton, with a detachment of 6,000 men from New York, had rc- ,1 Rhode Island Dec. I . The result of the cam- paign of 1776 was to lease nearly 2,000 more Ameri- can prisoners in British hands, than British in American (4,854 against 2,860) ; and among the captured Americans were 304 officers, whilst there were not more than 50 1776. First Period. | 133 among the British, a pretty clear proof that the American rank and file were not to be depended on. In England the Declaration of Independence had been generally received with indignation. Parliament met on October 31. There was much abuse of America, indignation and though Wilkes, Barre, and Fox spoke S? l,s f d '"\ . ° ' ' r England by energetically on an amendment to the address the Declara- by Lord John Cavendish, their minority was pendenceV" only 87 to 128, whilst in the Lords an amend- Franklin in Pans ; John ment of Lord Rockingham's obtained only 26 the Painter, votes, and from this time he and his party pointedly kept aloof from public business. The warnings of Fox and Barre as to an impending war with France were treated with scorn by the ministers. But the king himself was anxious as to this danger. He had ground for being so. On December 21 Franklin reached Paris, where his fame as a man of science had long preceded him. In his plain brown coat and powderless grey hair he took the streets and the drawing-rooms alike by storm. Before the year closed he had already obtained permission to bring American prizes into both French and Spanish ports, and initiated negotiations for a treaty. An attempt to fire Portsmouth dockyard by a man named James Aitken, nicknamed John the Painter, created considerable alarm just before this period (Dec. 6). It was said that there was a plot to destroy all the English dockyards, and that Silas Deane, American commissioner in Paris, was privy to it. The incendiary was hanged a few months later. It was in America that the American cause looked worst. To the bulk of mankind, success always implies genius, and disaster incapacity. Loud was Outcry in the outcry against Washington after his late Am ? rit;i _ ° against reverses, borne of the officers nearest to his Washington; person lost their trust in him. Having to open L-e • Let's in their absence all official letters to his "P turt: - generals, he opened one day a letter (dated Nov. 24, 1776) 1 34 'l'h' War of m Independence, a.d. addressed to his own secretary and confidential friend, Colonel Joseph Reed. The writer was Genera] Lee, who had b f the Hudson — in his own opinion, and in that of many, the rightful claimant to the command letter contained the following ' 1 lament with you that fatal indecision of mind which in wai •■■ greater disqualification than stupidity or even want of personal courage. Accident may put a decisive blunderer in the right, but eternal defeat and mis- < arriage must attend the man of the best parts if cursed with indecision. To confess the truth. I really think our chief will do better with me than without me.' Washington inclosed the letter to Reed, magnanimously excusing him- self fir having seen it, as 'having no idea of its being a private loiter, much less suspecting the tendency of the corrcpondence,'and did not even kto remove Reed from his secretaryship ; the latter, however, soon retired from the army. Yet a singular retribution was at hand. after disobeying for a long time Washington's ordei rdin;^ his entn ross the Hudson into New I even seeking to draw awaj 2,000 men from ■ if the army, in the hope of making a . York, was captured at night by a I >utin^ aeral Sullivan ng Island, id some time - led to nd promptly joined Washington, who by . and through the receipt of other reinforce- w 5,000 men under him. situation was none the The b had Rhode Island and marly all nnsylvania was threatened, and Con- to Baltimore. So little public Pennsylvania that the • 1 obey the summons of the Council 1 that of then commanding 1776. First Period. 135 officers, but exulted at the approach of the British and the late misfortunes of the Americans. Washington had to urge the prudence of disarming them. To his brother lie went so far as to write, ' If every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedi- tion, I think the game is pretty nearly up' (December 18). Still, he was so persuaded of the justice of the cause that he could not entertain an idea that it would ' finally sink.' To its credit be it said, Congress lost neither heart nor yet trust in the commander of its choice, but invested Washington with a temporary military dictatorship, re- solving that, until otherwise ordered, General Washington should ' be possessed of all power to order and direct all things relative to the department and to the operations of war' (December 12). The measures taken for* obtaining more permanent forces were already beginning to tell ; but Washington at once began to raise more troops, in- cluding a corps of engineers, and promised increased pay to soldiers re-engaging. And now this 'indecisive' commander showed what stuff he was made of. The British were ready to cross into Pennsylvania, and indeed were only wait- The surprise ing till the Delaware was frozen over. On °( Trenton. _, . . - December Christmas night, 1776, though the number of 25, 1776. his forces was less than he ' had any conception of (the adjutant-general's return of December 22 only gave 4,707 rank and file present and fit for duty), Washington him- self, with 2,400 men and twenty pieces of artillery, crossed the river, swollen with floating ice, into New Jersey, sur- prised Trenton, where there were 1,500 Hessians with a body of English cavalry, took a thousand prisoners, a thousand stand of arms, and six field-pieces, and re- crossed the Delaware with prisoners and booty, leaving the Hessian commander mortally wounded, with six ot his officers and between thirty and forty of his men killed, 136 The War of American I ndcjh a.;, Whilst the Amei icans had only lust four men, of whom two . to death British having fallen back to Princeton, Washing- the Del iware, and established himself .,: .. ,- at Trenton. But Lord CornwaUis, moment of embarking for England had been New ordered back by Sir W.Howe to New J and soon came up with overwhelming i c^crcd. Washington now tried to surpri.se l'rin and would have entirely succeeded but for his meeting a British brigade marching to Trenton. In the engagement which followed, known as the battle of Princeton, January 13, 1777, the American advanced troops at first at were rallied by Washington, and the result was a loss of 400 on the British side, and about one quarter that number on the American. CornwaUis was stantially outmanoeuvred Washington went into w quarters at Morristown, raised by authority of C01 sixteen more battalions of regular troops, and so hai itish that at last they retained two posts onlj h Jersey. Even from thi onths 1 Jul;, , 1 Jen - • tempt hington to a general 1 1 nt Yet in spite of all mea ing the army, were always slipping through his hands. We find him writing on Januai • i tofoui numbers, or they have not hor» S to move their artillery. or they would not suiter us to remain undis- turbed.' On Fi \t this time we are only about 4,o> > < »n Man h 1.} the wl fit for duty in New Jei 1 der 3,000, all e militia engaged only till the last of the month. Smallpox terribly, v. 1 had not inoculation j available '77 Firs! Period. 1 37 remedy. The number under inoculation, with their at- tendants, was about 1,000. Apprehension of the smallpox greatly retarded enlistments (April 13). Pay was as usual in arrear, and the desertions were 'amazing' (April 27). Indeed Washington wrote, as late as June 1, that the numbers of his troops diminished more by desertions than they increased by enlistments. It was under such diffi- culties that Washington gradually pressed back the British troops towards New York. It is right to say, on the other hand, that the ravages exercised by the British troops in New Jersey, where 'Tories' and 'Whigs' were plundered alike, The ravages roused a feeling against them which all the ^hsj;f^e appeals of Washington and of Congress had the- people, failed, to call forth. By July 4 we find Washington writing that the spirit with which the militia of New Jersey and Pennsylvania had turned out lately on the alarm of a movement of General Howe's, had 'far exceeded' his ' most sanguine expectations.' Strange to say, one of the difficulties of Washington and of the Congress at this period arose from the sym- pathies which the American cause was begin- Foreign ning to create in Europe, or perhaps, to speak *£<."■ 'I more correctly, the attraction which the war a difficulty. offered to unquiet spirits while peace prevailed in the Old World. The American commissioners in Paris were lavish in promises of commissions, and for a time Con- gress was generous in fulfilling those promises. We find Washington (May 17), asking almost angrily of his friend Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, what Congress expects him to do ' with the many foreigners they have at different times promoted to the rank of field officers, and by the last resolve, two to that of colonels.' Eventually it came to this, that a French officer named Ducoudray Came out with the promise, not only of a major-general- 13S The War of American Independence, a.d. ship, but of the command of the whole artillery. So disgusted were the American officers at this, that three generals — (ireene, Sullivan, and Knox — wrote t I threatening to resign if he were appointed. The;. reprimanded ; but the promise made by Commissioner e was not ratified. .Many of the new-comers were no doubt adventurers, but not all. A young French officer of eighteen, the The Marquis Marquis de la Fayette, afterwards the General Lafayette of two French revolutions, being on ciusko. military duty at Met/, was present at a dinner (1776), given by his commandant to the Duke of Gloucester, brother to George III., then passing through the city. The Duke had just received despatches from England relating to American matters, and referring to declaration of Independence. La Fayette listened, asked questions of the royal guest, took tire for the American cause, and resolved from that hour to devote himself to it. He went to Paris, sought out Silas Deane jnerican commissioner, who promised him a major- llship, with a p board a ship which was to be sent out with arms and supplies for the Americans. But when the news came of Washington's flight from . the credit of the fell so low that no ship could be h.itl. and Americans even dissuaded the young Frenchman from going out. Instead of being daunted by such tidings, he bought and equipped a ship f »r himself, and undertook to carry despatt lies for Wash- ington. 1! .eminent as well as the English one sou^lr f his escape is a ro- 6 in itself— but he got awaj through Spain in safety, and eventually landed near Georgetown in South I . Among t ompanions, was the n Dc Kalb, whom Choiseul had sent ten or twelve his arrival I?:; First Period. 139 at Philadelphia, La Fayette's application for employment was at first coolly received ; but when he wrote that his conditions were that he should serve without pay as a volunteer, the marked difference of such terms from those demanded by others procured attention to him. A captain of dragoons, although not yet twenty, La Fayette received (July 31) a major-general's commission, and soon became intimate with Washington, towards whom he conceived an enthusiastic attachment. Another foreign officer who did good service to the American cause from this period was the young Polish engineer Kosciusko. In the same month of July the national flag — 'the stars and stripes' — was adopted by Congress ; and we may also mention the bold capture in Rhode Island of the English general Prescott, by an American party ; a kind of set-off to that of Lee by the English. In England, George III. and his ministers were carry- ing all before them, although an adversary, whom they had not had to reckon with for some time now, . . , Lord Chat- again confronted them. On May 30, 1777, ham's re- Lord Chatham, who for two years had not ^di * j" c n e ; been present at the House of Lords, appeared from Canada 1 • 1 r- 1 1 • n i decided on. in his place, a gouty figure swathed in flannels. Pie urged peace with America, before France and Spain became parties to the war. ' You cannot,' he ex- claimed, ' conquer the Americans. I might as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch.' His motion was rejected by 99 votes to 28. Yet it was difficult to obtain troops. Only 3,252 men were sent in the course of the year to America from Great Britain and Ireland, and 726 to Canada ; nor could more than 3,596 be obtained from Germany. Much reliance was however placed upon the American loyalists, and upon the Indians. To give the largest scope to the services of the latter, an expedition from Canada was planned, the i^o T/te War of American Independence. command of which teas given to General Burgoyne, a famous wit and man of fashion, author of a sir. opera and comedy. With 3.724 British soldiers, 3,016 Germans, 250 provini artillerists, besides Indian auxiliaries, E3 11 oyne, having left Crown Point on July 1, \ moved up Lake Champlain, intending to ful - a junction with the southern army under Howe. The expedition was at first successful. Ticonde* ..is evacuated without striking a blow, through the erection of batteries on a height deemed inaccessible, which commanded the fort July 6. The British came up with the rear-guard of the retreating corps, and dc- . it with a loss of about 400 in killed and :00k Skcncsborou-h and the stores collected there, com- pelled the evacuation of Fort Edward on the Hudson (July 30 , invested Fort Schuyler on the Mohawk, and ted with great l"-s .1 body of militia which were marching to relieve it. But now the tide turned. The Americans had large supplies at Benningti New Hampshire : Burgoyne sent a party to surprise the place, under Colonel Baum. The latter finding •.ion- intrenchments, halted, and sent word to • inmanderdn-chicf. ! ments reai h him, he was ments and defeated by General Stark, who v,.h marching with a mil/ join General Schuyler, the Ami commander. Then tits, which joined too late, were in turn defeated, and the result of the two ei incnt- .—known as the battle of Benninj • the Ami losing only 200 in killed and wounded Colonel St. . who wa 1 Si huyler with New loyalists or 'I id Indians, fled in a panic to l Ucry, .uid mui h behind, 1777- First Period. 141 Three days after the battle of Bennington, General Schuyler had been superseded in favour of General (iatcs, an Englishman born, who had served in the French and Indian wars, and had been wounded at Braddock's defeat. Great pains were taken to strengthen him, and reinforcements were sent to him from Washington's army, which, as the event even now proved, was ill able to spare them. Washington meanwhile, with enfeebled and now vastly inferior forces, was holding Howe in check, whilst eluding any general engagement. At last Battle of Howe put to sea with about 18,000 men, Brandywine^ leaving Clinton with a strong force at New 1777. York, and after keeping the Americans for about three weeks in doubt as to his destination, entered Chesapeake Bay the day after a council of war had unanimously de- cided that he must have sailed for Charlestown, and landed on the Elk river, about fifty miles from Philadel- phia. Washington marched to meet him with about 14,000 men, of whom only about 8,000 were fit for ser- vice. The battle took place on Brandywine Creek (Sept. 11, 1777), and the Americans were defeated, with a loss of 300 killed, 600 wounded, and nearly 400 prisoners, besides 7 or 8 pieces of cannon, as against 90 killed, and 500 wounded or missing, on the British side. La Fayette was wounded. Another foreign volunteer, the Polish Count Pulaski, also distinguished himself in the action, and was made a brigadier-general. Having received reinforcements, Washington again offered battle a few days later, but a violent storm stopped the contest and injured his ammunition. He Philadelphia was obliged to retreat. A skilful movement P of the British, which threatened his supplies, Sept. through a part of the country from which lie Genlaan- could not derive, as he wrote to Congress, the tov ». Oct. *- least intelligence, the inhabitants, ' being to a man, dis- i :j T/a W in Independence. a.i>. affected,' compelled him to leave dpen the road to Phila- delphia Genera] Wayne, whowas left the advance with 1,500 men, wis surprised and defeated, and on the 26th the llrit ish entered Philadelphia, from whence Con- gress had adjourned to the town of Lancaster. Later, a surprise of a British division at German* town seemed likely to prove a great suco .hut a thick fog arose, the American ammunition failed, the llritisli rallied, and the assailants fled in panic with of 1,000 men. Four days later Sir Henry Clinton, from New York, carried by storm Forts Montgomery and Clin- ton on the Hudson river, two American frigates being also destroyed. An atta< k 1 a the Delaware forts indeed failed in the first instance (< let I even here matters looked SO threatening that, by Washington's advice, some fi which were being built on the Delaware river were sunk. A few weeks later the forts, after a stubborn d( ' were evacuated (Nov. 15-20). Washington withdi White Marsh, fourteen miles from Philadelphia, and from thence, after an attempted surprise by Howe, into winter quarters at Valley Forge, on the other side of the Si huylkill, about twenty-: from the city. • • than evo Renewed commander • lom successful, now the < lamour was inten- I by the brilliant su the north. ;>ite the 1 nington and the failure had still pressed on. < >n September 14 I the Hudson and en- \ thence man hed slowly along the Hudson till he met the Americans iped at Stillwater or Bemus's (alias Behmus's) heights (Sept. 19), within lines planned by Kosciusko. The battle continued till nightfall, when the Americans 1777- First Period. 143 withdrew to their camp; but the British loss was the greater, 500 to over 319. Burgoyne's Indian allies and many of the loyalist volunteers now deserted him. What remained of his army was on half-rations ; his horses were without forage. Meanwhile Gates was daily re- ceiving reinforcements. On October 7 Burgoyne again engaged the Americans. The fight was so fierce that one gun was taken and retaken five times. Benedict Arnold, ■who had already been the hero of the previous battle, but who had been deprived of his command by the jealousy of Gates, resumed it under fire in spite of the tetter's orders, and only left the field when wounded in the leg. General Frazer, the most brilliant of the English officers, was killed ; and though again night only separated the combatants, the British loss was far greater than the American, — 700 as against about 150. Burgoyne fell back to Saratoga, and was about to withdraw to Fort Edward, when he learnt that it was in the enemy's hands. He was surrounded, his Burgoyne's men were starving, and only 3,500 of them ™™^" ;Lt were fit to fight, whilst the enemy were not less Oct. 16. ' than 14,000. A council of war was deliberating on capitu- lation, when an eighteen-pound ball swept across the table. On October 16, 5,791 British troops, with arms and baggage, 42 guns and ammunition, surrendered, re- ceiving indeed the honours of war, and being allowed (though the stipulation remained long unfulfilled) to em- bark for England, on condition of not serving again against the Americans until exchanged. The conduct of the American soldiers on the surrender was excellent ; as the famished remnant of veterans came out, ' all was mute astonishment and pity.' Sir Henry Clinton's move- ment up the river Hudson came too late to help Bur- goyne ; nor after the storming of the American forts on the western bank had it any further result than the 144 The War of American Indepatdai rapture of stores anil destruction of property, Forts Mont- • rv and Clinton being evacuated I let 26). Gates did nut even apprise Washingt< .nc's surrender, but made his report direct to Congress, which voted him thanks and a gold medal, and when Washington urgently pressed him now to send back troops. Gates refused to part with them. "\ Washington shows in his letters, he had to fight two battles with forces inferior to those of his antagonists, in order, if possible, to save Philadelphia, in a State abounding in ■ the Cted and lukewarm/ whilst ' the States <.f New- York and New England, resolving to crush Burgoj ne,' had 'continued pouring in their troops' till his surrender. It was indeed only from a distance that Washington's work ippreciated. Vergennes, ..1 an interview with the American commissioners (Dec. 12, 1777 . I that nothing had struck him so much as General Washh attacking and giving battle to Genera] Howe, wit] army raised within a year.' In England the news of the capture of Philadelphia caused ' in the minds of all sorts of people,' Burke wrote, , . . . a' 4 wild tumult Philadelphia might well look to thi .< 1 like a capital, whereas it was \ but one anions several mat Ann, 1 in the other hand. wh( n the gam of the cam- paign < .urn' to be >'- appeared that the whole result of British su only the 'acquisition of good winter quarters for the British army ' in the Quale* 1 ■ ity. When parliament met on November 20, more than one warning voice was Pownall delated that the A would never return to subji I that until men were I ' that the United tati pendent sovereign ; to treat with them as 1777- First Period. 