Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 51)

"The spoken defiance of the other colonies had been quite as efficient as the combination of threats and force to which Boston was compelled to resort, but Lord North launched the first retaliatory and punitive measure against that city. … The first of Lord North's bills was the Boston Port Act, which closed the harbor until indemnity for the tea there destroyed should be paid and the king be satisfied that thereafter the city would obey the laws. The demand for indemnity was fair but the indefinite claim of obedience was not only infamous in itself but, as Burke said, punished the innocent with the guilty. … North's second bill was a virtual abrogation of the Massachusetts charter. The council of twenty-eight had been hitherto elected every year in joint session of the assembly. The king might now appoint the whole body to any number, from twelve to thirty-six, and remove them at pleasure. The men so appointed were designated mandamus councillors. Thereafter town-meetings could be held only by permission of the governor and for the sole purpose of electing officers [General Gage was made governor under this act, and four regiments were placed in Boston for his support]. Sheriffs were to return all juries, and were to be named by the governor and hold office during his pleasure. The third bill was really a device of the king's, and it is said that the ministry was confused and shamefaced in presenting it. It ordained that magistrates, revenue officers, or other officials indicted in Massachusetts for capital offences were to be tried either in Nova Scotia or Great Britain. Another measure made legal the billeting of troops, against which Boston had hitherto striven with success, and a fifth, known as the Quebec Act, though depriving that province of the right of habeas corpus, restored the French customary law ('coutume de Paris'), established Roman Catholicism as the state religion, and by extending its boundaries to the Ohio and Mississippi, shut off the Northern English Colonies from westward extension. This was intended as an arbitrary settlement of a vexed question. The Puritans, however, … exclaimed that the next step would be the establishment among them of English episcopacy."

W. M. Sloane, The French War and the Revolution, chapter 14.

ALSO IN: A. Johnston, The United States: its History and Constitution, sections. 57-58.

Parliamentary History, volume 17.

American Archives, series 4, volume 1, pages 35-220.

Lord Fitzmaurice, Life of the Earl of Shelburne, volume 2, chapter 8.

On the Quebec Act.

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (April-October). Lord Dunmore's War with the Indians. The Western territorial claims of Virginia.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (May-June). Effects of the Boston Port Bill. The call for a Continental Congress.

"The Boston Port Bill was received in America with honors not accorded even to the Stamp Act. It was cried through the streets as 'A barbarous, cruel, bloody, and inhuman murder,' and was burnt by the common hangman on a scaffold forty-five feet high. The people of Boston gathered together in town-meeting at Faneuil Hall, and expresses were sent off with an appeal to all Americans throughout America. The responses from the neighborhood came like snow-flakes. Marblehead offered the use of its wharves to the Boston merchants; Salem averred that it would be lost to all feelings of humanity were it to raise its fortunes on the ruins of its neighbor. Newburyport voted to break off trade with Great Britain, and to lay up its ships. Connecticut, as her wont is, when moved by any vital occurrence, betook herself to prayer and humiliation, first, however, ordering an inventory to be taken of her cannon and military stores. Virginia, likewise, resolved to invoke the divine interposition, but, before another resolution which called for a Congress could be introduced, her House was precipitately dissolved; whereupon the resolution was brought up and passed at a meeting called in 'the Apollo,' where it was further declared that an attack on one colony was an attack upon all. Two days later the Massachusetts letter itself was received, upon which the Virginians called a convention. From all parts contributions in money poured into Boston, and resolutions were everywhere passed, declaring that no obedience was due the late acts of Parliament; that the right of imperial taxation did not exist; that those who had accepted office under pay of the king had violated their public duty; that the Quebec act establishing Roman Catholicism in Canada was hostile to the Protestant religion, and that the inhabitants of the colonies should use their utmost diligence to acquaint themselves with the art of war, and for that purpose should turn out under arms at least once a week. In the fulness of time, a cordon of ships was drawn around Boston, and six regiments and a train of artillery were encamped on the Common—the only spot in the thirteen colonies where the government could enforce an order. The conflict between constitutional liberty and absolutism had now reached that dangerous point where physical force became one of its elements. … The situation was at once recognized throughout the colonies, and the knowledge that in union there is strength, manifested itself in one general impulse toward a Colonial Congress. Committees of Correspondence were organized in every county, and throngs attended the public meetings. {3210} 'One great, wise, and noble spirit; one masterly soul animating one vigorous body,' was the way John Adams described this impulse. The Canadas alone remained inanimate. … But not so those to whom constitutional liberty was as the breath of life. On the 17th of June (1774) the Massachusetts Assembly, which had been removed by a royal order to Salem, answered Virginia by resolving on a call for a Continental Congress at Philadelphia. The governor, hearing of what was going on, sent the secretary of the colony to dissolve the Assembly, but, finding the doors shut upon him, he had to content himself with reading the message to the crowd outside. The House went on with its work, while, at the same time, a great meeting, with John Adams in the chair, was being held at Boston in Faneuil Hall. Twelve colonies agreed to send delegates to a Continental Congress to be held at Philadelphia in September."

E. G. Scott, The Development of Constitutional Liberty in the English Colonies of America, chapter 11 (with corrections by the author).

ALSO IN: G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision) volume 4, chapter 1.

See, also, BOSTON: A. D. 1774.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774(May-July). Governor Hutchinson's departure for England. His conversation with King George.

In May, 1774, Governor Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, who had applied some months before for leave of absence to visit England, was relieved by General Gage and took his departure. General Gage was temporarily commissioned to be "Captain General and Governor-in-Chief" of the Province of Massachusetts, and "Vice-Admiral of the same," combining the civil and military powers in himself. It was then supposed that Hutchinson's absence would be brief; but, to his endless grief, he never saw the country again. Soon after his arrival in England he had an interview with the king, which is reported at length in his Diary. The conversation is one of great historical interest, exhibiting King George's knowledge and ideas of American affairs, and representing the opinions of a high-minded American loyalist. It is reprinted here exactly as given in Governor Hutchinson's Diary, published by his great-grandson in 1883:

"July 1st.—Received a card from Lord Dartmouth desiring to see me at his house before one o'clock. I went soon after 12, and after near an hour's conversation, his Lordship proposed introducing me immediately to the King. I was not dressed as expecting to go to Court, but his Lordship observing that the King would not be at St. James's again until Wednesday [this was Friday], I thought it best to go; but waited so long for his Lordship to dress, that the Levée was over; but his Lordship going in to the King, I was admitted, contrary, as Lord Pomfret observed to me, to custom, to kiss His Majesty's hand in his closet: after which, as near as I can recollect, the following conversation passed.

