NOTES. JOHNSON ON AMERICA.

Johnson’s famous remark on the loudest yelps for liberty being heard from the drivers of negroes was probably made upon seeing a copy of the Boston Gazette of July 22, 1776. It contained the Declaration of Independence in full and also an advertisement of a slave for sale.

That Johnson was bitter against the Whigs can be easily understood, for, in England, it was openly charged that by their expressed sympathy, lawlessness in the colonies was encouraged. Others, in newspapers and pamphlets, openly charged that information was being sent out from England by certain Whigs. In this connection, read Lecky’s England in the Eighteenth Century, ed. 1882, vol. iii, p. 545. In short, it was a time of doubt, suspicion and, to a great extent, of manufactured hate. When London merchants forwarded their famous petition to Parliament, a petition that had the effect of making it seem that there was a growing sentiment in favor of granting the Americans the freedom from taxation that they asked, there was a counter charge that the move was born of greed and fear, the merchants being those who had sent shipments to America and wanted to be sure of their pay. (See Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, p. 172.) To make matters more confusing, it seemed to Johnson and all those who thought as he did on the matter, that the rebellion was the work of a small and active minority which knew what it wanted, and a vast majority either apathetic or cowardly. Certainly, any student who examines original documents today, must be puzzled to account for the weakness of the patriots, as evidenced by the size of Washington’s army. (See Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 2nd series, vol. ii, p. 204). Out of an entire population of the colonies, some 2,200,000 with drafting, urging, the offering of bounties and the gifts of land resulted in an army that was not more than 25,000, and the Valley Forge incident with Washington’s force of less than nine thousand almost starving in a rich section of country, tells its tale of apathy. In Graydon’s Memoirs, ed. 1846, pp. 34 and 37, we find the direct evidence that he, a patriot recruiting officer, came to the conclusion that love for the cause “was far from prevalent among the lower ranks of the people, at least in Pennsylvania.” There is a pathetic passage too in which he writes of his long journey in Maryland with the gain of one lone recruit. Obviously, there was no widespread enthusiasm for independence and Washington knew and admitted it. “From their form of government and steady attachment heretofore to royalty, my countrymen will come reluctantly into the idea of independence: but time and persecution bring wonderful things to pass.” So said Washington, as quoted by Bancroft in his History of the United States, edition of 1884, vol. iv. page 338.