145 such,' no schemes of conciliation could be of much use. Chatham, who moved an amendment in the Lords, was more hopeful ; but he again declared conquest impos- sible. ' You may swell,' he said, ' every expense and every effort still more extravagantly, pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow ; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince, but your efforts are for ever vain and impotent.' He denounced with furious invective the employment of Indians, 'hell- hounds of savage war' (Dec. 2). But the inconsistency of his policy was palpable. ' Lord Chatham,' wrote Horace Walpole to the Countess of Ossory, ' is an Irish- man ; he would recall the troops and deny the indepen- dence of the Americans' (Dec. 5). The Duke of Richmond, on the other hand, representing the Rockingham Whigs, declared that he would ' sooner give up every claim to America than continue an unjust and cruel civil war.' But the quiescent attitude of the party left the ministry undisturbed, justifying Walpole's bitter sarcasm of a few months previous : 'The cruellest thing that has been said of the Americans by the Court is, that they were en- couraged by the Opposition." You might as soon light a lire with a wet dish-clout.' (Walpole to Mason, Oct. 5.) But even whilst returning from the debate of Decem- ber 2, the news reached Lord North of the surrender of Saratoga. The minister could neither eat nor sleep, and was anxious to give up all, or to retire. The king was in an agony of grief. The Opposition plucked up Gloomy im- heart of grace. Fox, Barre, Burke vehe- P ressl " lis produced by mently attacked the ministry, urging agreement the s with the Americans anyhow, a recognition of France ' independence, or even alliance. The Duke rca,Jy '", 1 ' treat with of Richmond followed the same line in the Am. Lords (nth). Parliament adjourned to January 20, 177S. M. II. L 146 The War of American Indcpi . a-d. During the recc aid that the k ver to : m old deaf Moravian, named James. Hutton, well known to Franklin, to bound the latter asto the possibility of making terms. The reply was 'too late. 1 Nor could ( hi 1 >« ember 1 :. at an inten ennes announced to the Ann uer-, that a treaty would be entered into with them, but that Spain must lie consulted On the 17th they .formed that American indepi aid be not only acknowledged but - illy on the 2Sth tli.it Lord Stormont, the 1 ambassador at Pat I warn his chiefs that Spain and Frani e v. ere plotting. '1 lare wa e in England of an impending 1 and the king's thoughts began to turn to Chatham, though Sen-* <.f m ' ie was bl '" determined not to give him control When pai liament met king hu on Januar) », Lord Rockingham and the l luke of Richmond again urged the nition of American independent e. th ■ Chatham, and even Lord Shelburne, could not y< in the i North was always anxious to d only ned in office under pressure 1 be long himself by this time Jam;.: iplatedthe l lility that a tim< me when it would be ' wise to abandon all America but Canada, Nov; . mdthe Floridas ; ' but while he disi laimed 'any absurd ideas of un- conditional submission ' Jan. -,i , he put the continuance of the war on the plea that the COUntT) hid have the struggl( ed that it is vain.' In America, in spue oi discord and weakn< ^rcss was feeling its u.iy l. .wards the establishmi • in nationality 1 . •. the s< hi -ration, whx h had bt . n m,d. I July 1 Iments, adopted, and , 777 _s. First Period. 147 remitted to the several States for acceptation. Weak as it eventually proved — reserving to each State Thescheme ' its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, £ f d ^ and every power, jurisdiction, and right not adopted by Com rrcss expressly delegated to the United States in Nov. 15, Congress assembled' — it declared a perpetual ' 7 ? 7 - union, and withheld from the several States the power of treating with foreign countries, or with each other, and other functions of sovereignty. It was not how- ever acceded to by any State till 1778, nor by all, as we shall see, till 1781. But Congress itself was little more than the shadow of a name. The number of members present at its sit- tings rarely rose to 17, fell sometimes to 9. It [ mpoten , v tried in January 1778 to borrow, but no one of Congress, would lend. It could only issue more and more paper money. It could not even recover its debts, and had in February to beg the States to enact laws for enabling it to do so. All this impotency told of course with twofold force upon the army. There had been dark days already for the commander-in-chief, but those of the v/ashing- wintcr at Valley Forge were the darkest. The l m'smise- , . _ _ 1 T - i- 1 rahle winter neighbourhood was chiefly Tory ; the Lnghsh at Valley paid in cash for their supplies ; Washington Ior s e - had nothing but the depreciated paper-money of Con- gress, and in this paper-money a general's pay scarcely kept him in clothes. Three days before Christmas the last ration had been served out. Washington declared in writing to the President of Congress, that unless 'some great and capital change' suddenly took place, the army must inevitably either 'starve, dissolve, or disperse in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can. For want of shoes or clothing 2,898 men were unfit for duty. He was ccmpellcd to send out foraging parties, i.]S The War of American Independence, a.m. whilst warning Congress that such measures ruined discipline. By February the neighbourhood wa hausted, the horses were dying fur want of I and the commissaries could sec no means of supply beyond March 11. For six days running the soldiers without meat ; anil there was hardly a whol of shoes in the camp. Putrid fevers ami other deadly ses were rife. Desertions w< stonishingly In little more than six months, between 200 and 300 officers threw up their commissions. Had Sir W. attacked the army, he must have annihilated it. The Pennsylvania legislature censured the commander-in- chief. A cabal was formed against him, the moving spirit in which was an Irishman named Conway, appointed his opponents on a new board of war. and made Conway inspector of the army. Propositions were made for putting Cates or Lee [lately exchanged for General Prescott in his place. An effort was made to detach La m him by giving the former the command of an expedition to Canada, planned without consulting the commander-in-chief, with Conway for second in com- mand. But I.a Fayette saw through the design ; the attempt was felt to be impracticable, and was given up. Washington was maintained, and <>n his representations re taken for better organising the army and the war. Me m while the British were wasting the fruits of their :i. Philadelphia proved 'the 1 apua of the British army.' As 1'ranklin phrased it. instead of Howe's taking Phila- delphia, Philadelphia took Howe. The officers were their nine in amateur theatricals and amuse- blingfor high stakes, and disgusting I luakei population not only with their levity but their debau 1778. Second Period. 149 But the news which reached America in May 1778 startled the English out of their gaieties, and woke the Americans out of their torpor. On Feb- The treaty , . , . , between ruary 6 not only a treaty 01 amity and com- ].- rance anc j merce, but of eventual defensive alliance, £™* nca » , February o, was concluded at Paris between France and 1778. the United States. The absolute and unlimited inde- pendence of the United States was put forth as the essential object, each party agreeing not to lay down their arms till this independence should be ensured by treaty. By a separate secret convention, power was reserved to the King of Spain to accede to the treaties. To call such a treaty a defensive one was a transpa- rent subterfuge. Since England was at war to prevent the independence of her American colonies, to , , . . , , .... The theatre make that independence the essential object f thenar of a treaty, and to guarantee it, was equivalent e " lar s ed - to a declaration of war upon her. From henceforth virtually the area of the conflict becomes that of the olobe itself. CHAPTER VI. THE WAR. SECOND PERIOD : FROM THE ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE TILL THE END OF THE WAR (1778-83). The treaty between the King of France and the United States was not immediately published in the former country. Voltaire, in a letter of March 15, Franceand speaks of its publication as a recent event, thetn His view was that ' without a declaration of war there would be blows struck.' France indeed was but ill prepared for war. Her finances had lately been en- trusted to the Gcnevese banker Necker. His credit was 150 The War of American Independence* a. v. good, and he found money, where his predecessors had failed to do so. The device of a 5 ry, amongst others, was tried in France, as it was .1! England ; but already, at the time when Voltaire wrote, the tickets were at S per cent, discount, and there were 5,000 which had found no purchasers. Vast sums had however been spent on the fleets, and France hoped once more, with the eventual help of Spain, to dispute with England the supremacy of the seas. In England the existence of the treaty was soon known to the ministry. It is said that the king's tirst idi th . s hearing of it was to withdraw at once all land conciliatory and sea forces from America, and concentrate all the efforts of England against France alone. This was not done ; but now, when it was too late, cessions were offered which, if granted before, would lubt have averted the war. On February 17 — which Horace Walpole describes as 'a day of con- fusion and humiliation that will be remembered as long as the name of England exists — Lord North brought forward a plan of conciliation, in which the independence of the United States was acknowli his words, not 'verbally' but yd 'virtually.' He was asked if he did not know that the treats b ais and France was signed. 'He would not answer till Sir George Saville hallooed out, "An ■ an answer, an answer!" His lordship then rose, Could not den;, the fact, but said he did not know it offi< tally.' There was no opposition to speak of, 1 :r now or during the p 'the measures through Parliament, and by the month of Apni three acts were passed (known .is • Lord North's < lonciliatory bills, 1-: Geo. III., cc ti, • ■I whi< h repealed the ai I for re julating the men! of . on the ground of its having been 'found 1 uneasinesses in the 1778. Second Period. 151 minds of the inhabitants of the said province,' and having 'occasioned jealousies and apprehensions of danger to their liberties and rights in several others of the colonies and plantations in North America.' A second, besides repealing the Tea Act, renounced the right of taxation by the king and parliament for any of the colonies in North America or the West Indies, except as regarded duties for the regulation of commerce, and even these duties were to be applied for the use of the respective colonies in the same manner as duties collected by authority of their general courts or assemblies. A third empowered the crown to appoint two commissioners, with power (until June 1, 1779) to treat 'with any body or bodies politic or corporate, or with any assembly or assemblies of men, or with any person or persons whatsoever,' for the redress of grievances, &c, to order a cessation of hostilities by sea or land, suspend any act of parliament passed since Feb. 10, 1763, grant pardons, &c. Any term implying rebellion was carefully avoided in these acts, in which the strongest expres- sion, besides that of ' hostilities,' was that of ' disorders among his Majesty's faithful subjects,' — which 'faithful subjects had, in the Declaration of Independence, now nearly two years old, pronounced his Majesty's cha- racter to be ' marked by every act that may define a tyrant,' and himself thereby ' unfit to be the ruler of a free people.' Conciliation in this form could be held only as a demonstration of weakness. In the meanwhile, on March 17, the ministry had laid before parliament a notification from France of her treaty with America, which was ironically declared not The k|n to be an exclusive one. Lord Stormontwas at will not have once recalled, and the cry swelled for Lord iVamas hat ~ Chatham as premier. How unfit he was for P remler - the office, the course of another short month would prove. i ;j The War of fendaice. A .i>. But his nai d to be .1 tower of strength .*. 1 I was no doubt so felt in Frai The king obstinately] him more than high insideration in life,' he wrote on that very March 17 when France was known to have virtually thrown down intlet to England, 'shall make me stoop to opposi- tion. . . .Whilst any ten men in the kingdom will stand by me, I will not give myself into bondage. ... It is impossible that the nation should not stand b) 1 they will not. they shall have another king.' With rclent- oatred towards Chatham he could look forward to the day 'when decrepitude or death puts an end to him as a trumpet of sedition.' So Lord North, ing to be released, remained in the pillor) of h A tew weeks later oc( uned [April 7 the las) scene in Lord Chatham's political life. The Duke of Richmond had brought forward a motion for the with- C h a th a m, drawal of the fleets and armies from An May i !, 1778. and for tin- use "t none bin amicable mi towards her. And now Lord Chatham, who had edly declared that America could not be up to expn tion at an idea whii h had forth of giving up Ann rica, ' As long,' he crawl down to this house, .n.d have strength to 1 : on my-crutches, or hit mj hand, 1 will vote against up the dependent \ 0! Amei ii 1 on th< 'Britain.' He had spoken. Walpole tells us, 'with symptom of deb recollect his own d< I Duke of Richmond, in very . i> plied to him. Lord Chatham an apoplei tic lit. adjourned. He lingered nil May 11. Parliament him a public funeral and a monument, with a perpetual n "f 4,0a to Ins heirs, and a large sum of payment ol 1 he funeral took place 1778 Second Period. 153 on June 7 : but Walpole observed that the funeral of Garrick the actor had been ten times more largely attended. Meanwhile the sending of reinforcements to America was stopped, and an act was passed for strengthening the militia and to encourage volunteers. The ° Preparations prospect of a war with France called forth for war with the warlike energies of the country, and by FianM July 7 Walpole could write to Sir 11. Mann : ' The country is covered with camps. General Conway, who has been to one of them, speaks with astonishment of the fineness of the men, of the regiments, of their discipline and ma- noeuvres.' Various concessions, both fiscal and eccle- siastical, were made to Ireland. It was not, however, till the end of July that France formally declared war, and as late as September communications remained open between France and England. On May 3, 1778, news reached Congress, and was for- warded by it to Washington, of the treaty with France. By an order of the day (May 6), stating that ' it Rejoicings has pleased the Almighty Rulerof theuniverseto J' r N e c ' t ^' ia defend the cause of the United American States, Am and finally to raise us up a powerful friend among the princes of the earth, to establish our liberty and indepen- dency upon a lasting foundation,' Washington set apart the following day as one of solemn rejoicing, which was celebrated with thanksgiving by the brigade chaplains, military evolutions, feux dc joie, and huzzas of ' Long live the King of France!' ' Long live the friendly European Powers and The American States.' Congress at lii steps for reinforcing the army ; replaced the inspector- general Conway, who had resigned in a huff, by an expe- rienced Prussian lieutenant-general, Baron Steuben, late aide-de-camp of Frederick the Great ; and pledged to the officers the payment of half-pay after the close of the war. 154 ^ / - v ' ' ijr °f A ntericatt Independence, a. i>. Yet the promotion of • tent, and often led to results otherwise so unsatisfactory, that a few months later we find Washington writing, ' I most devoutly wish that we had not a single foi amoi ept the Marquis de la Fayette' Jul) The haste with which Lord North's Conciliatory Hills had been passed had been so far successful that dial i o them, together with Lord North's spee< h in- troducing them, had reached New York several weeks before the French treaty. entirely unexpected were su< ho cither Washington nor Laurens, then President of Congress, could believe them genuine. When Washington became convinced of their genuineness, it is obvious thai he felt considerable doubts as to the effect they would produce. There were symptoms to authorise an opinion that the people of America were 'prettj generally wear) ' of the war; and it appeared to him doubtful whether many 'might not incline to an accommodation rather than i in a contest for independent e.' Heine ' to enter il itiation tOO hastily or • •her ' might 'be attended with i onsequeni es equally fatal.' promptl) April 22) ( that these States cannot with propriety hold an) con- . with any commissioners on the part of •1, unless they shall, as .1 preliminary ti cither withdraw their fleets and arm m positive knowledge the independence of the The news oi the French treaty could only sC. When therefore the commissioners under the lat< , arrived in the Delaware (Tune 4). their under- taken] ■ doomed to failure. 'I h< m number -th< a illiara ■ id Aui Idand, and < a former Governoi ol W< I Fl irida, hence 1778. Second Period. 155 commonly spoken of as Governor Johnstone. Lord Ilmve and Sir William Howe were also included in the commission, but the latter having resigned, his successor, Sir Henry Clinton, took his place. The conciliatory acts as passed were in the first instance forwarded to Congress (June 6). They replied that they had in April expressed their sentiments on bills not essentially different, and that when the king should be ' seriously disposed to end the unprovoked war waged against these United States,' they would ' readily attend to such terms of peace as may consist with the honour of independent nations and the sacred regard they mean to pay to treaties.' On that very day the commissioners arrived at Phila- delphia, to find it in course of evacuation. The French alliance alone, without any active measures on Tin- the part of the Americans, had determined JkJihi a Phi,a " Lord George Germain to order this step by a ora secret despatch, of which the commissioners seem to have been unaware. The occupation of the Quaker city by the British had terminated with the same levity which had characterised it all through. Before Sir William Howe had left (May 24) a grand tournament or ' mis chianza ' had been held by the officers in his honour. But when Lord Carlisle landed, the British territory did not extend more than two miles from the city. The order for evacuation had been received with the gloomiest feelings ; 3,000 loyalists were embarking to escape with the troops. The commissioners had just time to write to Congress, offering to the ' States' perfect freedom of legislation and internal government representation in parliament, and exemption from the presence of troops, except with their own permission, and then pledging themselves to take their departure on board ship. But the answer (June 17) was the same as before, and required from the king ' an explicit acknow- The 11 can hide} a.i>. ledgment of the independence of these St. no, or the withdrawing of his fleets and armies.' In the course of that night (June \~ \ Sii i Clinton finally eva< uated Philadelphia, crossing th< Phibdri) ia ware u ' 1 ' 1 " Vcr 17.000 men. Philadelphia was before lone re-occupied by the Americans, th and Arnold placed in command there. Clm- ', ton advanced slowly through New J< iting on New York, weakened daily by ons, his I a line eight miles long. Washington, whos» lowly recruited during tlie spring, endeavoured to obstruct his march, and against the advice of a council of war, gave battle at .Monmouth Court House (June 28). The w< was sui h that on the British side the Hessians refused dleging that it w.i^ too hot Three and fifty-six men dropped down dead from the heat. ■ ho at first, a-, disapproving the movement, had idu I of the atta< k, rds < 1. limed to retain it, but blundered ai I, and uas found b\ Wa iar< h- ing to his support with the main body, in the rear of his \e him .'■ < buke, and sent him bai k to the battle, whii h was sharplj ended by leaving the Americans masters of the bilsl the British took up a strong , •h onl) a nai row pa out of whi< h how< .< ■ th( reat during the ni^ht with all th< ed who could be n ■ to be buncd by the ■ I their ■ '. York. 'I he Ami in killed and wounded. I he day after the battle Lee n. He was then 177S. Second Period. 1 57 tried by court-martial for disobedience of orders, mis- behaviour before the enemy, and disrespect of the com- mander-in-chief, found guilty on all the charges, and sentenced to be suspended from all command lor a year. He never rejoined the army, ami died four years later. On July 2 Congress met again at Philadelphia. On the 9th the articles of confederation were signed by eight States, and a circular was issued the next Articles of day to the five remaining ones, pressing them J;''" 1 to conclude the ' glorious compact,' an invita- by several Mates. tion which was acceded to in the course of the month by two of them, — North Carolina and Georgia. Meanwhile, Clinton had scarcely reached New York, when a French fleet with a strong land force under Count d'Estaing appeared off the mouth of the D'Estaing Delaware (July 8). An attack on New York and the w J ' I'rench in- was projected, with a view to the capture or vestment of destruction of the British fleet which lay in the New P ort bay. But the French ships could not cross the bar of the Hudson, and it was resolved to attack the British at Newport, Rhode Island, which was invested by the Americans from the land side under General Sullivan, supported by La Fayette and Greene, and by the French fleet from the sea. But the American troops were not ready for a week after D'Estaing's arrival. Then a British fleet under Lord Howe suddenly made its appearance, and Count d'Estaing sailed out to meet it ; but a violent storm, still remembered in Rhode Island as ' the great storm,' separated the combatants, and so damaged the French fleet that before long D'Estaing, in spite of the efforts of La Fayette and Greene to persuade him otherwise, announced that he must return to Boston to refit, so that Sullivan (August 28) had to retreat. All the American general officers except La Fayette and Greene protested against the French admiral's departure. Events which, although of little military importance, [58 7fo War of American Independence. a.d. sank deep into the hearts of the Americans, and proved i— 1:— to be of tcrnble moment for the fates of ilic Indian I men, were the in( of the [nd (Iroquois . headed <»r aided b) loyalists, into the vail. the Susquehannah and Cherry Valley, and the m which ensued, accompanied by all the barbarities <>i Indian warfare. That of Wyoming in particular has b immortalised by the poet Campbell in his ' Gertrud< Wyoming.' (July and November 1 The peace commissioners themselves ended by add- ing fuel to the name of war. A second letter of thi _ .. * , asking the authority of Congress for making r ailure of rt . had been left unanswered (July 1 .. rnor Johnstone is said then to have tried bribery with Joseph Reed, now in Congress. 