K.—How do you do Mr. H. after y voyage?

H.—Much reduced Sir by sea-sickness; and unfit upon that account, as well as my New England dress, to appear before your Majesty. Lord D. observed—Mr. H. apologised to me for his dress, but I thought it very well, as he is just come ashoar; to which the K. assented.

K.—How did you leave your Government, and how did the people receive the news of the late measures in Parliament?

H.—When I left Boston we had no news of any Act of Parliament, except the one for shutting up the port, which was extremely alarming to the people.

(Lord D. said, Mr. H. came from Boston the day that Act was to take place, the first of June. I hear the people of Virginia have refused to comply with the request to shut up their ports, from the people of Boston, and Mr. H. seems to be of opinion that no colony will comply with that request.)

K.—Do you believe, Mr. H., that the account from Virginia is true?

H.—I have no other reason to doubt it, except that the authority for it seems to be only a newspaper; and it is very common for articles to be inserted in newspapers without any foundation. I have no doubt that when the people of Rhode Island received the like request, they gave this answer—that if Boston would stop all the vessels they then had in port, which they were hurrying away before the Act commenced, the people of R. Island would then consider of the proposal. The King smiled.

Lord D.—Mr. H., may it please your Majesty, has shewn me a newspaper with an address from a great number of Merchants, another from the Episcopal Clergy, another from the Lawyers, all expressing their sense of his conduct in the most favourable terms. Lord Dartmouth thereupon took the paper out of his pocket and shewed it.

K.—I do not see how it could be otherwise. I am sure his conduct has been universally approved of here by people of all parties.

H.—I am very happy in your Majesty's favourable opinion of my administration.

K.—I am intirely satisfied with it. I am well acquainted with the difficulties you have encountered, and with the abuse & injury offered you. Nothing could be more cruel than the treatment you met with in betraying your private letters.

The K., turning to Lord D.—My Lord, I remember nothing in them to which the least exception could be taken.

Lord D.—That appears, Sir, from the report of the Committee of Council, and from your Majesty's orders thereon.

H.—The correspondence, Sir, was not of my seeking. It was a meer matter of friendly amusement, chiefly a narrative of occurrences, in relating of which I avoided personalities as much as I could, and endeavoured to treat persons, when they could not be avoided, with tenderness, as much as if my letters were intended to be exposed; whereas I had no reason to suppose they ever would be exposed.

K.—Could you ever find Mr. H. how those letters came to New England?

H.—Doctor F., may it please your Majesty, has made a publick declaration that he sent them, and the Speaker has acknowledged to me that he received them: I do not remember that he said directly from Doctor F., but it was understood between us that they came from him. I had heard before that they came either direct from him, or that he had sent them through another channel, and that they were to be communicated to six persons only, and then to be returned without suffering any copies to be taken, I sent for the Speaker and let him know what I had heard, which came from one of the six to a friend, and so to me. The Speaker said they were sent to him, and that he was at first restrained from shewing them to any more than six persons.

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K.—Did he tell you who were the persons?

H.—Yes, sir. There was Mr. Bowdoin, Mr. Pitts, Doctor Winthrop, Doctor Chauncy, Doctor Cooper, and himself. They are not all the same which had been mentioned before. The two Mr. Adamses had been named to me in the room of Mr. Pitts and Doctor Winthrop.

K.—Mr. B. I have heard of Lord D.—I think he is father-in-law to Mr. T. [Temple].

K.—Who is Mr. Pitts?

H.—He is one of the Council—married Mr. B.'s sister.

K.—I have heard of Doctor Ch. and Doctor Cooper, but who is Doctor Winthrop?

H.—He is not a Doctor of Divinity, Sir, but of Law; a Professor of Mathematicks and Natural Philosophy at the College, and last year was chose of the Council.

K.—I have beard of one Mr. Adams, but who is the other?

H.—He is a Lawyer, Sir.

K.—Brother to the other?

H. No, Sir, a relation. He has been of the House, but is not now. He was elected by the two Houses to be of the Council, but negatived. The speaker further acquainted me that, after the first letter, he received another, allowing him to shew the Letters to the Committee of Correspondence; and afterwards a third, which allowed him to shew them to such persons as he could confide in, but always enjoined to send them back without taking copies. I asked him how he could be guilty of such a breach of trust as to suffer them to be made publick? He excused it by saying that he was against their being brought before the House, but was overruled; and when they had been read there, the people abroad compelled their publication, or would not be satisfied without it. Much more passed with which I will not trouble your Majesty; but after the use had been made of the Letters, which is so well known, they were all returned.

K., turning to Lord D—This is strange:—where is Doctor F., my lord?

Lord D.—I believe, Sir, he is in Town. He was going to America, but I fancy he is not gone.

K.—I heard he was going to Switzerland, or to some part of the Continent.

Lord D.—I think, Sir, there has been such a report.

K.—In such abuse, Mr. H., as you met with, I suppose there must have been personal malevolence as well as party rage?

H.—It has been my good fortune, Sir, to escape any charge against me in my private character. The attacks have been upon my publick conduct, and for such things as my duty to your Majesty required me to do, and which you have been pleased to approve of. I don't know that any of my enemies have complained of a personal injury.

K.—I see they threatened to pitch and feather you.

H.—Tarr & feather, may it please your Majesty; but I don't remember that ever I was threatened with it.

Lord D.—Oh! yes, when Malcolm was tarred and feathered [Almanac for 1770, May, MS. Note], the committee for tarring and feathering blamed the people for doing it, that being a punishment reserved for a higher person, and we suppose you was intended.

H.—I remember something of that sort, which was only to make diversion, there being no such committee, or none known by that name.

K.—What guard had you, Mr. H.?

H.—I depended, Sir, on the protection of Heaven. I had no other guard. I was not conscious of having done anything of which they could justly complain, or make a pretence for offering violence to my person. I was not sure, but I hoped they only meant to intimidate. By discovering that I was afraid, I should encourage them to go on. By taking measures for my security I should expose myself to calumny, and being censured as designing to render them odious for what they never intended to do. I was, therefore, obliged to appear to disregard all the menaces in the newspapers, and also private intimations from my friends who frequently advised me to take care of myself.

K.—I think you generally live in the country, Mr. H.; what distance are you from town?