1 "on-ress, on being informed of the t ircum I to hold ition wiilt him. Johnstone j>ub- .1 a vindication of himself, but withdrew from the mission- The commissioners published a final .,r manife Iter ;, declaring that the luct of the Americans would 'change the whole nature and future conduct of the war,' and threatening them with tin- 'extremes of war.' Th< • Mined in parliament bj Norfolk, rards Lord Leici ter, Burke, Rockingham, and the i r> terborou) h, but ci« u nded 1>> Lord 1 lain, fohnstone himself, and Lord Suffolk. That it was not intended as an idle tin. liown by the [ready perp< trated b) d< ta< hmentsfromt Clinton's arm) as well as by those of the I nd dy mentioned, d England the warwa on with 1 here had been an r in • • on within sight of Br< it July 27), iic I icm h and English fleets,the lati Ail - under Admiral Keppel, who was tried for 1111s- lii-m.iriial in the early part of the follow- 1778. Second Period. 159 ing year, but honourably acquitted. In the West [1 Dominica was taken by the French (September*, St. I ,u< ia by the English, D'Estaing being beaten off with loss (De- cember). The western coast of England was harried by Paul Jones, a Scotchman in the American servicc,who even burnt the shipping in Whitehaven. But in point of prizes the balance of profit on the war lay with England. More than two millions' worth had been taken by her cruisers by October 30. A camp established by the French in Nor- mandy came to nothing. In India, before even accurate tidings were received of the war with France, measures were taken for seizing all the French settlements. Pon- dicherry alone resisted for seventy days, the others sur- rendered without a blow. Bu the taking of Malic was the occasion of a second war with Uyder Ali, the soldier of fortune who had possessed himself of the throne of Mysore, and who, with his son Tippoo, proved one of the most formidable foes ever met by the English in India. He had warned the English that he would invade the Carnatic if Malic" were attacked. He was as good as his word, and by the end of the Near there was war with the Mahrattas. Let us now return to America. Mr. Bancroft heads one of the chapters in the last volume of his History of the United States with the title, 'A people without a government, August-December 1778.' \^'[ With keen knowledge of the character of his ! ,fl , ° It SOIL 1! ^ people, Washington had written, two days after French learning of the French alliance, ' I very much pro fear that we, taking it for granted that we have nothing more to do, because France has acknowledged our inde- pendency and formed an alliance with us, shall relapse into a state of supineness and perfect security' (May 5, 1778). Congress remained assiduously engaged in making paper money, without even being able to obtain the sole ]6o Tin- War of American Independence, a. p. from the several States, and i^sui; r cent interest, without having the power to even the latter. Some of tes they succeeded in getting rid of I charging in them their debts to the several Stati brilliant idea was that of drawing on their commis- sioners in Paris, and this was actually done in the very month when the news of the French treaty was received, to the extent of 31.500,000 livres, or s.i\ 1 .: ^0,000/., the tation beinj; of course that the commissioners, who provided with no means whatever of meeting the bills, would somehow beg the money from Frame. Con- gress turne 1 to an English writer on finance, Dr. 1 citizenship, and re<|ucstin.; him to n their finano lined the invitation. And now these punctilious as to the acknowledgment of their indep' on the pari of England, humbled them- I : ace so far as to instruct Franklin .ynd of ire the king that ' they hoped prol from his power and magnanimity/ the word 'proti ! gainst, but carried bj a majority of is no resource, it w.ts admitted, but in ■ rable loans or and whilst Franklin loan in France, to obtain one if possible from 1 lolland. I he disgrai eful feature of the muter was. the war . coast . the < ountry generall) was prospering, Virginia growing abundai nd Massa aher- ■ alth 1>> trade. WhiFt \\ • -. 1 k for offensive war- • 111 New Yoik remained not Onl) without hut with an empty < best, am. ments to the West Indies, and an expedition to the south, so 1779- S croud Period. 1 6 1 that, without complaining, he had to beg that nothing might be ' expected' of him. The expedition , , , . ... British ope- tO the South was the most important military rations in event of the year. The region was one where sJ^mSj the Tories or loyalists were most numerous. ,akc " ( IJr - ... . . . _ . . . cember 29), Already two incursions into Georgia, consisting in great measure of such refugees, had taken Tccovercd - place during the autumn from East Florida, whilst an attempt to retaliate upon St. Augustine failed. Towards the end of December a British fleet under Sir Peter Parker, bearing Colonel Campbell with 2,000 men, ap- peared before Savannah. General Howe, who com- manded on the American side, with 900 men under him, was completely defeated (December 29), losing 100 men killed and 453 prisoners, whilst the English lost only 24 in killed and wounded. Savannah was occupied, and in the beginning of January 1779 Colonel Prevost, who com- manded in East Florida, marched through Lower Georgia to Savannah, subduing the country as he went, and though there was not such a general rising of loyalists as was expected, the whole province was practically recovered. The next attempt was on South Carolina ; but a party of loyalists from thence, on their way to rejoin the British army, were cut to pieces (February 14, 1779), , . ,...,. South Caro- only about 200 escaping to the British lines. n„ a ,. The prisoners taken were afterwards tried for f^ threat^ 5 " treason to South Carolina, 70 of them con- ened (May victed, and 5 hung. The American army was *' not, however, successfully commanded by General Lin- coln, who had replaced Howe. A detachment of 1,500 North Carolina militia, with a few Continentals under Colonel Aske, was signally defeated by Prevost at Briar Arch on the Savannah river, near Augusta (March 3); and only 450 men rejoined General Lincoln out of the whole M. H. M [62 The War of American Independence, a.d. force. Colonel Prevost now pushed forward to Chai 'May n ), into which some hundreds of men had thrown themselves, under Moultrie, the Pole Pulaski, and others. Congress had recommended the arming of the slaves; but this was so distasteful to the council of the State that they sent to propose to the English its neutrality during the war. This was of course refused, and Prevost de- clined to treat with the civil government, demanding the surrender of the garrison as prisoners of war. Put on the news of Lincoln's approach the English commander drew off, leaving a post at Stony Ferry, afterwards trans- ferred to Beaufort. Soon, however. the ravages and plunder of the Pritish troops in South Carolina went far to alienate the population, whilst the intense heat compelled both parties to give up active operations in the south till the autumn ; the Carolina militia went home, and Lincoln remained with only 800 men. The winter of 1778-9, owing to better supplies and better regulations, was less trying to the main army, v .. encamped at Middlebrook, New Jersey, than y any yet experienced, although it still required Washington's 'constant presence and atten- fJns!"™! c * Son/ and c some degree ol '. lit from crumbling' Dec i-. i:~ :: - Bui an overweening 1 had now n Everything was . from the support of the Freni h. The British were still at New York, and Washington had great trouble to hinder Co m attempting to con- quer Canada with the am e It is a remarkable instance of the combination in him of Statesmanship with military skill, that although the scheme had Oligi with his intimate friend La Fayette, he at on< e discounte- nanced it on the ground of the 'true and permanent in- 'of his country, lest France should recover Canada, and ' have it in her power to give law to these States ; ' 1 7 79- Second Period. 163 and this although he was ' thoroughly convinced of the expediency and policy of doing everything practicable' on the part of the Americans, 'even for accomplishing the an- nexation of Canada to the Union.' There was great delay in the necessary recruiting. A great part of the officers, Washington wrote, were, 'from absolute necessity,' quitting the service, the 'virtuous few' who remained 'sinking by sure degrees into beggary and want,' so that ' the dissolu- tion of the army ' was again ' not an improbable event, if the situation of the officers were not improved' (Jan. 20, 1779). After a month's consultation with the commander- in-chief, Congress decided that the state of the currency and supplies would oblige them to act on the defensive during the campaign of 1779, except as related to the chastising of the Indians (April 1779). A defensive cam- paign is not the one to attract recruits, and by May 8 the army was ' little more than the skeleton of an army,' and the New Jersey brigade could with difficulty be restrained from abandoning the service, owing to arrears of pay. Clinton, whose forces, though weakened by the expedition to the south, were rather more numerous than Washing- ton's, harried the country with marauding parties. Ter- rible ravages were committed in Virginia, on the Chesa- peake, where, besides captures, over 130 vessels and 500,000/. worth of property were destroyed (May). Sail- ing up the Hudson, Clinton compelled the evacuation or surrender of Stony Point and Verplanck Point, posts fortified by Washington to protect the crossing at King's Ferry, the chief channel of communication between the eastern and middle States and West Point, where the Americans had their chief magazines and stores (June 1, 1779). General Tryon, the former governor of New York, ravaged the coast of Connecticut, plundering or burning New Haven and other towns. He was, however, recalled, owing to the recovery of Stony Point by General Wayne 1^4 The War of American Independence. (July 15), who destroyed it. Another fort opposite New York was taken a month later 51 During the summer (August and September) a terrible ken on the h for the Wyoming Q^end bj General Sullivan, who with 5,000 men • tated their whole country b ; the Susquehannah am we are told, with 'pleasant villages and luxu- riant corn fields' — burning every village, and giving no quarter. At one village, which is termed the ' meti valley." no less than 160,000 bush were destroyed. The Indians were pursued . British fort of Niagara, and Indian agriculture ws stroyed throughout the district. The total American loss did not exceed forty men. The responsibilitv for these cruel measures lies at Washington's own door. His in- structions to General Sullivan (May 31) were, 'that the country may not be merely overrun, but 1 ( >n the other hand General Maclean, who commanded the British forces in Nova Scotia, in order to check TbeBritidi American incursions into that province. 1 •■ lished a post of 600 men in Penobscot Bay, in what is now the State of Maine, but which then To dislodge them '■' ■ out the lai arma- ment that had yet sailed; nineteen armed ships with 300 pins I four transports, and nearly 1.000 — other accounts say 3^)00- men. The affair w failure, which the arrival iier with a 64-gun ship ami ito a disaster. Two ere 1 tken, the rest burned bv the Ann n< .ins fell to blows, many perished in the woods, and the scot became British territory (July- If the American Congress failed to show itself great 1779- Second Period. 165 in pushing 2 . »779- independence; and that her vast American em- pire must sooner or later follow the fate of that of England. When, in January 177S, Montmorin the French ambas- sador read to the Spanish minister Florida Blanca a de- spatch announcing the determination of France to support America, it is said that the Spaniard 'quivered in every limb, and could hardly utter a reply.' For months Spain continued to reproach France with engaging in the war. But the possession by England of Gibraltar and Minorca was a double thorn in the side of Spain, and a war with England might enable her to recover them. In the spring of 1778 battering trains were already being collected at Seville, and in the Bay of Cadiz a greater fleet was gathered than any which had issued from Spain since the Armada. For another twelvemonth, however, Spain negotiated on all sides, half-sincerely, half-dishonestly, pressing her me- diation on England, endeavouring in treating with France to cripple the United States in the future, and 1 om both France and America impossible conditions as the price of her co-operation. At la- 1 (April 12, 1779), a convention was signed between France and Spain, by which France undertook to invade < Ireat Britain or In this invasion be 1 d by Spain as the only means of recovering Gibraltar. If Newfoundland were recov< France was to share its fisheries with Spain alone. She was further bound to use every effort to recover for Spain Minorca, Pensacola, Mobile, the Bay of Honduras, the coast of Campeachy, and to grant neither peace, truce, nor suspension of hostilities till Gibraltar W' Spain was moreover to be free to require from the I 1779- Sccond Period. 1 67 States a renunciation of the whole basin of the St. Law- rence and the lakes, the navigation of the Mississippi, and all the country between that river and the Alleghanies. Even if the vast region in question had remained un- occupied, it would have been folly for America to accept terms which would have wholly crippled her The north- future development. But it was too late to pro- ^tor^co'vet- pose them. America had been growing as well edbj as fighting. The ' county ' of Kentucky had by'thc'b'i'ck- been incorporated by the Virginia legislature as woodsmen, early as December 1776, George Rogers Clark being one of its first representatives. With the approval of Jeffer- son and others, Clark set out in June 1779 for the con- quest of the country north-west of the Ohio, surprised Kaskaskia, occupied the whole Illinois region, and after some alternations of fortune, compelled the British lieu- tenant-governor with a handful of men to surrender at Vincennes (February 24, 1779). Further to the south, the Cherokees and other tribes south of the Ohio having invaded the western American frontier from Georgia to Pennsylvania, were crushed, their towns burnt, their fields wasted, their cattle driven away (April 1779). During the whole of the year emigration flowed over the mountains ; the Cumberland River country, in what is now Tennessee, was occupied. Further south yet, Natchez had already been occupied by a detachment which had descended the Ohio and Mississippi. Thus the eastern half of the Mississippi basin was virtually in the hands of the United States at the time when Spain proposed to exclude them from it. The convention between France and Spain was at first kept secret, and it was not till June 16, 1779, that war was actually declared between England and Spain. Such a provocation only roused the spirit of king and people in England. The House of Commons pledged 1 63 The War of American Independence, a. :•. to the crown the support of the nation, Burke and Fox joining with the 'lories. Fifty thousand militia were England enrolled, in addition to 50,000 troops. The funds fell onlv one per cent. Hut there was a war with • ' growing impatience of the war with America. tluu'u it'h L Motions against it in different forms, by Lord America. John Cavendish in the Commons, and bv the The Wing s J Duke of Richmond in the Lords, received in- creased support. The king alone was obdurate. In his strange style, he admitted now that no man could allege that 'the laying of a tax was deserving all the evils that have arisen from it ... . without being thought more tit fir Bedlam than a seat in the senate.' Hut every man ' not willing to sacrifice every object to a momentary and inglorious peace,' must concur with him in thinking that I '.upland could ' never submit to* American independence. He did not yet despair that, with Clinton's activity and the Indians in their rear, the provinces would soon submit. Hefore he would 'hear of any man's readiness to take office' he should 'expect to see it signed under his own hand, that he is resolved to keep the empire entin that no troops shall consequently be withdrawn from thence, nor independence ever allowed ' (June 21-22 . So he prepared to face at once France, Spain, and An and would only find fault with his admiral caution. Three weeks after the de< laration <>f war. Spain, flying at once at her most coveted prey, commenced the of Gibraltar (July 8). She ing France ,,,. to im land. Sixty transport ves 16,000 tons burthen wen ed for the in the Chan- purpo Spanish fleet was tardier than the Fren< h, but 1 on was at : off the coast of Spain, and bitter sight for English pride — the combined licet, consisting of nearly seventj 1779- Second Period. 169 of the line, cruised up and down the Channel, the English fleet of thirty-eight sail not being strong enough to attack it (August). It showed itself off Plymouth, picked up merchantmen, and even a blundering English man-of-war which fancied that it was rallying to its own flag. But it did nothing more. The French and Spanish commanders fell out ; dysentery raged in their fleets ; they withdrew to Brest and then separated. The Spanish admiral was ready to give his parole never more to serve against England, but was willing to serve against France. Fever and dysentery ravaged also the French camps in Brittany and Normandy, and the queen, Marie Antoinette, wrote to her mother that the doing of nothing at all had cost France a great deal of money. There was more serious work in the North Sea, where Paul Jones, in the 'Bonhomme Richard' of forty guns, with two frigates of 36 and 32 and a brig of 1 2 Paul Jones's guns (one frigate and the brig being French), ^t scale of endeavoured to intercept the English Baltic the war - fleet, under the convoy of the ' Serapis' of 40, commanded by Captain Pearson, and the ' Countess of Scarborough,' of 20. The fight was desperate. The ' Serapis ' was set on fire, but silenced the ' Bonhomme Richard's' guns,when the frigate ' Alliance,' one of her consorts, came up, and by her cross-fire compelled the ' Serapis ' to strike her flag, as did also her consort. The '.Bonhomme Richard,' which had had 300 out of 375 men killed or wounded, foundered the next day, but Paul Jones took off his prizes to Holland (September 1779). When we add that in the West Indies two islands were lost to the French, that the Spaniards invaded Florida, and eventually reduced all the English settlements on the Mississippi, that British log- cutters on the coast of Honduras were attacked, and a fort taken and retaken ; that on the coast of Africa Senegal was taken by the French, and Goree by the English, an 170 The War of American Independence. A .n. '■ ill be conceived of the vast scale en which hostilities were carried cm. We nn: - i mber that in India a Mahratta war was ; . and the most formidable league being formed which thi had >et I encounter,— one between Hyder AM, the Mat the Nizam, in v. Let us now return to the Southern Unfa hi' b were now the chief focus of the war. On September l, . the French Admiral d'Estaing a] ; from the West Indies off the i with thirty-three vessels, surprising four I slnji> of war. By the ioth th( had landed before Savannah, but the) wi I the town, and it was not till the 23rd that General Lincoln was able to join them. In the meanwhile .rrison of Beaufort had succeeded in reachi: te swamps. The French fleet dreaded the autumnal ^'ales. and after cannonading the town I ' ■ • her 4-9), an assault w It failed The French and Americans losl men— inflicting very si .11 return. D'Estain woundi nd the gallant Pole, Pulaski, was mortally wound) ew the fleet and troops. I Withdrew to Charleston with the remnant of his arn. the South Carolina milil i whii li tin- Amei ned in the whii h wa Georgia may the in- h was luadron oi . four of whi< h were armi 1 of the 1 line, with . by kindling :ik and laying 1 ipment, led I apta that i779-S°- Second Period, 171 he was at the head of a large force, and by this means actually obtained the surrender of the entire squadron. This feat certainly rivals thai of the Irishman who related that he captured three prisoners single-handed ' by sur- rounding them.' In order to push on the war more vigorously in the south, Rhode Island was now evacuated (October 1779), and the troops from thence joined Sir H. Clinton's ^}, ot j e army in New York, which had itself received Island eva- • c » c -C- t ted by some reinforcements from Europe. Leaving the British; General Kniphausen in command in New York, \^[', Clinton embarked 8,500 men (December 26), I2 . '780), r , . _ . 