H.—I have lived in the country, Sir, in the summer for 20 years; but, except the winter after my house was pulled down, I have never lived in the country in winter until the last. My house is 7 or 8 miles from the Town, a pleasant situation, and most gentlemen from abroad say it has the finest prospect from it they ever saw, except where great improvements have been made by art, to help the natural view. The longest way the road is generally equal to the turnpike roads here; the other way rather rough.

K.—Pray, what does Hancock do now? How will the late affair affect him?

H.—I don't know to what particular affair your Majesty refers.

K.—Oh, a late affair in the city, his bills being refused. (Turning to Lord D.) Who is that in the city, my Lord?

Lord D. not recollecting—

H.—I have heard, Sir, that Mr. Haley, a merchant in the city, is Mr. Hancock's principal correspondent.

K.—Ay, that's the name.

H.—I heard, may it please your Majesty, before I came from New England, that some small sums were returned, but none of consequence.

K.—Oh, no, I mean within this month, large sums.

Lord D.—I have heard such rumours, but don't know the certainty.

H.—Mr. Hancock, Sir, had a very large fortune left him by his uncle, and I believe his political engagements have taken off his attention from his private affairs. He was sensible not long ago of the damage it was to him, and told me he was determined to quit all publick business, but soon altered his mind.

K.—Then there's Mr. Cushing: I remember his name a long time: is not he a great man of the party?

H.—He has been many years Speaker, but a Speaker, Sir, is not always the person of the greatest influence. A Mr. Adams is rather considered as the opposer of Government, and a sort of Wilkes in New England.

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K.—What gave him his importance?

H.—A great pretended zeal for liberty, and a most inflexible natural temper. He was the first that publickly asserted the Independency of the colonies upon the Kingdom, or the supreme Authority of it.

K.—I have heard, Mr. H., that your ministers preach that, for the sake of promoting liberty or the publick good, any immorality or less evil may be tolerated?

H.—I don't know, Sir, that such doctrine has ever been preached from the pulpit; but I have no doubt that it has been publickly asserted by some of the heads of the party who call themselves sober men, that the good of the publick is above all other considerations, and that truth may be dispensed with, and immorality is excusable, when this great good can be obtained by such means.

K.—That's a strange doctrine, indeed. Pray, Mr. H., what is your opinion of the effect from the new regulation of the Council? Will it be agreeable to the people, and will the new appointed Councillors take the trust upon them?

H.—I have not, may it please your Majesty, been able to inform myself who they are. I came to Town late last evening, and have seen nobody. I think much will depend upon the choice that has been made.

K.—Enquiry was made and pains taken that the most suitable persons should be appointed.

H.—The body of the people are Dissenters from the Church of England; what are called Congregationalists. If the Council shall have been generally selected from the Episcopalians, it will make the change more disagreeable.

K.—Why are they not Presbyterians?

H.—There are very few Churches which call themselves Presbyterians, and form themselves voluntarily into a Presbytery without any aid from the civil government, which the Presbyterian Church of Scotland enjoys.

Lord D.—The Dissenters in England at this day are scarce any of them Presbyterians, but like those in New England, Congregationalists, or rather Independents.

K.—Pray, what were your Ancestors, Mr. H.?

H.—In general, Sir, Dissenters.

K.—Where do you attend?

H.—With both, Sir. Sometimes at your Majesty's chapel, but more generally at a Congregational church, which has a very worthy minister, a friend to Government, who constantly prays for your Majesty, and all in authority under you.

K.—What is his name?

H.—Doctor Pemberton.

K.—I have heard of Doctor Pemberton that he is a very good man. Who is minister at the chapel?

H.—The Rector is Dr. Caner, a very worthy man also, who frequently inculcates upon his hearers due subjection to Government, and condemns the riotous violent opposition to it; and besides the prayers in the Liturgy, generally in a short prayer before sermon, expressly prays for your Majesty, and for the chief Ruler in the Province.

K.—Why do not the Episcopal ministers in general do the same?

H.—In general, Sir, they use no other prayer before sermon than a short collect out of the Liturgy.

K.—No—(turning to Lord D.) It is not so here, my Lord?

Lord D.—I believe it is, Sir. In your Majesty's Chapel they always use such a prayer. It is a form adapted.

K.—I think you must be mistaken.

Lord D.—No, Sir. This prayer used to be printed formerly, but of late it has not been printed with the service. In general the ministers use a collect, as Mr. Hutchinson says; sometimes the collect in the Communion service—'Prevent us, O Lord,' &c., but I think oftener the collect for the second Sunday in Advent.

H.—My education, Sir, was with the Dissenters. I conceive there is no material difference between reading a prayer out of a book, and saying it 'memoriter,' without book.

Lord D.—I think, Sir, it is not very material. The prayers of the Dissenters are in substance very much the same with those in the service of' the church.

K.—I see no material difference, if the prayers be equally good, but will not that depend upon the minister? But, pray, Mr. H., why do your ministers generally join with the people in their opposition to Government?

H.—They are, Sir, dependent upon the people. They are elected by the people, and when they are dissatisfied with them, they seldom leave till they get rid of them.

K.—That must be very dangerous. If the people oblige them to concur with them in their erroneous principles on Government, they may do it in religion also, and this must have a most fatal tendency.

H.—There is one check, Sir, upon the people. Unless a minister be dismissed by a council of Churches, the Province law makes provision for the recovery of the salary; but we have no instance where a minister, for any length of time, has brought suits for the recovery of his salary, after the people refuse to hear him. They generally weary him, and sooner or later they get clear of him.

Lord D.—That's a considerable tye, however.

K.—Pray, Mr. H., does population greatly increase in your Province?

H.—Very rapidly, Sir. I used to think that Doctor F., who has taken such pains in his calculations, carried it too far when he supposed the inhabitants of America, from their natural increase, doubled their number in 25 years; but I rather think now that he did not; and I believe it will appear from the last return I made to the Secretary of State, that the Massachusets has increased in that proportion. And the increase is supposed, including the importation of foreigners, to be, upon the whole, greater in most of the Southern Colonies than in the Massachusets. We import no settlers from Europe, so as to make any sensible increase.

K.—Why do not foreigners come to your Province as well as to the Southern Governments?

H.—I take it, Sir, that our long cold winters discourage them. Before they can bring the land to such a state as to be able in summer to provide for their support in winter, what little substance they can bring with them is expended, and many of them have greatly suffered. The Southern colonies are more temperate.

K.—What is the reason you raise no wheat in your Province?

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H.—In most places, especially near the sea, it blasts.

K.—To what cause is that owing?

H.—It has been observed that when the grain is so forward as to be out of the milk the beginning of July, it seldom blasts; and that about the 8th or 10th of that month the weather becomes exceeding hot, and what are called the honey dews of the night are fixed upon the grains by the scalding sun in a hot morning, and if the grain be then in the milk it shrivels up, and the straw becomes rusty and black. This is a pretty general opinion of the cause.

K.—To what produce is your climate best adapted?

H.—To grazing, Sir; your Majesty has not a finer Colony for grass in all your dominions: and nothing is more profitable in America that pasture, because labour is very dear.

K.—Then you import all your bread corn from the other Colonies?

H.—No, Sir, scarce any, except for the use of the maritime towns. In the country towns the people raise grain enough for their own expending, and sometimes for exportation. They live upon coarse bread made of rye and corn mixed, and by long use they learn to prefer this to flour or wheat bread. K.—What corn?

H.—Indian corn, or, as it is called in Authors, Maize.

K.—Ay, I know it. Does that make good bread?

H.—Not by itself, Sir; the bread will soon be dry and husky; but the Rye keeps it moist, and some of our country people prefer a bushel of Rye to a bushel of Wheat, if the price should be the same.

K.—That's very strange.

Lord D.—In many parts of Scotland, Sir, Rye is much esteemed as making good and wholesome bread.

The King enquired very particularly into many other parts of the produce of the country, and the natural history of it, to which I gave the best answers I was capable of.

K.—New York, I think, comes the next to Boston in their opposition to Government?

H.—Does your Majesty think nearer than Pennsilvania?

K.—Why, I can't say that they do of late.

K.—Rhode Island, Mr. H., is a strange form of Government.

H.—They approach, Sir, the nearest to a Democracy of any of your Colonies. Once a year all power returns to the people, and all their Officers are new elected. By this means the Governor has no judgment of his own, and must comply with every popular prejudice.

K.—Who is their Governor now?

H.—His name, Sir, is Wanton, a Gentleman who I have reason to think wishes to see Government maintained as much as any they could find in the Colonies.

K.—How is it with Connecticut? are they much better?

H.—The constitutions, Sir, are much the same; but Connecticut are a more cautious people; strive to make as little noise as may be, and have in general retained a good share of that virtue which is peculiarly necessary in such a form of Government.

More was said upon the state of these and some of the other Colonies. There being something of a pause about this time, I turned to Lord Dartmouth and asked—Does your Lordship remember when you had the first account of the Lieutenant Governor's death, and whether it was before the Letters which I wrote by Governor Tryon?

Lord D.—Oh, yes, I had a letter from you several weeks before that, giving an account of it.

H.—There was a vessel sailed for Lisbon the day after he died, and I gave a letter to the master in charge, to put it on board the first Vessel for London, but was doubtful of the conveyance.

K.—We never could find out which way that letter came. Is the present L. Governor a relation to the late Mr. Oliver?

H.—No, Sir, not of the same family. I have no connection with him, nor did I ever let him know that I had mentioned him as one of the persons I thought might be proper for a Lieutenant Governor.

K.—The Chief Justice, I think, is brother to the late Lieutenant Governor?

H.—Yes, Sir.

K.—We had thought of him, but as he was not one of those you had named, the present Gentleman, upon enquiry, appeared under all circumstances the most proper.

H.—I had some particular inducement not to mention the Chief Justice. He is related to me, and his appointment would have increased the envy against both of us.

K.—How is he related to you?

H.—One of his sons, Sir, married one of my daughters. I was, besides, uncertain whether the salary would be continued; and if it should be, his salary as Chief Justice exceeded it, except in case of my absence, and then the expense of living, and the additional trouble from his post, I considered as more than an equivalent. I considered further, that the controversy in which he had been engaged as Chief Justice would render the administration peculiarly difficult just at that time; and I supposed it would immediately devolve upon him by my absence, having then no expectation of being superseded. I never took more pains to divest myself of all personal views than in mentioning proper persons for this place. I should have been more anxious, if I had not thought it not improbable that some person might be appointed, and sent from England.

K.—What number of Indians had you in your Government?

H.—They are almost extinct. Perhaps there are 50 or 60 families at most upon the Eastern Frontier, where there is a small fort maintained; tho' I conceive the inhabitants would not be in the least danger. It looks, Sir, as if in a few years the Indians would be extinct in all parts of the Continent.

K.—To what is that owing?

H.—I have thought, Sir, in part to their being dispirited at their low despicable condition among the Europeans, who have taken possession of their country, and treat them as an inferior race of beings; but more to the immoderate use of spirituous liquors. There are near 100 families, perhaps more, of Indians who are domiciliated, and live, some in other towns, but most of them at a place called Mashpee, where they have a church, and a Missionary to preach to them, and also an Indian Minister who has been ordained, and preaches sometimes in their own language.

K.—What, an Episcopal Minister?

H.—No, Sir, of the Congregational persuasion or form of worship.

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The King was particular in many other enquiries relative to my Administration, to the state of the Province, and the other Colonies. I have minuted what remained the clearest upon my mind, and as near the order in which they passed as I am able. He asked also what part of my family I brought with me, and what I left behind, and at length advised me to keep house a few days for the recovery of my health. I then withdrew. I was near two hours in the K. closet. Lord D. feared I was tired so long standing. I observed that so gracious a reception made me insensible of it."

Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson. chapter 5.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (September). The meeting of the First Continental Congress.