1 r j and Soutn for Tybee in Georgia, as a place of rendezvous Can for an attack on Charleston. Bad sailing, bad subducd - weather, and privateers hindered or damaged the expe- dition. Nothing was ready before the end of January, ni ir did the British troops come in sight of Charleston 1 February 26. But Lincoln, drawing all disposable forces into the town — a course of conduct of which Washington 'dreaded the event' — allowed himself to be caught as in a trap. The town was untenable, the inhabitants were disaffected almost to a man. On May 12 he capitulated, surrendering 4 frigates, 400 pieces of artillery, and a large number of prisoners, the militia being allowed to return home on parole. Clinton went back to New York, leaving 5,000 men with Lord Cornwallis, who was invested with a separate command, besides 1,000 men in Georgia. By the end of June 1780 Lord Cornwallis reported that all resistance was at an end in Georgia. But the severe measures taken by the British commanders, including a proclamation which required all the inhabitants to give actual assistance to the royal cause, as well ;i^ fr< confiscations, especially of slaves, alienated the people more and more. The winter of 1779-80, strange to say, was worse for 172 The War of American Independence, a. i>. the main army under Washington than the previous one. The winter itself was early and unusualh rigorous. The American-- were mure and mon to throw the bur- then of the war (in their allies. Gerard, the French minister Another m America, did not tear • to his own court his regret that Spain should have joined winter for , ... in the war, since 'just in proportion as acces- -inns to the means of opposing the enemy were ■ -■ afforded by foreign powers, the Americans became inactive and backward in their own -' [September 10, 1779. The resolution se< bankrupt. There were 200 millions of paper dollars in circulation, but forty paper dollars were worth only one in specie ;a p I <n the >h side. When the war with I Rodney. broke out in 177S Admiral Rodney was in Paris. He wished to retain to England, but his en would not let him go. Those were, however, the days when war had its chivalry. An old French marshal, De Biron, lent him 1,000 louis to free himself. He placed his services at the disposal of the Admiralty, but his poli- tics were not those of the ministry; for a twelvemonth he could get no employment. At last (October I, 1779) he was appointed commander-in-chief on the Leeward Inlands and Barbadoes Station, but with instructions in the first instance to relieve Gibraltar. He put to sea three days before the New Year, one of the king's sons, after- wards King William IV.. serving on board his 11 midshipman. On January .S he took a Spanish merchant fleet of 15 sail, with 7 vessels of war. On the 16th, off Cape St. Vincent, he defeated the Spanish admiral Langara, taking or destroying 7 out of 11 ships of the line, then relieved successively Gibraltar and .Minorca, and sailed for the West Indies. Here his success was for the time less brilliant. He engaged the Fiem h under Count de Guichen more than once (April and May , but some of h railed to support him suf- ficiently, and the actions were ind Or did he succeed in preventing the junction of the French and Spanish fleets (June). But nothing came of this jum lion. Again the two admiral-. .. : again disease broke out in the fleel | arated, the Spanish ships returning to Havana, the French to France. Rodney ! North America to co-operate with Sir Henry Clinton. An abortive and i:. tion of the years 177 on the British side d< be mentioned for the .sake 17S0. S croud Period. 175 of the post-captain who led it. A party of tr< lops was sent to cross Central America by the river San Juan and the lakes Nicaragua and Leon into Central the Pacific, on board the ' Hinchinbroke.' •>" The mission of Post-Captain Nelson ended quarrel with at the San Juan River ; but as there was no ° one capable of directing the expedition, he went up the river and took 12 forts, but was beaten back by the di adl climate, scarcely 300 men out of 1,800 surviving to return, and his own health being for the time wholly shattered. Meanwhile another belligerent was being dragged into the fray. Of all the neutral powers, Holland — or, to speak more correctly, the Netherlands — was the one whose trade was the most extensive, and which consequently profited most through the war, on the one hand by the opening of the American ports to trade, on the other by fetching and carrying for the belligerents. England had early sought to engage Holland in the war on her side, on the plea of old treaty engagements, which the Dutch did not admit to be applicable. The English claim of a right to search neutral vessels for the enemy's goods, and the wide interpretation she gave to the term ' naval stores ' viewed as contraband of war, pressed hardly on Dutch trade. On the other hand the shelter given in Dutch ports to Paul Jones and to his prizes was made a ground of bitter complaint by the English. In spite of these complaints, he was allowed to leave the Texel with his prizes (December 27). Four days later a Dutch merchant fleet, proceeding to Brest under the convoy of five Dutch ships of war, was stopped in the Channel by an English squadron under Captain Fielding, who claimed to search the traders. This was refused, and a shallop sent for the purpose was fired upon. Hereupon the English fired into the flagship, which, after returning a broadside, struck her colours, and those of the merchantmen that \-G The War of American Independence, a.d. failed to escape were taken into Portsmouth. A few months later the existing freedom of trade between .nd and Holland was temporarily suspended, but it was not till nearly the end ir that war was actually declared. The capture of the Dutch fleet, however, together with of two Russian merchantmen by Spain, helped on a The armed measure to which Frederick of Prussia I neutrality. some time been urging the Empress of R and which, though nominally directed against all the bel- ligerents, told especially against England, viz. the forma- tion of the ' armed neutrality.' ( >n March S Russia issued a declaration, laying down certain principles (some of which, though not all, have been in our days acceded to by England herself), viz. the free navigation of neutral ships, even from port to port on a belligerent freedom of all goods on free ships, contraband of war only excepted; limitation of contraband of war to arms and ammunition; effectual blockades. To maintain these principles the empress armed her fleets, and invited Sweden, Denmark. Portugal, and the Netherlands to join with her. Before any of the four states so invited had replied to the invitation, two of the belligerents. Spain and France, had eagerly accepted the principles of the declaration (April 1780), in doing which the) were fol- lowed by Prussia. Thu Denmark and Sweden entered into treaties for mutual support with Russia. Before the end of the year the Emperor came in, the United States having al ed the prim of the Russian de< laration in < >< tol In England itself some singular events had occui During the recess two of the minister--. Lord-, Weymouth •ned, the latter, at least, OH account of •it with his colleagues on the American ques- tion, and Lord North was always pressing for leave to 17S0. Second Period. 177 follow their example. Overtures were made, but in vain, to Lords Camden and Shelburnc to join the r . . _ ,. .__ , Ireland ; the ministry. Parliament met on November 25. Yorkshire The state of Ireland was beginning to cause ^Trot'eT- 1 great disquiet ; 60,000 volunteers were in arms. tantAssocia- Perfect tranquillity prevailed ; but non-impor- Lord(;eorge tation agreements against P2ngland had been Gordon - entered into, and an address of the Irish parliament to the crown for freedom of trade and other matters had been carried, and had been followed by a vote of sup- ply limited to six months (November 15). The king's speech did not mention America, but congratulated the country on the failure of the French and Spanish attempt at invasion, and called attention to the state of Ireland. Lord North admitted that the policy hitherto pursued towards Ireland had been misjudged, and his speech foreshadowed further concessions, beyond some trifling ones granted in the last two sessions, both to Irish trade generally and to Roman Catholics as such. The ap- prehensions of the anti-Romish party seem to have been violently excited by this course of conduct. On the other hand the classes which till now had supported the ministry were getting tired of the war. On December 30, at a meeting of 600 gentlemen whose collective fortune was said to be larger than that of the whole House of Commons, a committee of sixty-one members, known as the Yorkshire Committee, was appointed by the county of York to petition parliament and form an association for financial and parliamentary reform. Corresponding committees were formed in other counties and cities, including the city of London. Side by side with these were formed other associations, in Scotland as well as in England, against further concessions to the Roman Catholics. The two movements seem not to have been clearly distinguished by outsiders, and may M. H. N ~ War of American In a.d. indeed often have run into one. Tims it is difficult from lie's letters of January and February 17S0 to discern whether, ill speaking of associations and 'orders under the title of petitions,' he means those of the financial and parliamentary reformers, or of the anti-popery men. At any rate the associations of the latter were organized •.c as the 'Protestant Association.' li^ president eorge < rordon, a half-crazy M.P., who,obtaining an interview from the king towards the end of January, read to him for an hour out of a pamphlet he had written, and when it became too dark, left only on a promi the king would finish reading it himself. In the tally days of February there were already anti-poperj in Scotland. By February 6 petitions had come in from over twenty counties, besides several towns. On the 8th Burld Burke's plan sented a pi momic reform, to include :»ic a diminution of the influence of the crown. Dunnirrg's On March 13 he defeated the ministry, on April 6 Dunning brought forward in committee a celebral in, 'that it is the opinion of this committee that the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought t" be diminished,' and to the surpri 1 by a majority of 4X, whilst another resolution ; of Commons abuses in the civil lisl [so. But minis! of throwing up office, obtained an adjournment of the House, and by April -4, when it met again, banged. A new motion of Dunning's, against pro- in until the demands of the peti- tioners w< ; . was rejected by 254 to 203. The parliamentary war! on with diminishing ben suddenly the Strang! of the century enforced a temporary truce of parties, namely, 17S0. Second Period. ijq the London No-popery or Lord George Gordon riot tag from Friday, June 2, to Thursday, June 8, until the last two days of which time London 1 r 11 • t' . . nots, Mine was left virtually without resistance in the hands - , 1780. of the mob, which destroyed chapels and houses at their will, stormed Newgate, attacked the IS. ink, though without taking any lives, and were at last put 1 only by a large force of soldiers and militia, with ti slaughter ; 2S5 civilians were killed or died of their wounds, and 173 were taken, seriously wounded, to the hospitals, besides those that perished in the flames of the numerous fires or were carried home to their friends. The total loss of property was said to be 180,000/. The next day Lord George Gordon was committed to the Tower on a charge of treason. Similar riots were being attempted in Bath, Bristol, and Hull, but were checked everywhere by the magistrates. On the 19th parliament met, after having adjourned in consequence of the riots. Resolutions were passed refusing to repeal the act for the relief of Roman Catholics. On July 6 those of the rioters who had been arrested were brought to trial. ' They arc,' wrote Walpole, 'apprentices, women, a black girl, and two or three escaped convicts. And these Catilines, with- out plan, plot, connection, or object, threw a million of inhabitants into consternation, burned their houses about their cars, besieged the parliament, drove it to adjourn for ten days, and have saddled the capital with 10,000 men.' Out of those that were tried sixty were found guilty ; forty were sentenced to death, and twenty of them executed ; the rest were transported. Lord George Gordon, however, who was tried in the early part of the following year, was acquitted. He eventually became a Jew, and died of gaol fever whilst in prison for libel. The No-popery riots, occurring as they did in the midst N 2 1 80 The War of A m t \\ \ 1 n Indepi v* & m e. A . n. of a war with three enemies at once, whilst a fourth was Spanish r.o being provoked into hostility, and almost all the fto'^Tby remainder ofthe European powers w ere arming, therioti. virtually against England, 00 the plea of neu- trality, show how comparatively indifferent that war really was to a large body ofthe English people. Yet thi helped to prolong it. Spain had no sooner got into the war than she was anxious to get out of it. She had been negotiating since November 177.^. If she could only recover Gibraltar, she was ready to cede Porto Rico and Oran, to pay a large sum of money, and pledge herself not to help France. But the No-popery riots raised the angriest feelings both in the Spanish king and people, and peace was further off again. In America the South continued throughout the year 1780 to be the chief, if not the only scat of active warfare. In South Carolina, as has been stated, resistance was at an end. Hut refugees !.fcimdcn c from that State in North Carolina, who had i'-. formed themselves into a partisan band under Colonel Sumptcr. previously in command of a continental regiment, began with some success a guerrilla warfare. A surprise by him of a Bril I at Hang- ing Roi k (August 6) may be noticed, on account of the presence in his rank> of a boy of thirteen, who was to be one of the most remarkable presidents of the United . Andrew Meanwhile forces were being sent from the north. Washington detai hing De Kalb with nearly 3,00 > men, Virginia sending militiamen and arms, till at last Genei laced in the indepen- ommand of I ind himself at the hi id army,' as he termed it, which outnumbered the Uritidi. He met ! uiwallis and Raw don at Camden. The day irons to the Americans. The Virginia militia threw down their unns and made 17S0. Second Period. 1 8 1 for the woods 'with such speed that not more than three of them were killed or wounded.' The North Carolina militia, a few excepted, did the same, so that ' nearly two-thirds of the army lied without firing a shot. Only Washington's Maryland and Delaware troops held their ground, and De Kalb's division in particular had the advantage till the last. The American loss, according to British accounts, was 2,000 in killed, wounded, and prisoners. The whole of the artillery (eight field-pieces) was taken, and almost all the baggage. The whole army was dispersed, all but one hundred continentals, who were led off through the swamps. De Kalb had been mortally wounded, and died after three days. The Americans, General Gates foremost, fled as far as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Gates himself pushed on to Hillsborough, where the North Carolina legislature was about to meet, riding more than 200 miles in three days and a half. There now remained only Sumpter, who had been detached before the battle with 800 men to cut off a British convoy, and had succeeded in his errand. He was in turn surprised by Colonel Tarleton, who, with one hundred dragoons and sixty light infantry, cut his corps to 'pieces, taking two or three hundred prisoners, killing or wounding 150, and recovering all the captures. Four days after the battle of Camden, Sumpter rode into Charlotte alone, bareheaded, on a horse barebacked. But the tide was now on the turn. Lord Cornwall! s's severities once more irritated the people. Par- comuaiiiss tisan bands under James Williams, Marion, nwrch into • r. , e Norlh ( ■""- and ere long again Sumpter, kept up a warfare liaachecked. of surprises. Through Marion's influence, ac- ■£."'! cording to Lord Cornwallis himself, there was Greene in 1 • , , • 1 t r, 1 1 command. scarcely an inhabitant between the rcdee and the Santec, who was not in arms against the British, and i 2 Tin War of American 1 W«y\ almost the whole country seemed on th< Lord Cornwallis nevertheless began in September his . into Ninth Carolina, hoping fur aid from the ists there. Detaching Major Ferguson to the high- land country, he pressed on to Charlotte, and from thence Salisbury, But on his way the tidings reached him of a seriou which had befallen Majo . With a force of 1.125 men,of whom 125 only us, he had been attacked at King's Mountain, e of Virginians and North Carolinians, defi himself killed, and the whole force obliged to surrender, 1 . being made prisoners, besides 450 killed and wounded (October 7). Cornwallis now fell hack into South Carolina, harassed on his way by the militia y the peasantry, whilst Marion and Sumpter were intercepting supplies and surprisinj At Black- Sumpter won from Tarleton a return match. Re- on previous s before his light infantry could come up, he dashed with 250 horsemen up a lull- side at Sumpter's superior for \meri- held their own. The English 63rd losl ng officer and two lieutenants, with one third of its I unded behind. But Sumpter himself was severely wounded Of! ouen< e than any par- • the Amei ican the appointment ene in pi the < ommand of the • •i.e Delaware, hut this time 'subject to the : ■ immander-inn i ber 30). Wash- ommended him for the on to think that fa shington's favourite officer. Nona nly ever Bhowcd 1: it commander's _ Jn the : had 1 780. Second 1 \ ru u I. 183 been made into New York from Canada, two Amnii.m forts had been taken, much grain destroyed, and , in British parties had pushed on almost to Sara- "> '■ toga. Some correspondence was also going on, mi Washington's anxiety, between the leaders in Vermont, which Congress still refused to acknowledge as separate from New York, and the British authorities. Otherwise Washington and Clinton continued watching each other, each too weak, or deeming himself so, for sua i offensive warfare. But a new danger now threatened the American cause. There was no braver soldier in the American ranks than Benedict Arnold, the hero of the Canadian cam- paign, the real victor at Stillwater. Placed in ^n,^.. command at Philadelphia after the evacuation of the city by the British, lie irritated the Lpt ' people by an overbearing manner and various arbitrary proceedings, gave way to extravagance, sank into debt, involved himself still further through disastrous specu- lations, and resorted, it is said, to fraud and peculation. Charges were brought against him by the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, and laid before Congress. A committee, appointed to report on the case, acquitted him except as to two charges, but four were eventually sent on to the commander-in-chief, and on these Arnold wis tried by court-martial (Dec. 4, 1779-Jan. 26, 1780). On two he was acquitted, but he was found guilty of having illegally granted a passport to a vessel, and of having used some public waggons for private purposes. B) of the court he was publicly reprimanded by Washing- ton. Whilst his trial was proceeding, his accounts during his Canada command were also passing through committee in Congress. These were found confused and irregular, and huge deductions were reported. Deeming himself ill-used, he appealed in vain against the 1^4 The War of American Independence. A .u decision. Mortification and chagrin turned him into a He began writing anonymously to Sir Henry Clinton. Eighteen months later, having obtained the command at West Point, the- most important post of .my on the American side, he offered to Sir Henry to hand over to the British both West Point and other posts in the highlands. Whilst Washington had gone to Hartford to meet the French commander, Major Andre, adjutant-general of the British army, was sent up the Hudson in the* Vulture' sloop of war to confer with Arnold. Terms were settled ; Arnold was to receive 1 0,000/. and a brigadier-generalship. Plans of West Point, and a statement of its condition, were given to Andre, who hid them in his stockings. Put meanwhile the ' Vulture' had been compelled to change her position. Andre' could no longer be carried on board, and had to return to New York on foot, with a pass from Arnold under the name of John Anderson. Almost within sight of the British lines he was stopped by three militiamen, whom he tried in vain to bribe, was searched, and on the discovery of the compromising papers taken to the nearest American post. On learning his capture, Arnold hastily es in his barge to the* Vulture' (September 25, [780). Andre, he knew that Arnold wa 1 his real name and rank. Tried by COUrt-martial as fended himself, declaring that he could be a as he had entered the lines under a flag <>( truce on the invitation of an . . , but scarcely tenable pit 1. He was found guilty, and could not c\ey. Arnold, though he never fulfilled i. ed his reward, and at the 1780-1. Second Period. 185 head (if a legion of loyalists and deserters did, as we shall sec, some damage to his former country ; but lie never distinguished himself again, and remained for all future time 'the traitor Arnold.' For the gallant young victim of his treason, Andre", universal sympathy has ever been felt on both sides of the Atlantic. Not much was done in the war during the year 1780 elsewhere than in America, except in India, where Ilvder Ali inflicted a severe defeat on Colonel Baillie, T)ie war . and might have taken Madras had he pursued India and at his enemy. British trade was seriously damaged through the capture not only of the Quebec fleet by the Americans, but of the East and West India fleets by the Spaniards, who took them into Cadiz with 2,865 prisoners. The capture of a dozen French merchantmen from St. Domingo was a poor set-off to such losses. Parliament had been dissolved on September 1, and the new parliament had met on October 31. The new members were as many as 1 13 in number, and among them were the younger Pitt, Sheridan, and Wilberforce. The ministers were at first triumphant. The great event of the autumn was the declaration of war against Holland (De- cember 20), which followed the accession of the Parliament , latter to the armed neutrality. 'This good town,' HuMand* de- wrote Horace Wal pole from London, to Mason, clared, Uuc. January 4, 1781, 'is quite happy, for it has gotten anew plaything, a Dutch war, and the folks who arc to gain by privateering have persuaded those who are to pa)- the piper to dance for joy.' Burke's plan of economical reform was again brought forward and again rejected. An attack upon Jersey by the French in the early part of the year was easily beaten off. Spain was pn on the siege of Gibraltar. She had prevailed The war in on the Emperor of Morocco, from whose green Europe,i78x. hills the town then, as now, was mainly victualled, to i S6 T/ie J J r ar of A merican Independence. \. 