"On the 5th day of September most of the delegates elected to the congress were in Philadelphia. They were invited by the speaker of the Pennsylvania assembly to hold their sessions in the State House, but decided to meet in the hall owned by the carpenters,—a fine brick building, having commodious rooms for the use of the committees, and an excellent library in the chambers. It is still in good preservation. At ten o'clock in the morning the delegates met at the City Tavern, walked to Carpenters' Hall, and began the sessions of the Continental Congress. This assembly, when all the members had taken their seats, consisted of 55 delegates, chosen by 12 colonies. They represented a population of 2,200,000, paying a revenue of £80,000 sterling. Georgia, which did not elect delegates, gave a promise to concur with her 'sister colonies' in the effort to maintain their right to the British Constitution. … In general, the delegates elect were men of uncommon ability, who had taken a prominent part in the political action of their several localities. … New England presented, in John Sullivan, vigor; in Roger Sherman, sterling sense and integrity; in Thomas Cushing, commercial knowledge; in John Adams, large capacity for public affairs; in Samuel Adams, a great character, with influence and power to organize. The Middle colonies presented, in Philip Livingston, the merchant prince of enterprise and liberality; in John Jay, rare public virtue, juridical learning, and classic taste; in William Livingston, progressive ideas tempered by conservatism; in John Dickinson, 'The Immortal Farmer,' erudition and literary ability; in Cæsar Rodney and Thomas McKean, working power; in James Duane, timid Whiggism, halting, but keeping true to the cause; in Joseph Galloway, downright Toryism, seeking control, and at length going to the enemy. The Southern colonies presented, in Thomas Johnson, the grasp of a statesman; in Samuel Chase, activity and boldness; in the Rutledges, wealth and accomplishment; in Christopher Gadsden, the genuine American; and in the Virginia delegation, an illustrious group,—in Richard Bland, wisdom; in Edmund Pendleton, practical talent; in Peyton Randolph, experience in legislation; in Richard Henry Lee, statesmanship in union with high culture; in Patrick Henry, genius and eloquence; in Washington, justice and patriotism. 'If,' said Patrick Henry, 'you speak of solid information and sound judgment, Washington unquestionably is the greatest man of them all.' … The congress was organized by the choice of Peyton Randolph of Virginia for President, and Charles Thomson of Philadelphia, not a member, for Secretary. … A discussion … arose on the rules to be observed in determining questions, … which was renewed the next day, when it was agreed that each colony should have one vote."

R. Frothingham, The Rise of the Republic of the United States, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: J. T. Scharf and. T. Westcott, History of Philadelphia, volume 1, chapter 16.

C. J. Stillé, Life and Times of John Dickinson, chapter 5.

V. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the! United States, volume 3, chapter 13.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (September-October). The action of the Congress.

"The Congress first resolved 'to state the rights of the colonies in general, the several instances in which those rights were violated or infringed, and the means most proper for a restoration of them.' Next, 'to examine and report the several statutes which affect the trade and manufactures of the colonies,' not earlier than the last nine years. While these subjects were under consideration, resolutions of Boston and its neighbors [Middlesex and Suffolk counties] were laid before them, stating their wrongs and merely defensive measures to which they would adhere, 'as long as such conduct may be vindicated by reason and the principles of self-preservation, but no longer.' … Congress unanimously approved and recommended 'a perseverance in this firm and temperate conduct,' trusting a change in the councils of the British nation. The merchants were urged not to order goods, and to suspend those ordered; and it was resolved, that after the first of next December there should be no importation of British goods, and no consumption of, or traffic in them. A loyal petition to the king was ordered, assuring him that by abolishing the system of laws and regulations of which the colonies complained, enumerating them, the jealousies they had caused would be removed, and harmony restored. 'We ask but for peace, liberty and safety. We wish not a diminution of the prerogative, nor do we solicit the grant of any new right in our favor. Your royal authority over us, and our connection with Great Britain, we shall always carefully and zealously endeavor to support and maintain.' General Gage was entreated to discontinue the erection of the fortifications on Boston Neck, and to prevent all injuries on the part of the troops; and Massachusetts was asked 'temporarily to submit to a suspension of the administration of justice where it could not be procured in a legal and peaceable manner.' Persons accepting office under the recent act, changing the form of her government, were denounced, 'as the wicked tools of that despotism which is preparing to destroy those rights which God, nature, and compact have given to America.' A memorial was next ordered to the inhabitants of the British colonies there represented, exposing their common wrongs and urging a united 'commercial opposition,' warning them to extend their views 'to mournful events,' to be 'in all respects prepared for every contingency, and to implore the favor of Almighty God.' {3215} An appeal was made to the enlightened sympathies of the British people. … Finally, an address was made to the inhabitants of the Province of Quebec, inviting their co-operation. In the meantime, the form of a non-exportation, non-consumption association was adopted, and signed by each of the delegates. … A declaration of the rights and injuries of the colonies was made, in which the most difficult question was disposed of. The right to participate in the legislative council of their common country, was declared to be the foundation of English liberty and of all free government. … Of all these proceedings the language was that of peace, except where other language was demanded. For they approved the opposition of the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay to the execution of the late acts of Parliament, and declared, 'If these acts shall be attempted to be carried into execution by force, in such case all America ought to support them in their opposition,' and 'that seizing or attempting to seize any person in America, in order to transport such person beyond the sea for trial of offences committed within the body of a county in America, being against law, will justify, and ought to meet with, resistance and reprisal.' These were the essential resolutions. They bound the colonies to a common resistance to acts of force against all, or any one of them. They also declared their opinion of the necessity that another Congress should be held in the ensuing month of May, unless the redress of grievances which they had desired was obtained before that time, and that all the colonies in North America choose deputies, as soon as possible, to attend such Congress. On the twenty-sixth of October, after a secret session of fifty-one days, this body adjourned. The recommendations of this Congress were received with marked respect among the patriots of the colonies."

J. C. Hamilton, History of the United States as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton, chapter 3 (volume 1).

"Trained in all the theories of the mercantile system, America had been taught to believe (1) that two countries could continue to trade, though one of necessity did so at a loss; (2) that in the trade between England and the colonies, the former both through natural advantages and through law was the party to which the profit accrued; (3) that England was 'a shop-keeping nation,' whose very existence depended on her trade and manufactures. A suspension of trade between England and America therefore would mean misery, if not ruin, to the mother country, while the colonies would 'both save and gain.' With measures of non-importation, non-exportation and non-consumption, accordingly, did this otherwise powerless body hope to coerce the English people and government. Though founded on an economic fallacy, this method of action was certain to have a great effect in England. Twice already had it been employed on a limited scale—against the Stamp Act and against the revenue acts,—and each time with sufficient success to warrant the belief that its wider application would result in victory. Now the agents of the colonies in London were writing home: 'If you have virtue enough to resolve to stop, and to execute the resolution of stopping, your exports and imports for one year, this country must do you justice.' … In both England and America the temporary destruction of British trade was viewed not merely as an effective weapon, but as the only peaceful one which the colonies possessed. A failure to unite in a non-importation agreement against England would, according to a prominent English politician, leave nothing for the colonies 'but to decide between ruin and submission.' The question for the Congress was not, therefore, a choice of remedies, but merely whether, and to how great an extent, the dele·gates could be brought to agree to the only one within their reach. For even while accepting the system as effective against Great Britain, the delegates and their constituents had so far progressed as to realize that it bore with uneven force on the different colonies. The southern colonies were really no more diversified in their industries than the West India islands. South Carolina grew rice and indigo; North Carolina depended largely on tar, pitch and turpentine; Virginia raised tobacco. Unless these products could be exported to Europe, those colonies might suffer for the necessaries of life. … The first consideration of the subject in the Congress revealed serious difficulties. The Virginia delegation, 'to avoid the heavy injury that would arise,' were prevented by their instructions from agreeing to an immediate cessation of trade relations. Imports would cease on November 1, 1774, but exports must continue till August 10, 1775. It was in vain they were told 'that a non-exportation at a future day cannot avail,' and that at the Virginia date non-exportation would not operate before the fall of 1776. The Virginians had determined to cure and sell their tobacco crop of 1774 before 'consideration of interest and of equality of sacrifice should be laid aside.' So vital, however, did most of the delegates consider the immediate enforcement, that it was proposed to act without Virginia; for Boston and New England, it was said, would need active support before that date. This proposition was defeated by the refusal of the delegates of North Carolina and Maryland to join unless Virginia should also make the sacrifice. With sorry grace the Congress had to accept the dictation of Virginia. But the trouble did not end here. Virginia's selfish interest having been triumphant, the South Carolina delegation sought for an equal advantage, and demanded that the two great products of that colony should be especially reserved from the non-exportation clause. … Rather than yield, the Congress preferred a cessation of business for several days, in order 'to give Our [South Carolina] deputies time to recollect themselves.' But when the Association was ready for signing, the South Carolina delegates, with but one exception, seceded from the Congress, and their assent was only secured eventually through a compromise, by virtue of which rice alone was excluded from the agreement, while indigo was brought under its terms. Such were the secret deliberations of the Congress, in endeavoring to unite the colonies in the use of their only weapon. The first public results appeared in the form of a unanimous resolution, passed and published on September 22, requesting 'the merchants and others in the several colonies not to send to Great Britain any orders for goods,' and to delay or suspend orders already sent. Five days later it was unanimously resolved that after December 1, 1774, 'there should be no importation into British America from Great Britain or Ireland, or from any other place,' of any goods, wares or merchandise exported from Great Britain or Ireland. {3216} Three days later, with no assertion of unanimity, a resolution was announced to the effect 'that from and after the 10th day of September, 1775, the exportation of all merchandise and every commodity whatsoever to Great Britain, Ireland and the West Indies ought to cease, unless the grievances of America are redressed before that time,' and a committee was appointed to draft a plan for carrying into effect these resolves. On October 12 this committee brought in a report, which, after consideration and amendment, was on the 18th of October agreed to and ordered signed. On October 20 it was signed and ordered to be printed. Possessed of no real power, the Congress relied on the people to enforce this agreement. It was recommended that in every county, city and town a committee be chosen 'whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons touching this Association.' With hardly an exception, this recommendation was adopted. … As America had refused to trade with Great Britain and her colonies, the government replied by acts prohibiting any such trade. The policy of 'exhausting its opponent by injuring itself' was at last to have a fair trial, but through British, not American action. The colonies were by law interdicted from all commerce, trade and fishing. But before the legislation went into effect blood had been shed at Lexington. The contest could no longer be fought with acts of Parliament and resolves of Congress; 'blows must decide.' The Association was distinctively a peace weapon. Had the Congress really expected war, no action could have been more foolish. A garrison soon to be beleaguered virtually shut its ports to supplies. No better proof is needed of how little the delegates wished or worked for separation."

P. L. Ford, The Association of the First Congress (Political Science Quarterly, December, 1891.)

'That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council; and us the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances cannot be properly represented in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their rights of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. But from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British Parliament as are bona fide restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country; and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation, internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects in America, without their consent.' This was not precisely what John Adams wanted, but it was much. When this declaration went forth, the cause of Massachusetts, in whatever it might eventuate, was the cause of the colonies. It was nationalized. This was John Adams's greatest feat of statesmanship. On it the Success of the impending war, and the Declaration of Independence rested."

M. Chamberlain, John Adams, the Statesman of the American Revolution, pages 78-80.

"How far the authority of this first congress extended, according to the instructions of the delegates, it is impossible to determine with certainty at this distance of time. But it is probable that the original intention was that it should consult as to the ways and means best calculated to remove the grievances and to guaranty the rights and liberties of the colonies, and should propose to the latter a series of resolutions, furthering these objects. But the force of circumstances at the time compelled it to act and order immediately, and the people, by a consistent following of its orders, approved this transcending of their written instructions. The congress was therefore not only a revolutionary body from its origin, but its acts assumed a thoroughly revolutionary character. The people, also, by recognizing its authority, placed themselves on a revolutionary footing, and did so not as belonging to the several colonies, but as a moral person; for to the extent that congress assumed power to itself and made bold to adopt measures national in their nature, to that extent the colonists declared themselves henceforth to constitute one people, inasmuch as the measures taken by congress could be translated from words into deeds only with the consent of the people. This state of affairs essentially continued up to March 1, 1781. {3217} Until that time, that is, until the adoption of the articles of confederation by all the states, congress continued a revolutionary body, which was recognized by all the colonies as 'de jure' and 'de facto' the national government, and which as such came in contact with foreign powers and entered into engagements, the binding force of which on the whole people has never been called in question. The individual colonies, on the other hand, considered themselves, up to the time of the Declaration of Independence, as legally dependent upon England and did not take a single step which could have placed them before the mother country or the world in the light of 'de facto' sovereign states. They remained colonies until the 'representatives of the United States' 'in the name of the good people of these colonies' solemnly declared 'these united colonies' to be 'free and independent states.' The transformation of the colonies into 'states' was, therefore, not the result of the independent action of the individual colonies. It was accomplished through the 'representatives of the United States'; that is, through the revolutionary congress, in the name of the whole people. Each individual colony became a state only in so far as it belonged to the United States and in so far as its population constituted a part of the people."

H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: W. V. Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, volume 2, pages 213-247.

J. Adams, Diary (Works, volume 2) pages 358-401.

Journal of the Congress which met at Philadelphia September 5, 1774 (London: J. Almon).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774-1775. Provincial Congress of Massachusetts and Committee of Safety. Military preparations.