1 .. supplies, and scurvy had begun to rage, when the place was again relieved by Admiral Darby. A furious bombardment ensued. Nearly £0,000 balls and shells were poured in : the town was almost entirely destroyed, and the inhabitants tool: refuge to the south of the rock ; but only about 70 persons were killed and wounded. In Minorca St. Philip's castle was besieged, and held out gallantly for months under General Murray. The com- bined fleets of France and Spain occupied the mouth of the Channel from Scilly to (Jshant An inde< i took place off the Doggerbank between an English and a Dutch fleet (Augusi ■re the ai ui.'.l declaration of war. orders had been sent to Rodney to seize the Dutch island of St. Eus a free port, and probably then as rich a mart of Seizure of . _ . , _ . . trade as the Danish free port ol St [nomas ; afterwards became. lary 3, 17S1, the t.in- rupture not being yet known, he carried out his and'jndia, ' orders. The prize was a splendid one. It T?81, included 3,000,000/. of merchandise, 150 mer- chantmen, a Dutch frigate and five smaller ships of war. To these were soon added 30 more merchantmen with a their convoy, overtaken on their way to Europe by a detachment from the English fleet, and 17 which entered the harbour after the capture, the Dutch flag still flying. Th< other Dutch in the tidies, Demerara, ] edu< ed in March. But Rodney had to fight an inde< with the French fl< \ 29; on June 2 Tobago capitulated to the French, and be! end of the ye. ir they retook St Eu tatius from the English, and • >ok St. Martin's. < >n the souther:: North Am< la 1 apitulat Spaniards after a must gallant defence, and Spain left the British igainst the March 9, 17S0-1. Second Period. 1.S7 1781). In India Sir Eyre Cootc disarmed the French of Pondicheny, who had risen on the arrival of a French fleet, and in a glorious campaign drove back the vastly superior forces of Ilydcr Ali, though at the cost of a third of his troops, whilst further north the war with the Mahrattas was virtually brought to a close by a night surprise of the latter (March 27, 1781). The Dutch settle- ments in India were also attacked, and Negapatam was reduced (November 1781). Although England now stood alone against three foreign enemies, besides her own revolted colonies, it would have been difficult to say on which side France was the balance of advantage. France was anxious for r x- 1 1 * 1 1 1 1 peace. Mc- anxious for peace. Necker had already at the diationof close of the last year written secretly to Lord Austna - North proposing a truce en the basis, diplomatically termed, of uti possidetis, each party to keep possession of what he had. A few months later Vergennes in turn took up the idea, but not liking to propose it, handed it over to the Austrian minister Kaunitz, who attempted a mediation and proposed a peace congress at Vienna, but failed. France, with nearly 160,000,000/. sterling of debt, was verging on bankruptcy, yet Necker was prevailed upon to consent to a loan of 10,000,000 more of French livres to America, to be negotiated in Holland in the name of the King of France. The negotiator, Laurens, was a South Carolinian, and the first use he made of it was to pay a debt of his own State to Holland. Presently Necker was dismissed from office. It was after all in America that the fate of the war must be decided. Not however in the north. The winter of 1 780-1 was a gloomier one than any yet for the main army under Washington. By November 20, 1780, the soldiers had been for ten months without pay. The paper money of the Congress was made more worthless still by a flood of TIu War of Ameri . tndepaidence, a.d. British forget • Washington deemed a foreign loan 'indispensably necessary for the continuance ," " of the war.' On the night of January i. i~Ni> : c the whole of the Pennsylvanian troops, three 1780-1. Mu- regiments only excepted, mutinied and declared that they would march to Philadelphia to obtain redress. In endeavouring to restrain them one officer was killed, another mortally and several less se- verely wounded. The mutineers met with their b.i a favourite general, Wayne, who vainly tried to them, and commenced their march, 1,300 strong, with six pieces of artillery. They were not, indeed, traitors, and when Sir H. Clinton sent some men to tempt them over with advantageous terms to the British side, they handed over his emissaries to General Wayne for ( tion. A commit! tigress met the mutineers, and compromised matters by discharging many, and giving 40 days' furloughs to others. The -New Jersey brigade was the next to revolt January 20 , and Washington had to resort to force, and hang five of the rin ianu- ary 27 . Events like these did not promote recruiting. Dgton's favourite plan of enlisting men for the war failed so completely tint some of the States had (■■ rt again to temporary enlistments (April 1); and by May, out of 37,000 men requisitioned bj . tin- whole of the northern States, from N< Hamp- shire, had not 7,000 infantry in the field. Compelled to men! for obtaining supplii May 1 : ' We are daily ami hourly tiring their tempers and alien* i Still, the worst of the financial <: through thi ppointed super- intendent of in 1 . By 1: bank which he established, called the Bank of North 17S1. Second Period. 1 America, he succeeded on the whole from henceforth in meeting the engagements of the army, indeed so far as to procure supplies on his tid< own credit. A stul more important event wa » „f 1 the adoption by the last outstanding State ';',; (March 1, 1781) of the Articles of Confederation approved of by Congress since 1777. The r ' chid" cause of delay had been a question <>|" waste lands and boundaries. It will be recollected that many of the States had been chartered with very extensive limil tending often to the Pacific Ocean. These States claimed the benefit of their charters, and the ownership of all waste lands within the purview of those charters. The smaller States with fixed limits, on the other hand — Rhode Island, Delaware, New Jersey, .Maryland -claimed that Congress should fix boundaries for all, and that the waste lands should belong to the Union at large. All, howevi cept Maryland had acceded to the Confederation by the end of 1779. Eventually New York (1780) consented to let Congress fix her western boundaries, and reded her public lands to the Union. A year later Virginia, not to be outdone, ceded all her claims to what was known as the north-western territory, i.e. that to the N.W. of the Ohio. Thus the bone of contention was removed, and Maryland signed the articles. Yet at the very moment when the revolted colonies were thus drawing closer to- gether the bond of union, Lord George Germain, the English secretary of state, was writing to Sir Henry Clinton (March 7), in a despatch afterwards intercepted : • So very contemptible is the rebel force now in all parts, and so vast is our superiority everywhere, that no r< ancc on their part is to be apprehended that can mate- rially obstruct the progress of the king's arms in the speedy suppression of the rebellion.' In the south the war was about to take a new aspect 190 The V, Independence. \.n. uruk: accessor, the former Quaker blacksmith, ne. e of things as Greene 1 seemed well-nigh desperate. Jit-- had only 2,307 nun, of Whom one-half were militia, and only Soo were properly clothed and equipped. I lis army, to use his own words, hadow than a .... artillery, , 1 irerything had gone by the .';',' board on the fatal day of the recent defeat' .:t Camden 1 . The soldiers went anil came .is they pleased, anil were only Stopped doing so when one of them was shot ten Moving on himself to the Pedee river, he sent Genera] Morgan with 1,000 men into the north-west of South I Una, towards the junction of the Broad and Pacolet rivers. at a place (ailed the Cowpens from one of those enclosures into which the nun tie are driven for marking , Morgan was attacked by Tarleton with somewhat superior forces. The Americans were already outflanked on both sides, when a rear-movement of the ^Maryland division, which was 1 breaking of the American line, drew on in turn the ■ uler a mi:: thrown into disorder, the .'. . n all ledintheuti 'I In- fame of th,- \ . • : and wide. Lord Cornwallis, writing to Sii Hcnrj < linton the daj . :i . the battle, tailed it an 'unexpected and e\- 'ill DUl he was 1 '• bent upon ampaign, in w] marching through North Carolina and Virginia, ..Id form a juia tion on • • with the .1 toward] I had already 1 1 1781. Second Period, i i to the James river (January 2), and had plundered and burnt Richmond. So leaving Lord Rawdon with a bod) of troops in South Carolina, Cornwallis pushed a< n border into Ninth Carolina, destroying all superfluous baggage, and proceeding mostly by for, ,-d mar, he i. Too weak to resist the English advan< <•, although Morgan with his victorious troops had rejoined him, I before Cornwallis for 200 miles to the north hank of the Dan river, which he crossed the night before hi- pur- suer reached it. Of his troops, man) hundreds ti 'the ground with their bloody feet;' they had hut one blanket to four men, besides being unpaid and irregularly fed. Lord Cornwallis now proceeded by easier stages to Hillsborough, whence he issued a proclamation I e- bruary 20), inviting all loyal subjects to repair to his standard. The loyalists were indeed numerous, and as many as seven companies were formed in a day. But a body of 300 were cut to pieces by a larger force of Ame- ricans under Pickens and Lee, with 'dreadful carnage,' say the American accounts, although 'begging quarter,' say the English. The event seems to have struck terror into their party, for Lord Cornwallis wrote of his bcing ' among timid friends, and adjoining to inveterate rebels.' After some marching and counter-marching, Greene at last accepted battle at Guilford Court House (March 15). His forces were, by American accounts even, Battle of twice as many as the 1,900 of Cornwallis. The [ :' *}£** Americans were very strongly posted, but in H. three separate positions. The lirstand Strom manned by North Carolina militia, was easily ^'V ' 1 ii- , ■ to the taken, the militiamen taking to their heels after a first or second shot, and nearly one-half without tiring at all. The second position was obstinately contested by the Virginia brigade, bul a bayonet charge finally dis- lodged them. Round the third, commanded by Greene The War of m Indep< himself, the battle r. •• ith varying sua ess. At ';. leaving his artillery behind, but the victory was dearly won. Out of the small British force, 570 were killed or wounded, whilst the Americans lost only 419, all but 93 continentals. The battle. : over, had been fought 200 miles from Cornwallis's com- munications, and his march henceforth bt treat, in which he was in turn pursued by Greene. Falling back towards the bed Wilminj ton April 7) with the relics of his army, and all North Carolina was recovered by the America] still bent on reaching Virginia, Hither La Fayette had been sent to oppose Arnold. His troops were as usual without payor supplies. With charai enerosity— serving, it will be remembered, without pay — he borrowed 2,000/. to equipthem. With the assistance of Steuben at the b( a body of militia, he succeeded in keeping in check the already superior British force. In I the last days of April, Cornwalhs, without Clinton's authority, left Wilmington with 1.435 men, and : it opposition t" Petersburg in Virginia. Clinton trembled for ' the fatal consequences' which might ensue. But Lord 1 thely with 1 wallis, and 1 d the imp push- ing the war in Virginia, ! Wilmii already 1 I ring South _ lina and 1 Greene re- manded the u the former, Camden and Ninety-six in South Carolina, and A 1 •; ' rl indeii and Charleston, Sumpt Camden and Nine! ix ;m(1 Augusta, Greene bi i 7 xi. Second Period. 1 93 this place he was attacked (April iS) in a well-chosen position by Lord Rawdon, with 800 or 900 men, Greene's own regulars alone outnumbering the English, whilst his total force, according to the English accounts, came up to 2,000 men. Hut he was defeated, losing rather more in killed and wounded than the English, who could, how- ever, ill spare their loss of 258 men. Lord Rawdon at first pursued him, but Lee and Marion had meanwhile broken the connexion between Camden and Charleston. It became necessary to evacuate Camden, while Rawdon was obliged to retreat, marching down the north bank of the Santee. Before long the whole north-west of South Carolina had been recovered by the Americans, who took many prisoners through the surrender of the smaller posts. Then Augusta fell (June 5), whilst Ninety-six was besieged. An assault upon it, hastened by the approach of Lord Rawdon, failed, with severe loss ; but it was too isolated to be thenceforth tenable, and was evacuated, whilst Lord Rawdon announced to the loyalists of the district that they could no longer be protected. He re- turned to Charleston ill and disgusted, and sailed before long for England. The result of the campaign had been that Greene had recovered the principal part of South Carolina, and had confined the English within the Santee, Congaree, and Edisto rivers. Thus Lord Cornwallis's rash advance into Virginia had thrown away the fruit of all previous successes in the south, and reduced the English dominion to a mere foothold or two. He himself was now convinced that the idea of the loyalists 'rising in any number and to any purpose' had 'totally failed,' and doubted whether the English force were sufficient fur a war of conquest. Yet with eyes thus open did he rush upon his doom. Whilst these things were taking place, the Opposition in the new House of Commons again endeavoured to put .1/. //. o / 1 ', //• of A men* <>/•/ Independence. \.a re in. ulc to this effo t by James Hartlej Maj y. by Foi June is). de< lared that the report of Lord I ft< r the battle of Guilford Court . showed the war to be ' im] in it and ruinous in its- pn The fa >unger red to have equalled his father. He termed the war 'a most accursed war, wicked, barb cruel, and unnatural.' and spoke of the ' iropiou I litional sub The ministers won, tb diminishing majorities. '11. on July |S. The final catastrophe was not to be d . ice. r had America fell weaker. Her young annihilated ; only ;•.. lined. had given up wrangling about the i mbers were in the paj e. Boundaries, •i m of the '■'• west of the i Hue. points, hitherto deemed be the sol* dition, and in th< ed that the Ami tntssioners were instTU Othing in then thout the know • but ' ultim itely to govern thi ' Hi rarleton to Charlottes^ He. where the State of the m< rtcd himself in pursuil With • adroitness, ai the head of about equal • iri) so mai 1 7 8 1 . Sec 071 d Per iod. 1 9 5 eluded and checked him ; and the summer was spent in use- lessmovements and in mere ravages, during which it is said that property to the amount of 3,000,000/. was destroyed. But Lord Cornwallis had received orders from Sir Henry Clinton to send back 3,000 men to New York, and to withdraw to a defensive position (June-July). He saw too late that his movement into Virginia must prove a failure, and wished to transfer the command to another general and return to Charleston. But in obedience to orders he withdrew (August 1 -8) with his army to York- town and Gloucester — 'a very advantageous place,' wrote La Fayette to Vergennes, 'for one who has the maritime superiority' — and a French fleet under De Grasse, bring- ing reinforcements, was then expected on the coast. Whilst Cornwallis is fortifying himself in Yorktown, and Washington is doing his best to collect his forces for the final encounter, let us cast one more glance Battle of on the other fields of warfare in America. In Eutaw South Carolina Greene was pushing what re- Septembers, mained of the British forces more and more I?81 ; . the war at an towards Charleston. A final engagement took end in the place at Eutaw Springs (September 8), in which the English under Colonel Stuart, Lord Rawdon's suc- cessor, remained masters of the field through an unex- pected rally, though losing not much less than 700 men against 555 on the American side. But they were too weak to hold their ground, and drew off in the night towards Charleston, after destroying 1,000 stand of arms, and leaving 70 wounded men behind. The struggle in the south was henceforth virtually closed, although Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah remained in English hands. The English had fought like heroes, but most of their victories had been as fatal to them as defeats. Just two days before the battle of Eutaw Springs, the The Wa m Independence, a.d. war h : in the extreme nouth. . New York, had 1 by Clinton a te, in ordci. cither the .-■ main army. He plm and burnt New London, and si me ! 50 militiamen und< ■ (L Thi> n ploit inwhile Washington had had time to with tl irly as M I r lie ha with Rochambeau that the war hould be carried t>> the Chesapeake. In lime the French from Rhode Island, including a newly arrived reinfon I 1, coo men, left New port for the Hu< tmielv succour u 1 _\:;oo,ooo French lures (out of a p '>,ooo,ooo . in. Seeing himself thus , for a time Vork; Ro- ( ham' I operations on the ' ■ d the of the nd the mid'i for t! h. « m th<- 2 jrd and 24th they ed the Hudson without bindrano Clin) ittai Iced It I 1 r 1 < Meanwhile on Chesapeake Bay with ■ 1781'. Second Period. 197 while the latter was returning to Europe. A few days later he beat off the British fleet under Admiral Graves, and shortly after took two British frigates. Washington was pressing on. Having visited on the way, after more than six years' absence, his own estate at Mount Vernon, he reached Williamsburg on the 14th. The natural im- petuosity of his usually self-restrained character betrays itself in a letter written the following day to General Lin- coln :— ' Every day we now lose is comparatively an age . . . hurry on then, my dear sir, with your troops on the wings of speed.' At the last moment a check came from the French admiral, who would have preferred to operate on New York, but Washington and La Fayette prevailed upon him to waive the plan, and join in the attack on Yorktown. On September 28 the whole army advanced to within two miles of that place, which was completely invested, the French taking the left and the Americans the right, whilst another body under a French vested, Sep-" commander also invested Gloucester on the '? mber ?.? ; Cornwallis other side of the York river. Expecting surrenders, succour, Cornwallis did not impede their ope- rations. Trenches were opened on October 5. The batteries began their fire on the 9th and 10th ; a frigate and three transports were set on fire by red-hot shot on the night of the ioth-uth. By the nth the English could scarcely return the fire, and in the night the second parallel was begun within 100 yards of their lines. On the 14th two redoubts were taken by storm, one by the French, the other by the Americans. A desperate sally just before break of day on the 16th, at first successful, failed. On that night an attempt was made to cross the river to Gloucester Point, and cut a way through the French lines ; but a violent storm prevented its success. The next day Cornwallis proposed a cessation of hostili- . an Independence, ad. eluded, and on the lothhesur* red Yorktown and Gloucester to Washington, with the troops and 100 pieces of artillery, whilst the ship urrendered to D Clinton, vainly trying a diversion through Arnold. tnen- :. had sailed with 7,000 men to il A.illi b on the very day of the surrender, and only re- : the news on reaching the Chesapeake, when he returned to New York. One of Washington's aides-de-camp bore the new- to Philadelphia, Rea< hing the town at night, he wa being taken up by a watchman for knocking ton loud at the President's door. The old door- • ' res-, died for joy. Washington g irdon to all military offenders. There were public thank - of thanks to the commanders and ofl • the allied army ; a commemorative marble column was directed to : . at Vorktown itself; : iptured were presented to ■ - to Rochambeau. '. I. ord ( .■ Gei main on No- vember 23. He communicated it to Lord North, who il 'as he would have taken a bullet through 1.. . • I I I , : : it is later the kin- uiiament, .. and e\- ed the hope of being able by the valour • te blessinj fiero ly attai Iced b) Lord Shelburne in the I ike, Pitt in the Comm I that it meant, • M conqw bed, my n subjugation ol m Hay my animosity,' and threat the ministers with the scaffold, Hurke compared the 1 78 1 -2. Second Period. 199 American war to the attempt of a man to shear a wolf because he had been accustomed to shear sheep. Lord North on the other hand declared that the late disaster in Virginia ought ' to impel, to urge, to animate ' English- men; Lord George Germain, declared that he would never assent to reconciliation on the terms of American indepen- dence, as this country depended on America ' for its very- existence.' The address was carried in both Houses by large majorities. But a fortnight later when Sir James Lowther moved a resolution that the attempt to reduce America by arms was impolitic and ought to be aban- doned, Lord North avowed that it would be ' neither wise nor right to prosecute the war in America any longer on a continental plan ... by sending fresh armies to march through the colonies, in order by those marches to sub- due America to obedience.' This was a confession of failure, and Lowther's resolution was rejected by a re- duced majority. Public meetings began to be held in London, Middlesex, Surrey, Westminster, asking that hostilities should be put a stop to. In this request they were joined by the West India merchants, though as yet these were ignorant of the extent to which their special trade was about to be affected. On January 31, 1782, the French retook Uemerara, and in February St. Kitt's, Nevis, and Montserrat surren- dered to the Spaniards, so that of the Lee- „., I he war al- ward Islands only Barbadoes and Antigua re- most every- mained to the English. In the East more Trou^'i .'i Dutch settlements had been reduced, and were land - , M »- , , , . . norca lost again lost through jealousies between British (Feb. 7, commanders. The Cape of Good Hope proved I?82!