"Governor Gage issued writs, dated September 1, convening the General Court at Salem on the 5th of October, but dissolved it by a proclamation dated September 28, 1774. The members elected to it, pursuant to the course agreed upon, resolved themselves into a Provincial Congress. This body, on the 26th of October, adopted a plan for organizing the militia, maintaining it, and calling it out when circumstances should render it necessary. It provided that one quarter of the number enrolled should be held in readiness to muster at the shortest notice, who were called by the popular name of minute-men. An executive authority—the Committee of Safety—was created, clothed with large discretionary powers; and another called the Committee of Supplies. On the 27th Jedediah Preble, (who did not accept,) Artemas Ward, and Seth Pomeroy, were chosen general officers; and on the 28th, Henry Gardner was chosen treasurer of the colony, under the title of Receiver-General. Among the energetic acts of this memorable Congress, was one authorizing the collection of military stores. It dissolved December 10. The committee of safety, as early as November, authorized the purchase of materials for an army, and ordered them to be deposited at Concord and Worcester. These proceedings were denounced by General Gage, in a proclamation dated November 10, as treasonable, and a compliance with them was forbidden. In a short time the king's speech and the action of Parliament were received, which manifested a firm determination to produce submission to the late acts, and to maintain 'the supreme authority' of Great Britain over the colonies. General Gage regarded this intelligence as having 'cast a damp upon the faction,' and as having produced a happy effect upon the royalist cause. However, a second Provincial Congress (February 1 to 16, 1775) renewed the measures of its predecessor; and gave definiteness to the duties of the committee of safety, by 'empowering and directing' them (on the 9th of February) to assemble the militia whenever it was required to resist the execution of the two acts, for altering the government and the administration of justice. At the same time it appointed two additional generals, John Thomas, and William Heath, and made it the duty of the five general officers to take charge of the militia when called out by the committee of safety, and to 'effectually oppose and resist such attempt or attempts as shall be made for carrying into execution by force' the two acts. … The conviction was fast becoming general that force only could decide the contest. Stimulated and sustained by such a public opinion, the committees of safety and supplies were diligent, through the gloomy months of winter, in collecting and storing at Concord and Worcester materials for the maintenance of an army."

R. Frothingham, Jr., History of the Siege of Boston, chapter 1.

The following citizens composed the Committee of Public Safety, viz., "John Hancock, Joseph Warren, Benjamin Church, Richard Devens, Benjamin White, Joseph Palmer, Abraham Watson, Azor Orne, John Pigeon, William Heath, and Thomas Gardner. The following 'Committee of Supplies' was announced, viz., Elbridge Gerry, David Cheever, Benjamin Lincoln, Moses Gill, and Benjamin Hall. … By the first day of January, 1775, the garrison of Boston had been increased to thirty-five hundred men, and mounted three hundred and seventy men as a daily guard-detail, besides a field officers' guard of one hundred and fifty men on Boston Neck. Three brigades were organized and were officered, respectively by Generals Lord Percy, Pigott and Jones. In November of 1774, General Gage had advised the British government, that he, 'was confident, that to begin with an army twenty thousand strong, would in the end save Great Britain blood and treasure.' Meanwhile, the militia drilled openly, rapidly completed company organizations, and made many sacrifices to procure arms, powder and other materials of war. The Home government, in view of the serious aspect of affairs, ordered Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne to join General Gage, and announced that 'ample reinforcements would be sent out, and the most speedy and effectual measures would be taken to put down the rebellion,' then pronounced to already exist. On the eighth of April, the Provincial Congress resolved to take effectual measures to raise an army, and requested the cooperation of Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut. On the thirteenth, it voted to raise six companies of artillery, to pay them and keep them at drill. On the fourteenth it advised citizens to leave Boston and to remove to the country. On the fifteenth, it solemnly appointed a day for 'Public Fasting and Prayer,' and adjourned to the tenth day of May. The Committee of Public Safety at once undertook the task of securing powder, cannon and small arms. A practical embargo was laid upon all trade with Boston. The garrison could obtain supplies only with great difficulty, and, as stated by Gordon, 'nothing was wanting but a spark, to set the whole continent in a flame.'"

H. B. Carrington, Battles of the American Revolution. chapter 2.

ALSO IN: J. Fiske, The American Revolution, chapter 3 (volume 1).

{3218}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (January-March). Vain efforts toward pacific statesmanship in the British Parliament, by Chatham, Burke, and others.

A newly elected British Parliament "met on November 30, 1774; but no serious measure relating to America was taken till January 1775, when the House reassembled after the Christmas vacation. The Ministers had a large majority, and even apart from party interest the genuine feeling of both Houses ran strongly against the Americans. Yet at no previous period were they more powerfully defended. I have already noticed that Chatham, having returned to active politics after his long illness in 1774, had completely identified himself with the American cause, and had advocated with all his eloquence measures of conciliation. He … moved an address to the King praying that he would as soon as possible, 'in order to open the way towards a happy settlement of the dangerous troubles in America,' withdraw the British troops stationed in Boston. In the course of his speech he represented the question of American taxation as the root-cause of the whole division, and maintained that the only real basis of conciliation was to be found in a distinct recognition of the principle that 'taxation is theirs, and commercial regulation ours;' that England has a supreme right of regulating the commerce and navigation of America, and that the Americans have an inalienable right to their own property. He fully justified their resistance, predicted that all attempts to coerce them would fail, and eulogised the Congress at Philadelphia as worthy of the greatest periods of antiquity. Only eighteen peers voted for the address, while sixty-eight opposed it. On February 1 he reappeared with an elaborate Bill for settling the troubles in America. It asserted in strong terms the right of Parliament to bind the colonies in all matters of imperial concern, and especially in all matters of commerce and navigation. It pronounced the new colonial doctrine that the Crown had no right to send British soldiers to the colonies without the assent of the Provincial Assemblies, dangerous and unconstitutional in the highest degree, but at the same time it recognised the sole right of the colonists to tax themselves, guaranteed the inviolability of their charters, and made the tenure of their judges the same as in England. It proposed to make the Congress which had met at Philadelphia an official and permanent body, and asked it to make a free grant for imperial purposes. England, in return, was to reduce the Admiralty Courts to their ancient limits, and to suspend for the present the different Acts complained of by the colonists. The Bill was not even admitted to a second reading. Several other propositions tending towards conciliation were made in this session. On March 22, 1775, Burke, in one of his greatest speeches, moved a series of resolutions recommending a repeal of the recent Acts complained of in America, reforming the Admiralty Court and the position of the judges, and leaving American taxation to the American Assemblies, without touching upon any question of abstract right. A few days later, Hartley moved a resolution calling upon the Government to make requisitions to the colonial Assemblies to provide of their own authority for their own defence; and Lord Camden in the House of Lords and Sir G. Savile in the House of Commons endeavoured to obtain a repeal of the Quebec Act. All these attempts, however, were defeated by enormous majorities. The petition of Congress to the King was referred to Parliament, which refused to receive it, and Franklin, after vain efforts to effect a reconciliation, returned from England to America."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 12. (volume 3).