- too strong to be taken. A series of sea-actions fought between English fleets under Commodore Johnstone or Sir Edward Hughes and the French fleet under Suffrein, have been claimed as victories by historians of both nations. At any rate they did not prevent Suffrein from 200 T/te 11. an Independence. \.\~. from landing 3,000 men to Hyder Ali, ridings of whose death : the victorious Sultan. Hut : luded with the Mahrattas (May i~. r home, Minorca had been surrendered t<> the h after a most gallant defence, whilst Admiral Kempenfelt returned home, after failing to intercept a fleet The mismanagement of the navy rd Sandwich now became a subject of loud com- plaint, and in the attacks upon him in parliament the ority of the ministers was seen to be waning. The war with America had long lost all its popularity! ttd had been I with ruin tO her trade if ,_ , she lost her North American colonies, and n of intercourse with them, thanks to the marvellous development of her manufacturing industry, she seemed to be none the worse. Lord George Germain, tally identified in the public mind with : me SO unpopular Lord North himself asked him 1 ; the him a ; tit upon him. ' I the furth- It was i 1 nt that the ministry was doomed. 1 ive days I by a n king still held «.ut against all | tartan, th truth that it w.i ■> mained in offii < . The e, the ... ' ..• lines 1782. Stroud Period. 201 to the king and country those who would further prose- cute the war on the continent of America. This time the motion was adopted without a division, and on the next day leave was given to bring in a bill for enabling the king to conclude a peace or a truce. The con- tinuance of the ministry was impossible, and Lord North at last obtained his release from office, the king remind- ing him at parting, ' It is you that desert me, not I you.' On .March 20, obtaining on a point of order precedence over a member who was to move a vote of want of con- fidence, Lord North announced his resignation, and the House adjourned. A long debate was expected ; it was snowing, and Lord North's carriage was almost alone in attendance. As he went out, ' You see, gentlemen,' he said, turning to some of his opponents, ' the advantage of being in the secret.' No kindlier, pleasanter minister ever lost half an empire to his country ; no minister ever did so much mischief, against his own better judgment, out of mere deference to a half-crazy sovereign. The king, it seems, at first thought of withdrawing to Hanover, and it was with great difficulty that he was pre- vailed upon to accept a ministry (March 22) in which Rockingham was premier, Shelburne Rockingham and Fox were secretaries of state, Conway com- gjj"j^,e mander-in-chief, Barre" treasurer of the navy, treats with Burke paymaster of the forces, Sheridan under- secretary of state. In the forming of this ministry it was made a condition in writing that there should be ' no veto to the independence of America.' Young Pitt, conscious of his power, stood aloof till he could enter the cabinet. The affairs of America were comprised in the Home Department, which Lord Shelburne took. He lost no time in sending Sir Guy Carleton as commander- in-chief to America in the place of Sir H. Clinton, with the most conciliatory instructions, and in putting himself in 202 The War of American Independence, a.d. i ommunication personally with Henry Laurens, a late presid - who had been taken on tin prisoner in England on ]>an>!< i ranklin by m< Fa friendly letter through bman who had resided many man.' .'. e.ik, and la land to be still so strong, that she i ould not yet believe in I e. Some desultory wariare was still being < arried on between loyalists and republ in the Carohnas, with mm h ravage and on both -ides, the result (ending ..nst the British cause. < in the other hand the American treasury had been drained of its last dollar by the beginning of January, and the State- da lared that they could pay no taxes. Two millions of dollars were to have been paid by April i ; not a cent was paid by the 23rd, and only 20,000 dollars by June 1. There were only 10,00 • in the northern army, clamouring as usual for pay. Undei rtures rleton, wl. New York in May, •d to lx- true : both Washington and the listed them, and a passport H for bringii bes to Philadelphia • now, in one of the mo f omenta of the army at their height, and Washington 1 ould train it I Morris, thi Minister, unabli 1 Iring it and for not giving it ; ' b . ' b> 1 ontinual < lam 1 mandj ; ' ' paid by fori iture of all that is valuable m Lilly to lay down a burthen which | m to the earth.' Ait address ted to v. m a numl 1782. Second Period. 203 officers and soldiers, setting forth the failure of justice from Congress, the advantages of a mixed form of government, and suggesting that their chief should take rule with the name of king. It met with a stern rebuke from Washington. But so weak was he that he wrote at the end of this month that if the British advanced he must evacuate his positions. Negotiations meanwhile were going on on the British side, not only with America but with France, and to a trifling extent with Spain. With the second _ . , ..... Rodney s power they were hastened by a splendid vie- victory in the tory of Rodney's in the West Indies over the ${^1 „f es French fleet under De Grasse, in which seven 1782)- ships of the line and two frigates were captured, besides the French admiral and his flag-ship the ' Ville de Paris,' then the largest ship on the seas, which had taken part in the reduction of Yorktown ; though, indeed, on the return passage she and four other of the prizes foundered with their crews, in a hurricane. Jamaica, which had been the object of the allied fleets, was thus saved to the English ; but the Bahama Islands were surrendered to Spain, whilst in the far north La Perouse, ere long to be better known as a scientific explorer, was destroying the settlements on the Hudson's Bay river. The death of Rockingham (July 1) did not impede the progress of negotiation, as Shelburne now took the premiership ; but the ministry was weakened by the secession of Fox, Burke, and others, bume mi PitV, on the other hand, joined the cabinet as £{?£>,; chancellor of the exchequer, and Fox going at vannah(July once into opposition, the rivalry between these two celebrated men, hitherto united in their politics, now began, which was only to end with their lives. Just about this time Georgia, where, in spite of the aid of the Creek and Choctaw Indians, the British had been gradually 204 The War of American Independence. a.i>. driven into Savannah, was recovered from them alt< m of that place July 12 , the loj withdrawing into Florida, whilst the British regulars joined their i ton, which was too strong to be conqw Although some movements on the northern fr • February tive warfare was now virtually reduced, except in thi A Gibraltar, the prize for the sake of which Spain had against her will entered into the war, and which bent on recovering. This is not the place for relating that celebrated with its bombardments and its sallies. We must tent ourselves with mentioning the famous attack by the Spanish forces, shi] batteries, and land artillery, on September 13, 1; it- triumphant • • by the b» hen the floating bat lire with red-hot balls. Shortly afterwards the pl.t' c evictualled by a fleet under Lord Howe, which next imbined Fren< h and Spanish fleet tile. Cibralt.w red by had all this while been ^>in£ on in with the A ranklin had at iirst ti e, and .til d 111 1 and • ■ ■ • 1. ler month, them an inter. nt Philadelphia, which showed urn unwillingness to proceed w.is thus removed ; and it that it should be. The loyalists of Pennsyl- 1782. Second Period. 205 vania, Maryland, Delaware, New York, were presenting addresses to Sir Guy Carleton against the negotiations, declaring their determination to resist the Congress. Washington wrote in October : ' The longsufferance of the army is almost exhausted ; it is high time for a peace.' Although specifically instructed, as has been seen, to undertake nothing without the knowledge of the French ministry, and to ' govern themselves by their advice and opinion,' the American commissioners signed preliminary articles of peace behind the back of the French Govern- ment. Vergennes naturally complained. America was at that very moment begging a further loan of France. Franklin was obliged to eat humble pie ; he acknowledged that he and his colleagues had been ' guilty of neglecting a point of btensiance,' and hoped it would be excused. The fact evidently is that he was determined to make peace at any price. France, indeed, was generous ; she granted a loan of 6,000,000 livres, and paid down 600,000. Rut she was not just in her generosity, for to do this she was obliged to stop payment for a twelvemonth of her own bills of exchange, due in America and the East Indies. Spain, too, was so exhausted that in the course of the year she had had to borrow from Portugal at S per cent., whilst her paper was at a discount of 14. In fact, though standing alone against so many belligerents, England had suffered least of all. On December 5 the session of parliament was opened, and the king announced his consent to the independence of the American colonies. ' In thus admitting opening of their separation from the crown of Great parliament, n •. • • 1 • , , t 1 -r 1 ■ N, '" v - 5 ; the Britain, he said, ' I have sacrificed every con- king's sideration of my own to the wishes and opinion s P eech - of the people. I make it my humble and earnest prayer to Almighty God that Great Britain may not feel the evils which might result from so great a dismemberment of 206 The War of American Independence, a.d. the empire, and that America may be free from calamities which have formerly proved in the nv country hew essential monarchy is to the enjoyment of constitution.il liberty. Religion, language, int< may, and 1 hope will yet prove a bond of p nent union between the two ; to this end neither attention n tion shall be wanting on my part.' To the surprise of many the speech u,^ disapproved by and Burke, as well as by Lord North. In the same month the French fleet left the coast of America, carrying with it the French troops, which had ThePica b ''"' v Decn tw " > c - irs and a half in the country, and yet bad never met the English < at Yorktown. Washington meanwhile writing that the temper of the army was • much soured.' more irritable than at any period since the com- mencement of the war.' On January 20, 1 7 s 3 , the preliminaries <>f peace were signed in Paris between Great Britain, France, and Spain. Prclimina- ' " nc United States weie .1. knowledgcd . sovereign, and independent, their frontier being nd marked by a line drawn from the north ■ of Nova S( otia toward one of the heads of tl .cut river, thence to Lake On- thrOUgh the middle of that lake and of | ind Huron t<> tl ' the Woods, thence to the . and along its com Mobile and the : Florida. The Americans obtained the ri^ht of Ashing on the bank-- of Newfoundland and in the < .ulf of tin . the who!. both nations. As gland and • there was substantially a general restitution of i onquered terril thai I rani e kepi I obago : and I .sp.un, unable to obtain Gibraltar, restored the 1783. Second Period. 207 Bahamas, but retained Minorca, and retained or obtained all Florida. The loyalists were recommended to the favourable consideration of Congress, which paid no heed to the recommendation. Shortly after the conclusion of the general treaty, an armistice followed by a peace was concluded with Holland, on the same principle of mutual restitution, except that Holland lost Negapatam. The only enemy now in arms against England was Tippoo Peace with Sultan. There was fighting in India between J-jM a ^ him and his French allies on the one side, and Sultan. the British on the other, after the date of the peace. When the news of this came, the French were recalled, and the sultan was invited to join in the peace. He refused to do so till he had reduced Mangalore, but having done this consented to treat on the basis of a mutual restoration of conquests (March 1784). The treaties of Paris were sharply assailed in parlia- ment, chiefly as respects what was declared to be the desertion of the loyalists. A coalition between Fox and Lord North was now avowed, and burne; the 6 " amendments to the address were carried, then w » 1 . it | on specific resolutions condemning ministers on (April 2, account of the peace. Lord Shelburne re- ^^' signed ; and as Pitt declined to form a ministry, a coalition cabinet was formed under the Duke of Portland, com- prising Fox and Lord North. Among the earliest acts of this ministry was the appointment of commissioners to inquire into the losses of the loyalists, and to allow half-pay to all who had served. From first to last over 1 2,000,000/. were paid to them. The discontents in the American army were now even worse than ever. The chief grievance of the officers was that the half-pay for life, promised in 1780, had never been paid or even recognised by the requisite majority of States. 20S The War of American Independence, a.i>. immute their claim for a fixed sum; but a majority of States could not I : lined even for this proposal A meeting <>f is summoned, at which resolutions were to be offered that might have led to war. Washington came himself to the m and read an address, in which he UIged patience, and 1 himself to leave nothing untried to obtain n The very next day news reached Philadelphia of the ire of the peace, and rather mere than a month sued a proclamation for the cessation of bostilii But it proved almost as difficult to put an end to hos- tilities as to continue them. The troops remained always unpaid. Washington discharged at on 1 furlough all who h.ul the mean-, of returning home, and many who were willing to go with- out means. But one company of Pennsylvanian recruits marched to the State House of Philadelphia, thn ing th< i • th their vengeance if their claims ■ d, and Washington had to send a de- tachment to disperse them and arrest their chiefs With iritish still in New \ a< tually to withdraw to Princeton in order to he out of th< mutinous soldiers. I- to Washington alone that .L.le army did not throw down it^ arms. months' pay out of the I"- was all that 1 Morris ( Ould find to pay it. After the "ii of th' Britain, France, Spain, and America, < oi disbanded the army, with the exception of a I foi c which had been enlisted fora definite time. Sir < iu\ Carleton had already n i oik. Some months :, during whii h an had to lie i7«3- Second Period. 209 made for enabling the loyalists to emigrate, and also, sad to say, for the restoration of slaves, an article of the treaty prohibiting the British from 'carrying away any negroes or other property of the inhabitants.' It is not a little painful to find Franklin, the professed opponent of slavery, com- plaining to his colleague, Henry Laurens, that General Carleton 'has sent away a great number of negroes, al- leging that freedom having been promised them by a proclamation, the honour of the nation was concerned.' Sir Guy Carleton, it seems, took up the position, which appears correct in point of law, that the article of the treaty could apply only to captured negroes, and not to such as had voluntarily joined the British; but it is to be feared that many an unfortunate negro did not receive from his subordinates the benefit of the distinction. It must indeed be admitted with shame that the worst feature of the war on the British side was their treatment of the negroes. All difficulties were, however, at last surmounted ; and on November 25, 1783 (observed still in New York as 'Evacuation Dav'),the British troops left ,_ , ,, T , . . , , . , Evacuation New York, Washington with his forces enter- of New ing the city at the same time. Thus was ^ber2s consummated that great disruption of the 1783- British race which has placed two English-speaking peoples instead of one on the shores of the Atlantic, and has shown that, alone as yet among the races of the earth, it is equally capable of self-government under republican institutions or under a king. We may rejoice in the result, and see God's hand in it. Yet we cannot but feel that the disruption was unnecessary; that not only the same, but even a less measure of qualified independence than that which is now enjoyed by all the larger colo- nies of England would have preserved all the American colonies in joyful allegiance. The Canadian Dominion 210 is • the thirl i riginal S: n they n ind far m< than they tralian group of colonies is like- ■ more i distant New land, Virginia, the Carolin; lin united with Great Britain in i~ :. The very names of ' Whigs' and ' Ti applied throughout the war to the contending partic America, show that the struggle was considered a mere < nsion of party divisions in England, rather than a mbef 4 Washington took leave of his ofl 'with a heart full of 1< ' .. hing that their latter days might he ' ] ,' as their former ones had 1 and honourable.' Leaving them in • \'( w li-i -r\ . on hi - Philadelphia and to Annapolis, where Congress then sitting. At Philadelphia he gave in t<> the comp- troller of finance a detailed statement in his own 1 <>f 1. i iring the war; he had renoun< . it will be I claim to pay. i • ; iber .; i . on . and four tribution, tlie ral Mifflin, ho had cab insthim. Mifflin had noi the country to tin- chief whose tran- d vainly endeavoured in former The war had i • •,5,000,000 doll.. . r 37,000,000/., lebts the amount of 40,000,000 dollai . 9,000,000/. 1 00,000/. Jsondoi . . 17S3. Second Period. 211 of which 115,000,000/. were added to the principal of her debt. The debt itself now amounted to nearly ^45,000,000/., bearing something over 9,300,000/. in- terest. Take it all in all, the result had been by no means discreditable to England. She had failed indeed, thank God, in a task unworthy of herself, which she should never have undertaken. But whilst en- gland had gaged in the task she had held her own against done- three European enemies at once, and in the far East against the most formidable native foes she ever met in India, the Mysore princes ; and the upshot of it all, beyond American independence, had been the loss of a small West India island, of almost uninhabited Florida, and of an island in the Mediterranean never rightly her own. Whilst she had gained a rich town in India, she had almost annihilated the fleets of France and Spain. She left America bankrupt, France and Spain on the verge of bankruptcy, whilst the skill of her great industrial in- ventors and the subtle fingers of her artisans were deve- loping within her a material prosperity soon to surpass anything she had ever known. We began by considering the position of the Red man, the White man, and the Black man at the com- Results of menccment of the struggle. Let us consider it l t c US for 00 the different again at its close. races. The Red man had unluckily attached himself to the losing side. He has taken perhaps a few hundred scalps of pale-faces. But from the Susquehannah to (l)Th e Red the (■encsce, the Iroquois country has been m: "> driven made desolate, and no Indian cornfields will ever again wave over it. More to the west the Illinois tribes have been subdued by Virginia. Fort Jefferson has been established (1780) on the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Ohio, a menace to all the Red men of the 212 •' Avu-ri. a. p. . the country of the Cb< ieen laid v Wherever the Red man has fallen back, the White man •it ucky and Illinois which will b and form more ibdivision. The tide of emigration has flowed ■. . rthe AH< iched the ' at more than one point of Three ivilised powers instead of two now divide the North American continent The Am« tonfei'.' :1 England and Spain. The Black man has he -.lined or lost? [( if he would gaia The mulatto Attucl; one of the victims of the Boston I ( •,) 1 he i. and was buried with honour among the 'martyrs of liberty.' At the first call to arms the i i nlisted ; but a meet- ral offi< ei ast their i ment in the new army of 1775. Tl I they should transfer thi . Washin enlist tin that they served throughout the shoulder with white hum. At the battle lore that. men in the field • giving ition to his Wash- ington the enem nple ; and and South Carolina I the war, to the South 1 , and < J 775- s 4- Stroud Period. 2 1 3 Notwithstanding the carl)- adoption of a resolution against the importation of slaves into any of the thirteen colonics (April 6, 1776), Jefferson's fervid paragraph condemning the slave-trade, and by implication slavery, was struck out of the Declaration of Independence in deference to South Carolina and Georgia, and a member from South Carolina declared that ' if property in slaves should be questioned there must be an end to confederation.' The resolution of Congress itself against the slave-trade bound no single State, although a law to this effect was adopted by Virginia in 1778, and subsequently by all the other States ; but this was so entirely a matter of State-concern- ment that neither was any prohibition of the trade contained in the articles of confederation, nor was any suffered to be inserted in the treaty of peace. The feeling against slavery itself was strong in the North. Vermont, in forming a constitution for herself in 1777, allowed no slavery, and was punished for doing so when she applied for admission as a State with the consent of New York, from which she had seceded in 17S1; the Southern States refusing to admit her for the present, lest the balance of power should be destroyed. Massa- chusetts and Pennsylvania, directly or indirectly, abolished slavery in 1780, New Hampshire in 1783. They were followed the next year by Connecticut and Rhode Island. .so that by 1784 slavery would be practically at an end in New England and Pennsylvania. Other States, Virginia, Delaware, Xcw Jersey, went no further than to pass laws for allowing voluntary emancipation. In strange con- trast to these, Virginia is found in 1780 offering a negro by way of bounty to any white man enlisting for the war. The great Virginians of the day, however — Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Mason- -were opposed to slavery, and large numbers of slaves were emancipated in the State. 214 The J/'. an Indef A .i>. So much and no more did tl ■ m the Amerii eemed at first, when Lord Dunmon reclamation offering freedom t<> all hould join the British standard, as if they luch more- from England. Ac- cordinj rnorRutlei ithCarolii that the . up their prayers in I land. But although Lord Dunn ted in recommending the arming and emancipation of the neither the ministry at home nor the British offi< ers would ato the plan. Lord i < onfiscation and i whovolui -ps. Ind i in ; they were disti and shipped to the West Indies. 2,000 at valued at 250 silver dollars each. The English name became a terror to the bla< k man, and when ( mmand tl i in numbers to hi> standard, en, finally, how the terms of tl awa) ' 1 ■ other pro- perty.' Whichever side he might fight for, th« ratitude. a little more than threc-qu.n • I on him were to invoh ites that had just 1 t il war. in m with wIikIi the struggle to tin would ap] almo 1779-S1. Its true Character. 215 CHAPTER VII. THE PARADOXES OF THE WAR, AND ITS TRUE CHARACTER. PARADOXICAL as it may seem, two things must equally surprise the reader on studying the history of the war of American independence, — the first, that Eng- England's land should ever have considered it possible to ^^Jjj^L] . succeed in subduing her revolted colonies ; the impossible. second, that she should not have succeeded in doing so. At a time when steam had not yet baffled the winds, to dream of conquering by force of arms on the other side of the Atlantic a people of English race numbering between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000, with something like 1,200 miles of seaboard, was surely an act of enormous folly. Horace Walpole had wittily said, at the very commence- ment of the so-called rebellion, that ' if computed by the tract of the country it occupies, we, as so diminutive in comparison, ought rather to be called in rebellion to that.' We have seen in our own days the difficulties experienced by the far more powerful and populous Northern States in quelling the secession of the Southern, when between the two there was no other frontier than at most a river, very often a mere ideal line, and when armies could be raised by a hundred thousand men at a time. England attempted a far more difficult task with forces which, till 1781, never reached 35,000 men, and never exceeded 42,075, including 'provincials,' i.e. American loyalists. Yet it is impossible to doubt that, not once only, but repeatedly during the course of the struggle, England England was on the verge of triumph. The wa ° & 1 on the w rge American armies were perpetually melting away of triumph. before the enemy, directly through the practice of short 2 1 6 Tfh I hrough < : . Tl -i 1- the nan wer< of pay and wai \c\v York, fn m "1 ' • heart in tl i ■ qua! in numb thai to him. In the wint< when li is trong, it • to understand how it was that Sir W. Howe, v. itli i than di uble the number, should ' nnihilate .( an army. In the « intt rof i; dful situ • :• for want of , ington ' admire ' that they shouli t<> I mutiny and desertion. In May 1779 : ardly knew any resource for the Amen. pt in reinforcements from France, and did not 1 what might be 1 if the < 5 had it in their powi rd in the ensuing In 1 )i •< < mber 1 f that j 1 ar h ■ uld A mj ell< d fi wl.:< h he had hie in ' tin In M.'.n hi the con- • his In April 1 • 1 who v. ill tea. It is < ally ■ 1779 •'' H s * rue Character. 217 ncss, and that we have nothing to clothe them with; that our hospitals arc without medicines, and our sick without nutriment except such as well men eat ; and that all our public works arc at a stand and the artificers disbanding. ... It may be declared in a word that \vc are at the end of our tether, and that now or never our deliverance must come.' Six months later, when York- town capitulated, the British forces still remaining in North America after the surrender of that garrison were more considerable than they had been as late as February 1779: and Sir Henry Clinton even then declared that with a reinforcement of io,cco men he would be responsible for the conquest of America. How shall we explain cither puzzle ? that England should have so nearly missed success, to fail at i> u „kstobe last ; or that America should have succeeded, explained. after having been almost constantly on the brink of failure ? The main hope of success on the English side lay in the idea that the spirit and acts of resistance to the authority of the mother-country were in reality Reliance of only on the part of a turbulent minority ; ^ n c t h,! lsl " h that the bulk of the people desired to be loyal, loyalists. It is certain indeed that the struggle was, in America itself, much more of a civil war than the Americans are now generally disposed to admit. In December 1780 there were 8,954 'provincials' among the British forces in America, and on March 7, 1781, a letter from Lord George Germain to Sir H. Clinton, intercepted by the Americans, says: 'The American levies in the king's service are more in number than the whole o{ the enlisted troops in the service of the Congress.' As late as September 1, 1781, there were 7,241. We hear of loyal associators' in Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, of ' associated loyalists' in New York, of .1 -i ' .'". War *f American Independence, a.i-. I in. lint. lined bj everywhere of ' . whose arrest V. is found pernor Trumbull of Connecticut ;':■' i 12, 1775- New England may indeed be considered to nave been cleared < I pposition to the American cause when more than 1,000 refuj left Boston in March 1776 with the British troops. liut New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania remained long full "i Tories. Bj June 28, 1776, the disaffi Island had taken up arms, and after the 1 York by Washington a brigade of loya raised . and want of patriotism of tin people. If, indeed, importing into the sti . we look upon it as i tween two nations, the mismanagement of the war 1)'. the Amerii ans,on all points save one — the retention hington in the chief command -is seen to ha> able from first I to be in fact almost unintel- ligible. We only understand ti when we see that there v. ch thing as an American nation in mly a number of revoke ( an em] 'lit, ruin* , and want • ■ but sc 1778 82. Its true Character. 223 After a first loan had been obtained from France and spent, and a further one was granted in 1782, so utterly unpatriotic and selfish was known to be the temper of the people that the loan had to be kept secret, in order not to diminish such efforts as might be made by the Americans themselves. On July 10 of that year, with New York and Charleston still in British hands, Washington writes : ' That spirit of freedom which at the commencement of this contest would have gladly sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place.' But indeed the mere fact that from the date of the battle of Mon- mouth (July 28, 177S), Washington was never supplied with sufficient means, even with the assistance of French fleets and troops, to strike one blow at the English in New York — though these were but very sparingly rein- forced during the period — shows an absence of public spirit, one might almost say of national shame, scarcely conceivable, and in singular contrast with the terrible earnestness exhibited on both sides some eighty years later in the Secession War. Why, then, must we ask on the other side, why di.i did England fail at last? England fail? The English were prone to attribute their ill success to the incompetency of their generals. Lord North, with his quaint humour, would say, ' I do not know incompe- w nether our generals will frighten the enemv, l ,™ c )' 1 of ■ 7 Lntish gene- but I know they frighten me whenever I think rai< 1 of them." When, in 1778, Lord Carlisle came CI out as commissioner, in a letter speaking of the great scale of all things in America, he says : ' We have nothing on a great scale with us but our blunders, our misconduct, our ruin, our losses, our disgraces and misfortunes.' Pitt, in a speech of 1781, aptly described the war as having been, on the part of England, ' a scries The 11' wi I/iiii a.m. ibt it is t to repeated failure to follow up his own movement, justly Linton, in transferring the hulk urmy from the far s >uth to Virginia, within 1. ■ '.'. ned tin.- way to that i >wn, without wh means -ihle that i ind the Carolinas might have remained British. But no allowance for bad genei can account for the failure of the British. Wash rreene appear to have been the only two Am generals of marked ability, th »nably derived great advantage from the talents of th< tte, Pulaski, Steuben, Rochambeau, — and m was more than once out-manoeuvred. Gates evidently ow :>al triumph to riority of numbei I, and was as signally defeated, under circumstances infinitely I hie to him than tl yne's surrender. I. vaunted abilities came to nothing. ministers as an I no doubt their m struggle was al When P ' ment met in the autumn of 177 ■ to the world — it was held out in the kil It that r campaign would whilst in spite- of all the warnings of the < Opposition, they blinding themselves to th fthetempta- which must inevitably bring down France, if not Spain, mto tin- 1, t them, until the t with Ami >n< luded. The sent out were miserably in • large 1776 So. Its true Character, 225 a scale, — 'too many to make peace, tOO fvw to make war,' as Lord Chatham told the ministry. The English generals complained almost as bitterly as the American of the want of adequate reinforcements, and the best of them, Sir Henry Clinton, is found writing (1779) in a strain which might be mistaken for Washington's, of his spirits being 'worn out' by the difficulties of his position. But no mistakes in the management of the war by British statesmen can account for their ultimate failure. However great British misman- agement may have been, it was far surpassed by American. Until Robert Morris took the finances in hand, the admi- nistration of them was beneath not only contempt bu) conception. There was nothing on the British side equal to that caricature of a recruiting system, in which different bounties were offered by Congress, by the States, by the separate towns, so as to make it the interest of the intend- ing soldier to delay enlistment as long as possible in order to sell himself to the highest bidder ; to that carica- ture of a war establishment, the main bulk of which ' broke up every twelvemonth in front of the enemy, which was only paid, if at all, in worthless paper, and left almost habitually without supplies. To mention one fact only, commissions in British regiments on American soil con- tinued to be sold for large sums, whilst Washington's officers were daily throwing up theirs, many from sheer starvation. On the whole, no better idea can be had of the nature of the struggle on the American side, after the first heat of it had cooled down, than from the words of Count de Rochambeau, writing to Count dc Ycrgennes, July :o, 1780 : ' They have neither money nor credit ; their means of resistance are only momentary, and called forth when they are attacked in their own homes. They then assemble for the moment of immediate danger and defend themselves.' A far more important cause in determining the AT. H. Q 7 h . / 1 T ar of - / tncrican IndfPendt nee. \.n. ultimate failure of the British was the aid afforded by France t<> America, followed by that of Spain ami Holland. It was impossible for England ■ i reconquer a continent, and carrj on war at the same time with the three most po naval states <>f Europe. The instincts of race have tended on both the English and the Amerii an side to depreciate the value <>f the aid giveo by France to the colonists. It ma) be true that Rocbambeau's troops which disembarked en Rhode Island in Jul not march till July 1781, -that they were 1 »1 « >* leaded after their arrival, threatened with attack from Yoik, and only disengaged by a feint of Washingtoi that city. But more than two \ ( -.o , before their arrival Washington wrote to a member ol by her supplies, has saved us from the yoke thus far.' Tin- treaty with Frani e alone was . to afford a an in- dependence. The arrival of 1*: fleet, although no troops joined the American army, ami nothing eventu- ally was done, determined the- eva» nation of Philadelphia Tin- d f th< French troops when the) landed in 1 1 ople to the Ami walk' inns v. iti. disturbed. The 1 could not have been armed without 50 ^munition • applied ent h. In hington, wi um- to tin- Freni h lit) ' of the Ami ii' the British from the ■ outh 'un; 1 \ en to • < on- a t' u da pend 'upon th< «.f the < ountrj . • ,' he v a membei • • months later. ' will. I am i "ii- fident, lie i" lean up ■ !.' In Januar) 1 i, 1 j 7S1 3, Its true Character. 227 lie presses for 'an immediate, ample, and efficacious suc- cour in money' from France, for the maintenance on the American coasts of ' a constant naval superiority,' and for 'ail additional succour in troops.' And since the assist- ance so requested was in fact granted in every shape, and the surrender of Yorktown was obtained by the co- operation both of the French army and fleet, we must hold that Washington's words were justified by the event. The real cause why England yielded in The war 1 iii- iii ceased wh< a 17S2-3 to her revolted colonies was probably the English this : The English nation at large had never "^roiV-hly realised the nature of the struggle ; when it understood . . its character. did, it refused to carry it on. Enormous ignorance no doubt prevailed at the begin- ning of the struggle as to the North American colonies. They had been till then entirely overshadowed Earlypo- by the West Indies, which were perhaps at that pulamyof . , - „ ,7 , . , the war the time the greatest source of English commercial result of wealth ; and the time was not far past when, i s ,l0rance - it is said, they were supposed like the latter to be chiefly inhabited by negroes. The prominence of the slave- colonies seems to have associated the idea of colonics with that of absolute government. Englishmen did not generally realise the existence in North America of vast countries inhabited by communities of their own race, which enjoyed in general a larger measure of self-govern- ment than the mother-country herself. That a colony should resist the mother-country seemed in a manner preposterous. It appears certain, therefore, that when the war at first broke out it was popular, and that the king and Lord North, as has been already stated, were themselves amazed at the loyal addresses which it called forth. But the early resort to the aid of German mercenaries Q2 The War of American Independence. showed that this popularity was only skin-deep, — that the he irt ol the was not i in the ihe war. The ployment of these mer- cenara . i>t the Indian auxiliaries ■ le royal lower the . haractei of the war in English eyes. When Chatham, scathing tnvect of the min 'traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince lis and sends his • i the- shambles,' their sending ' the infidel - igainst whom .' a testant brethren, I LSte their coun- tte their dwellings, ami extirpate their race and .' he might not carry with him the votes of the ■ of Lords, but his words would burn their way into That the war with the American colonies th riant to tin , f the nation is proved by contra-: through the sadden bur-: ....•■ of warlike spirit which foil on the '• ' - v outbrc and Spain. .\ I few days ;. :y with An known, Hora e Walpole had writi i that the new lei uentl) ■ B) Jul S.r Horace Mann: '1 :h camps.' In I776thelring badrevie ion, and ] • i them 1 for Ameri volunteers. The hich i- h< forth taken in so nun hoi I with ! popular j"> on li .I. quittal, the outbu w a totally different ten.; lefeat in whal v felt to *775~ 8 3- I* 5 truc Character. 229 war with our American kinsmen. Hence it was, no doubt, that after the surrender of Yorktown hostilities were practically at an end with America, whilst the naval warfare with France and Spain was carried on for another twelvemonth, and that the signing of provisional articles of peace with the United States preceded by two months that of similar articles with France and Spain, the armistice with Holland being of still later date. It may even be conjectured that the outbreak of war with France and Spain, instead of incensing the mind of the English people against the Americans, rather gave different objects to their angry passions, and tended to diminish their bitterness towards the colonists. It must have been a kind of relief to Englishmen to find themselves fighting once more against those whom they considered hereditary enemies, against men who did not speak their own mother-tongue ; and the wholly unpro- voked character of these foreign hostilities would soften men's feelings towards the stubbornness of those colonists of their own blood, who after all asked only to be let alone. Substantially indeed — although colonial independence would no doubt have been achieved sooner or later — the more we look into the events of the war of _ . , in. The war in 1775-83, the more, perhaps, shall we be con- fact a duel vinccd that it resolves itself into a duel between wS™uSL-„ Washington two men who never saw each other in the and George flesh, Washington and George III. Take Washington out of the history on the American side, and it is impossible to conceive of American success. It is barely possible that under Greene — the American one general after Washington's own heart, who success im- . possible wrote to him from his command in the south, without 'We fight, get beaten, and fight again'— the ^ hin £ton. army itself might have been commanded with an ability 23 of honour n ert' him, that the minister was prevailed upon to remain ii ' things change to a more favourable position,' the king wrote to Lord North as late a hall not feel at liben ly on . . that Lord North at last < ompell< : it. Three ideas wi 1 1 the king's mind, the first of which w B mis- ind the third contrary t<> all | nstitu- tional government ist. Ik- had persuaded himself that the count r. ^end- In Januarj 17; ■ fully and handsomely carries on tl In the autumn of the year hi n that ' if ministers show that 1 1 trill consent to the independent e of Ame- ii< .1. the < ry will be strong in 1 ■ ..■ luppose this country so fai lost to all 1778-9. Its true Character. 231 ideas of self-importance as to be willing to grant Ame- rican independence.' 2nd. lie was convinced (and this conviction, it must be admitted, was shared by some of the strongest opponents of the war), that if the indepen- dence of the North American colonies were acknow- ledged, all the others, as well as Ireland, would be lost. ' If any one branch of the empire is allowed to throw off its dependency, the others will inevitably follow the ex- ample.' ' Should America succeed . . . the West Indies must follow, not in independence, but dependence on America. Irelandwould soon follow,andthis island reduce itself to a poor island indeed.' 3rd. He would not allow the Opposition to rule. ' He would run any personal risk rather than submit to the Opposition . . . rather than be shackled by these desperate men he would lose his crown.' If he authorises the attempt at a coalition (1779), it is 'pro- vided it be understood that every means arc to be em- ployed to keep the empire entire, to prosecute the present just and unprovoked war in all its branches with the utmost vigour, and that his Majesty's past measures be treated with proper respect,' i.e., provided the Opposition are ready to stultify themselves, and do all that the king thinks right, and admit that all for which they have con- tended is wrong. Before the spectacle of such narrow obstinacy, it is difficult not to sympathise with an expres- sion of Fox in one of his letters, 'It is intolerable to think that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief.' Between these two men — it may be conceded, equally sincere, equally resolute — but the one reasoning, like the madman that he was to be, from false premises, j n suc h a self-deluded as to the feelings of his people, dud,Wash- ° r r j ington inu^t anticipating consequences which a century sees 9 in. yet unrealised, and the other with eyes at all times almost 1 ] T The Waf of American Independence, a.d. morbidly open to all the gloomier features of his i ■ ■{ all self-delusion, -the aceiving himself ed in imposing the dictates of his own self-will on every minister whom he might employ, entitled alike t<> chain an unwilling friend I and to shut the door • i opponents except on the ten rendering all their principles — the other always ready to accept the inevitable, to make the most use of the means, to curb himself for the sake of his cause in all things, lainspeaking — the one, finally, resolved only to hinder the making a nation, the other resolved to make one. if anyhow possible — the issue of the i ontest could not be doubtful, if both lives were pro- longed* From that contest the one emerged as the mad king who threw away a continent from England; the other as the father of the American nation. The common consent of mankind has ranked Wash* . among its great men; and although the title may ..( have been fully justified by the course i ivil life, whether in or out of r the i great- termination of the War of Independence, it is hardlytobe doubted that it would freel) ha- ■ to him had his i areer been cut short muni fter the ition of his military command. V who . if any, 1 I it by action The fame of 00 conspicuous bound up With Washington's name. His one the surpi < nton : hi Monmouth, had ible battle, that of brand) wine. defeat ted in doing mu< h w ith little i: pportunit) . pa ior lie had Ki overed Boston he rnuld say,'] h. here month- together with... 1778-9- I* s * ruc Character. 233 not thirty rounds of musket cartridges to a man, and have been obliged to submit to all the insults of the enemy's cannon for want of powder, keeping what little we had for pistol distance . . . We have maintained our ground against the enemy under this want of powder, and \vc have disbanded one army and recruited another, within musket shot of two-and-twenty regiments, the flower of the British army, whilst our force has been but little if any superior to theirs, and at last have beaten them into a shameful and precipitate retreat out of a place the strongest by nature on this continent, and strengthened and fortified at an enormous expense.' The character of Washington as a commander re- calls in various respects that of Wellington. In both we see the same dogged perseverance under Washington all the various phases of fortune ; the same f nd Welhn s- J ton corn- Strict discipline, hardening readily into stern- pared. ness, coupled with the same careful consideration for the wants and welfare of the soldier ; the same patient, constant attention to every detail of military organisation ; the same ability in maintaining a defensive warfare against an enemy superior in force, with the same quickness to strike a blow in any unguarded quarter ; the same unflinching frankness in exposing the evils of the military administration of the day. Many of Wel- lington's despatches from the Peninsula might almost have been written by Washington. The difference be- tween them, while the war lasts, is mainly this, that in Wellington the soldier is all, whilst in Washington the statesman and the patriot are never merged in the soldier. Hence, whilst in after life Wellington had to serve his apprenticeship as a statesman after ceasing to be a soldier, and often bungled over his new craft, Washing- ton's after-life was simply that of a statesman who had TJu War of American Independence, been called to take up arms and had laid them down again. In their supreme quality of simple steadia to duty, both finally met In short, though England had never a more successful foe than Washington, it is impossible not to : el, in studying his character, that no more typical Englishman ever lived; that be belongs to us a- essentially as our Shakespeare and our Mi CHAPTER VIII. Sate of the Let us now cast a final glance at the st world. the world at the c lose of the ept that an independent state had grown up for the first time since the downfall of the Aztec and Inc.i empin on the American continent, -r.ul that England had hern politically lessened, the C of power had been little atli< led by the war. France had one West Indian inland . Holland one Indian settlement lr->. Spain had red Minorca and the I But sin- was abl) shut out from i ol her ami half of the M ppi basin. It might almost be had sto d still to watch the past struggle Among the , ; the o - had been the death of the limp: on Joseph II. still on the throne, and that I. of Portugal, su< i eed< d by his 1 i. in the- carl;. oi the lonial warfare between Spaii State of the J ! 'or Id in 1783. 235 Portugal (1776-7), and a little later some quarrelling in Germany between Austria and Prussia (1777-9), about the succession to the electorate of Bavaria, terminated by the mediation of Russia in favour of the Prussian candidate, Austria receiving some small sop in the way of territory. The Pope (Pius VI.) had astonished the world by a visit to Vienna (1782), whilst in Geneva, where measures taken against Rousseau and his works had led to quarrels between the popular party and the dominant aristocracy, there had been a joint intervention of French, Piedmontese, and Bernese in favour of the latter (1782). Russia was engaged in seizing the Crimea (1783). In the Netherlands, the republican party, encouraged by the success of the Americans, was agitating to curtail the authority of the Stadtholder. But there had been events which had occupied men's minds far more than the quarrels of princes. Other events. At the age of 86, Voltaire had been seized with the wish to see Paris again. In February 1778, after many years' absence, he made his appearance, and Voltaire's re- nothing else was thought of but Voltaire. Y^\^-\^ Crowds stood on the quay all the day outside 1778)- his door. The quasi-regal cry of 'Long live Voltaire!' which greeted him wherever he went, was often mixed with a more ominous one, ' Down with kings ! Long live philosophers ! ' P'ranklin brought him his grandson to bless, and the great mocker of the age pronounced over the child's head the two great words of heavenly and earthly faith, ' God and freedom.' His greatest triumph was, however, at the theatre (March 30), where one of his latest pieces, ' Irene,' was represented. He was crowned with laurel, almost carried in ladies" arms to his coach, which was drawn by men to his door, amidst such showers of bouquets that he exclaimed, ' My children, do you wish to smother me under roses ?' 2$6 Tlu 1 1 ', rr of . I merican IndcpetuL Two months later he was dead, and the Roman lie i>-ir< >< : were refusing to bury him, so that a priest, his nephew, had t<> carry the : v body off secretly to be buried in a mon to which lie 1" •was in turn deprived of 1 For allowing the mony to be performed So fearfully wide was thi between the Church and popular feeling. In the same month Rousseau, whose failing si^lu no longer enabled him to copy mu I liveli- i.iiy hood, accepted from the Marquis de Girardin the offer of a cottage at Ermenonville Paris. A few weeks later he, tOO, was dv.\d, hoping that ' the Almighty would receive him inl .en.' Financially France was rushing on to ruin. eming financial sua i recker had left office i said before, leaving behind him a famous report, known as tin- ' Compte Rendu,' the balance-sheet of French finance I published, } , but already OUl .'.s it applied to the month <>f January i ' I the French debt by over 21,000,000/. ; 1 00,000/. more. In 1783 the finances were being hand* to the utterly re< ho in tl. Id add 32,000,000/., and whose entire breakdown u . the Stat< I, and the :ion. mwhile th< 1' the day in France were the young 1 -ed in the most of all. I ington's friend • the bar of ■ : that of Pans itself, in attOI ■ :\ who in a few .More will ■ the leaders of a State of the World in 1783. 237 French Revolution ; and behind them sons of innkeepers, plasterers, labourers, lackeys, and others — a few of them now simple soldiers or non-commissioned officers, who will rise to military fame, become, many of them, the members of a new nobility, and in one or two instances ascend a throne ; whilst a single Corsican family will give to Europe an emperor, three kings, and a queen. The hour of Germany's political wakening is yet far off. But her literature is rising fast to meri- Germany ; dian splendour, and her poets and philosophers SJJJ^JJjJ. have mostly been enthusiastic in the American rka. cause. In England there is little to be noticed since the opening of the war, beyond what has been ahead}" re- ferred to. Dr. Johnson has published his last work (1781), and will have this year that theliterary paralytic stroke which will be the forerunner of world - his death in the next. A new poet, Crabbe, patronised by Burke, has published his first work, the ' Library ' (17S1), but its success was far surpassed by that of another poem now scarcely known except by name, Darwin's ' Botanic Garden.' Robert Burns has been locally known in Ayrshire for a rhymester, but has published nothing as yet ; Walter Scott will go next year to college. In the political sphere the Prince of Wales has just come of age, and will soon be the patron of the political opposition. Before the year is out (Decern- The political bcr 19,) Pitt, 24 years of age, will be chan- world - cellor of the exchequer and premier, and in him will be typified the spirit of resistance to that coming Revolu- tion which is now casting its shadow before it on the Continent. America finally, after seeing her independence re- cognised this year by Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Russia, all of which will conclude treaties with her as Jv v > Tlu War of American Independence, well as -.'. ill flounder for four more in the slough <<( despond »'f her Confederation, through repeated mutinies and a New England insurrection, until she reaches firm ground at last in her Constitution (September 17. \j j , under which Washington will become the first President, no more of Congress, but of the United Stat ^39 INDEX. ACA ACADIANS, their expulsion from ■ Nova Scotia, 62 Adams, John, appointed peace com- missioner for France, 165 Adams, Samuel, 69, 80, 84, 104 Africa, slave trade in, 57 ; colonial power of, go Algonquin language, 6 Allen, Ethan, takes Ticonderoga, 103 America, races inhabiting colonies in, 2 ; commencement of the war of Independence, 103; reception of the proclamation against rebellion in, 114 ; secretly aided by France and Spain, 118 ; disasters in Canada, 120; miserable state of the army, 121, 147 ; enthusiastic reception of the Declaration of Independence, 126 ; the need of union still scarcely felt in, 127 ; postponement of the plan of federation, 127 ; discourage- ment of the troops, 129 ; Congress raises a new army, 131 ; result of the campaign of 1776, 132; Congress adopts the scheme of confederation, 146 : treaty with France, 149 ; re- joicings over the French treaty in, 153 ; reception of the Conciliatory Bills, 154 ; neglected state of the army, 172 ; supineness of, 173 : sub- serviency to V ranee, 194 ; rejoicings at the surrender of Yorktown in, 198; her weakness, 194-202 ; preliminary articles of peace with England, 204 ; discontent of the army, 207 : cessa- tion of hostilities, 20S ; cost of the war, 210; incapacity of politicians in, 220 : want of patriotism in, 221 ; importance of its foreign aid, 226; success of the war due to Washing- ton, 229 EOS America, North, discovery of, 23 ; per- manent settlement of Englishmen in, 23 , Andre, Major, his trial and conviction as a spy, 184 Andros, Sir Edmund, as governor of New England, 54 Arkwright, 101 Arnold, Benedict, attempts to storm Quebec, 115; disastrous results of his expedition to Canada, 120 ; de- feats the Dritish at Stillwater, 143 ; is found guilty of treason, 183 ; in Connecticut, 196 Asiento, the, 56 Austria, in 1775, 92 ; proposes a peace congress at Vienna, 187 BACON'S Rebellion, 30 ■^ Bacon, Nathaniel, hostilities of, 30 Baltimore, Lord, promoter of colonisa- tion, 32 ; as governor of Maryland, 33 ; his disputes regarding the Vir- ginian Government, 34 Bancroft on the Indians, 4 Baum, Colonel, his defeat at Benning- ton, 140 Beaumarchais, 119 Bellamont, Lord, governor of New York, 41 Bennington, battle of, 140 Berkeley, Sir William, as governor of Virginia, 29 ; as governor of New Jersey, 41 Black man, the, 55 ; effect of the war on, 212 ; bad treatment by the Eng- lish, 214 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 103 Boston, riots at, 71 : troops sent to, 78 convention at, 78 ; massacre at, 79; 240 Index. destruction of tea at, Si : I invested by coloni tted by the Hrilish troops, 117 I .;. 101 liraddock. General, oil opulation of French in, 21 ; I uf, by the I disaster! ilish c.\i>cdii. : ;•> I Carlct^ii. I by tbr ■ ■ :■ • * ' Ciriicr, I . 5» I c I ( miim-.' Clark, ("• I north-* Claybome, 33; leader of tlie n ; ■ '. aericans lelphia, 156 Coligny, Admiral, 15 Colonics of America. 1 : race ing th> ■: .'4 : distiru tion colonic • ally and ings v. 65 ; cm. trade 1 . mutual country and I TUCIlt to - : ■ I rejoicings at the I ■ 1 . refusal I with 1 tcrly Act, 75 ; rencu in, 86 : 1 I ■ I I altcnii I - I ■ 47 i n of, lyj : Index. 241 CON solicits French protection, 160 ; ap- points peace commissioners, 165 ; threatened by mutineers, 208 Connecticut colony, 49 Continental congress, first, 84 ; second, 106 Convention at Boston, 78 Conway, as inspector of the army, 148 Corn riots of 1775, 96 Comwallis, Lord, 132 ; his defeat at Princeton, 136 ; his victory at Cam- den against Gates, 180 ; his march into North Carolina checked, 182 ; advances into North Carolina, 191 ; defeats Greene at Guilford Court House, 192 ; retreats to Wilming- ton, 192 ; in Virginia, 194 ; with- draws to Yorktown, 194 ; his sur- render at Yorktown, 197 Council of Plymouth, 43 Cowpens, the, battle of, 190 Cowper, 1 01 Crabbe, 237 Creeks, 13 Crown Point, surrender of, ro6 Culpeper, Lord, governor of Virginia, 30 ])i:\M, Silas, 118 ■^ Declaration of Independence, pro- position of, 119 ; its adoption by Con- gress in 1776, 122 : its unfairness, < " >ked upon as a declaration of w;.r, 126; its influence on foreign countries, 126 ; its enthusiastic re- reption in America, 126 ; its recep- tion in England, 133 Declaratory Act, 74 De Kalb, 180 Delaware colony, 43 Denmark in 1775, 93 Dickinson, John, 127 Dumouriez, 99 Dunmore, Lord, governor of Virginia, no, 116 Dunning, his resolutions, 178 Dutch colonies in America, 39 ■pCONOMIC Reform, t 7 8 J -' Eliot, John, 52 Endicott, John, 48 England, colonies of, in America, 23, 24 ; its monopoly i>f the Asiento, 56 ; its support of slavery, 57 : defeats the French, 62 ; conqm-st of Canada, FRE by the English, 63 ; complaints nf the colonists against, 67 ; effect of the complaints on, 68 ; social con- dition of, before the war, 100-103 ; at war with Spain, 167 ; events in 1780, 176 ; the war everywhere dis- astrous to, 199 ; preliminary articles of peace with America, 204 ; what she gained by the war, 211 ; success in the war seemingly impossible, 215 ; its reliance on the loyalists, 217 ; reasons for its failure, 223 ; early popularity of the war the re- sult of ignorance. 227 ; politii al and literary world after the war, 237 Estaing, Admiral Count d', his en- gagement with Lord Howe, 157 ; repulsed before Savannah, 170 Europe, colonial power of, 9c ; in 1775. 91 ; war in, in 1871, 185 ; political events outside the war, 234 F^utaw Springs, battle of, 195 T7IVE Nations, the, 13 ■*• Flaxman, 102 Florida, discovery of, 14 ; -settlement of, is Fox, opposed to the American war, 19 | France, colonial power of, 90 ; in 1775, 91 ; the only power with Spain directly interested in the American struggle, 93 ; the intellectual centre of Europe, 94 ; the new reign a hopeful one, 96 ; grounds for its sym- pathy with America, 97 : its admira- tion for England, 97 ; influence of the partition of Poland on, 99 : secretly aids America, 118 ; ready to treat with America, 147 ; treaty with America, 149 ; state of affairs in 1778, 149 ; war declared against England, 153 ; its successes against the English, 158, 186; war tion with Spain, 166; anxious for peace, 187 ; return 1 f the troops to Europe, 206 ; financial ruin of, 236 ; it> heroes of the future, 236 Franklin. Benjamin, his c with ' King George's war,' 58 ; author of the fir>t military organisation in the colonies, 59 ; in Paris, 133 Free trade in America, 118 I "rem li in America, their colonies, 16 ; early discoveries and settlements of, 17 ; missionaries and adventurers of, 18 ; their progress in the Mississippi V. ! 4 2 Index. FRE valley, 19 : extension of colonisation lutsburg, 62 : successes in war, 62 French . ir, 59 Frobisher, Martin All' found a settlement in Hudson Straits, 23 Genera], as gow 1 , ■ martial . 106 h 101 the, 80 141 144 ; is <.< 180 [I] 100 : his i .vrliamcnt in 1782, 205 ; the centre of KiiRli-.h American I ence, 230 ■ : 1 , 38 Germain • , 113, 189 ; his polarity, 200 Germany, in 1 77-, ,1 : appli fin tn. 111. ■iy with a, 236 • \ 185 Gilbert. ■ ■ • ■ ■ > WG Grenvilk 1 revenue frutn the Ami 68 Guilford Court House, battle of, 191 ] IAAKI I M Heigl ' l Hani ck, 104 Hargrea\ Hillsbi r Holland, c Holland, Englands quarrel with, 175; • - ■ 1 army in Philadelphi ■ 130; his engagement with I ' 1 taing, 157 H Hi nry, hi* discoveries, 39 100 e, 185 1 I I I- \ II 1 I pularity c I1r.1i 1 • ". 37. S 7 > '8$ II, 71 Index. 243 IRE NOP Ireland, state of, in 1780, 177 Iroquois, 13 ; devastation of their coun- try by Sullivan, 164 Italy in 1775, 93 TACKSON, Andrew, j.So J Jacobite party extinct, 99 Jay, appointed peace commissioner for Spain, 165 Jefferson, Thomas, draws up the De- claration of Independence, 122 Johnson, Dr., 100, 237 Johnstone, Governor, attempts bribery with Joseph Reed, 158 John the Painter attempts to fire Ports- mouth dockyard. 133 Jones, Paul, 159 ; his sea-fight, 169 Junius, 100, 103 L^ EPPEL, Admiral, 158 Kosciusko, joins the American T A FAYETTE, joins the American army, 138 La Salle, Cavalier de, his adventures, 18 Lee, General, capture of, 134 ; quarrels with Washington, 156 Leisler, Jacob, governor of New York, 41 Lexington, battle of, 104 Lincoln, General, defeated at Briar Arch, 161 ; surrender of Charles- ton by, 171 Locke's ' grand model ' of Carolina, 35 ' London Company,' permanent settle- ment of Englishmen in the colonies attributed to, 23 London No-Popery riots, 179 Long Island, battle of, 128 Loudoun, Lord, 75 lV/TACPHERSON, ior 1,1 Malesherbes, 96 Manhattan, 39 Maryland, formation of, 32; early prosperity, 33 Mason, John, 48 Massachusetts colony, its growth. 48 ; during the commonwealth, 51 : its struggles against restoration, 53 ; warfare with the French, 54; dis- approval of the Navigation Laws, 65 ; meeting of the House of Assem- bly of, 77 ; protests against the Bos- ton Port Bill, 84 ; provincial congress at, 82 ; raising of troops in, 86 ; pre- pares for war, 89 ; repeal of the Act for regulating the Government, 150 Massasoit, 46 Miantonomo, his death, 50 Mifflin, General, president of the Con- gress, 210 Miller, Joaquin, on the Indians, 5, 9 Minorca surrendered to the French, 200 Minuits, Peter, as governor of Man- hattan, 39 Mobilian language, 6 Monmouth, battle of, 156 Montcalm, General, 62 ; his prediction, 64 Montesquieu, 97 Montgomery', Brigadier-General, inva- sion of Canada by, 114; his diffi- culties, 115 Morris, Robert, t.88, 202 Moultrie Fort, British attack on, 120 TSJARRAGANSETTS, 49 _ Natchez, the, destruction of, 20 Navigation laws, the, disapproval and sufferings in the colonies under, 65 Necker, 187 Nelson in Central America, 775 Netherlands in 1775, 93 ; England's quarrel with the, 175 New Amsterdam, 40 New Brunswick, conquest of, 62 New England, early attempts at settle- ment in, 43 ; united colonies of, 50 ; King Philip's war in, 52 ; struggles against the Navigation Laws, 65 ; freedom of, 1 1 7 New Hampshire, 48 New Jersey, its history connected with that of Pennsylvania, 41 ; recovered from the British, 136; ravages of the British in, 137 New Sweden, 40 New York, the centre colony of a sub- group, 39; in the hands of the English, .(i ; Congress at, 71 ; suspension of sembly, 75 ; strengthening of it-, fortifications, 128 ; evacuation of, by the Amerii ie . 1 (o ; evacuation of. by the British, 209 No-Popery riots in London, 179 244 hide. N • 116 a Indian, wliat he is, i ; 4 . I.ui- ■ with I •!icf>, 7 ; .1 element, i . .aid teutonic races in re- ■ hi:n rtlempts KilU, i ■■ . 177 ; till of his mini-.:: '■ / y.\ II HOR] failure of '.38 1 .' the. Tl t I i ■ > ■ ROD with the ' ■ "V. 45 raditionil friend- i Present!. 1 .it Long QUAKER] 115 1) Al I IGH 1 I ■ I f . 80 I Index. 245 ROU 174: takes Si. Eustace, 186: his defeat of Count de Grasse in the West Indies, 203 Rousseau, 94 ; his death, 236 Russia, in 1775, 92 ; its declaration of armed neutrality, 176 Rutledge, 127 CT. AUGUSTINE, 15 '"■' St Eustace is taken by Rodney, 186 Saratoga, battle of, 143 ; gloomy im- pression in England produced by its surrender, 145 Savannah, taken by the British, 161 ; failure of the French and Ameri- cans at, 170; evacuated by the British, 204 Scott, Walter, 237 Separatists, 43 ; emigration of, 44 ; their compact before landing, 44 ; early difficulties of, 45 ; their relation with the Indians, 46 Shaftesbury's ' grand model ' of Caro- lina, 35 Shelbume, appointed manager of American affairs, 201 ; as prime minister, 203 ; fall of his ministry,207 Sheridan, 101 Slavery, in South Carolina, 36 ; growth of, 56 ; royal traders in, 56 ; in Africa, 57 ; passage in the Declaration of Independence struck out, 124 Slave trade, 118, 209 ; effect of the war on, 213 Smeaton, 103 Smith, Adam, 101 Smith, John, his adventures, 28 Smith, Lieut. -Colonel, defeated at Lex- ington, 104 Sons of Liberty organisations, 81 Soto, Ferdinand de, explorations of, 14 Spain, colonies of, in America, 14 ; position in America after the treaty of Paris, 1763, 16; colonial power of, 90 ; the only power with France directly interested in the American struggle, 93 ; in 1775, 93 ; secretly aids America, 118 ; her backwardness in going to war, 165 ; war convention with France, 106: at war with Eng- land, 167 ; negotiations stopped by the no-popery riots, 180; their suc- cesses against the English, 186 Spaniards, 14; discoveries by, in America, 14 Si. imp Act, 1705, 69; riots caused by its introduction, 70, 71 ; cannot be carried into effect, 72; repealed, 1766, 73 Stillwater, battle of. 142 Strachey on the Indians, 4 Strutt, Jerediah, 101 Stuart, Colonel, defeats Greene at Eutaw Springs, 195 Stuyvesant, governor of New Nether- lands, 40 Sullivan, General, joins Washington, 134 ; devastates the Iroquois coun- try, 164 Sumpter, Colonel, defeated by Tarle- ton at Camden, 181 ; and defeats him at Blackstock, 182 Sweden, colonies of, in America, 39 ; i» 1775, 93 'pARLETON, defeats Sumpter at Camden, 181 ; and is defe'ated by him at Blackstock, 182 Tea, Act of 1770, 79; repeal of Act, 151 ; destruction of, at Boston, 81 Thackeray, on colonists in America, 24 Thirteen English colonies, 24 Ticonderoga, surrender of, 105 Tippoo Sultan, his peace with Eng- land, 207 Tobacco, growth of, in Virginia, 31, 32 Trade Act, general prohibition of, 113 Trenton, surprise of the British at, 135 Turgot, 96, 118 Turkey in 1775, 92 Tryon, General, 163 T TNCAS, the Mohegan, 50 ^ Underhill, John, 40 United colonics of New England, 50 United States acknowledged as free, 206 VALLEY FORGE, Washington's winter quarters, 147 Vane, Sir Harry, governor of Massa- chusetts, 49 Vergennes, Count de, m, 144, 146 Verrazzani, his discoveries, 17 Virginia, early attempts at colonisation in, 26; colonisation of, 27; first as- sembly in, 27 : effect of the wars on, 28; submits to the Commonwealth, 29; its restoration, 30; its distress, 24^ Illdcx 31 : effect of e of the ■ I - :ill-.l tile r '■ \\'AI I ntinental ■ independence, 85 ; .. ■ YOU ■ with \\ '•'■ •■ ■ ■ Id, 3S 1 ao ■ 58 yORKSHIl \ • K>Ti AM I XT MODERN HISTORICAL HANDBOOKS. 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