The following are the more important passages of the speech of Burke, on moving the resolutions which he introduced in the House of Commons, March 22, 1775:

"The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of the empire; not peace to depend on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex government. It is simple peace, sought in its natural course and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the colonies in the mother country, to give permanent satisfaction to your people,—and (far from a scheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to British government. My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion,—and ever will be so, as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and cementing principle. … The capital leading questions on which you must this day decide are these two: First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained … some ground. But I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us: because, after all our struggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America according to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according to our own imaginations, not according to abstract ideas of right, by no means according to mere general theories of government, the resort to which appears to me, in our present situation, no better than arrant trifling. … The first thing that we have to consider with regard to the nature of the object is the number of people in the colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in placing the number below two millions of inhabitants of our own European blood and color,—besides at least 500,000 others, who form no inconsiderable part of the strength and opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate, where plain truth is of so much weight and importance. But whether I put the present numbers too high or too low is a matter of little moment. {3219} Such is the strength with which population shoots in that part of the world, that, state the numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues, the exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing any given magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we have millions more to manage. Your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations. … But the population of this country, the great and growing population, though a very important consideration, will lose much of its weight, if not combined with other circumstances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all proportion beyond the numbers of the people. … The trade with America alone is now within less than £500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial nation, Eng]and, carried on at the beginning of this century with the whole world! … But, it will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protuberance, that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body? The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every other part into its present magnitude. Our general trade has been greatly augmented, and augmented more or less in almost every part to which it ever extended, but with this material difference: that of the six millions which in the beginning of the century constituted the whole mass of our export commerce the colony trade was but one twelfth part; it is now (as a part of sixteen millions) considerably more than a third of the whole. … I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular details; because generalities, which in all other cases are apt to heighten and raise the subject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we speak of the commerce of our colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren. … I pass … to the colonies in another point of view,—their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such a spirit, that, besides feeding plentifully their own growing multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their last harvest, I am persuaded, they will export much more. At the beginning of the century some of these colonies imported corn from the mother country. For some time past the Old World has been fed from the New. The scarcity which you have felt would have been a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted parent. As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spirit by which that enterprising employment has been exercised ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale-fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of both the poles. … I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in my detail is admitted in the gross, but that quite a different conclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen say, is a noble object,—it is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of means by their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the military art will of course have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favor of prudent management than of force,—considering force not as an odious, but a feeble instrument, for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate connection with us. First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered. My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource: for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover, but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still less in the midst of it. I may escape, but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that has made the country. Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so; but we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it, and our sin far more salutary than our penitence. These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high opinion of untried force by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the management of America, even more than its population and its commerce: I mean its temper and character. {3220} In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole. … This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies, prob·ably, than in any other people of the earth, and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true temper of their minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely. First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and on English principles. … Your mode of governing them, whether through lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in the imagination, that they, as well as you, had an interest in these common principles. They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their governments are popular in an high degree: some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people in their ordinary government never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance. If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government, religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people are Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. … All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. … Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit: I mean their education. In no country, perhaps, in the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful, and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's 'Commentaries' in America as in England. General Gage marks out this disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. He states, that all the people in his government are lawyers, or smatterers in law,—and that in Boston they have been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital penal constitutions. … The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat an whole system. … Then, Sir, from these six capital sources, of descent, of form of government, of religion in the northern provinces, of manners in the southern, of education, of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government,—from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and increased with the increase of their wealth: a spirit, that, unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England, which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume us. … The question is not, whether their spirit deserves praise or blame,—what, in the name of God, shall we do with it? You have before you the object, such as it is,—with all its glories, with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magnitude, the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. By all these considerations we are strongly urged to determine something concerning it. We are called upon to fix some rule and line for our future conduct, which may give a little stability to our politics, and prevent the return of such unhappy deliberations as the present. … It should seem, to my way of conceiving such matters, that there is a very wide difference, in reason and policy, between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order within the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public con·test. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people. … I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that I am. I really think that for wise men this is not judicious, for sober men not decent, for minds tinctured with humanity not mild and merciful."

In the closing part of his speech, Mr. Burke introduced successively and commented upon the following propositions, or resolutions, which formed in their entirety his plan of conciliation. At the end of his speaking they were rejected by a vote of 270 against 78:

"That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of 14 separate governments, and containing two mil·lions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court of Parliament.

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That the said colonies and plantations have been made liable to, and bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates, and taxes, given and granted by Parliament, though the said colonies and plantations have not their knights and burgesses in the said high court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent the condition of their country; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies, given, granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a manner prejudicial to the common wealth, quietness, rest, and peace of the subjects inhabiting within the same.

That, from the distance of the said colonies, and from other circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for procuring a representation in Parliament for the said colonies.

That each of the said colonies hath within itself a body, chosen, in part or in the whole, by the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General Assembly, or General Court, with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, according to the several usages of such colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of public services.

That the said general assemblies, general courts, or other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times freely granted several large subsidies and public aids for his Majesty's service, according to their abilities, when required thereto by letter from one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State; and that their right to grant the same, and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants, have been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament. That it hath been found by experience, that the manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of said colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said colonies.

That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 7th year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs, upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoa-nuts, of the produce of the said colonies or plantations; for discontinuing the drawbacks payable on China earthen ware exported to America; and for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of goods in the said colonies and plantations.'

That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 14th year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America.'

That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 14th year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for the impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them, in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'

That it may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 14th year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, 'An act for the better regulating the government of the province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England.'

That it may be proper to explain and amend an act, made in the 35th year of the reign of King Henry VIII., intituled, 'An act for the trial of treasons committed out of the king's dominions.'

That, from the time when the general assembly, or general court, of any colony or plantation in North America, shall have appointed, by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to the offices of the chief justice and other judges of the superior courts, it may be proper that the said chief justice and other judges of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his and their office and offices during their good behaviour, and shall not be removed therefrom, but when the said removal shall be adjudged by his Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint from the general assembly, or on a complaint from the governor, or the council, or the house of representatives, severally, of the colony in which the said chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices.

That it may be proper to regulate the courts of admiralty or vice-admiralty, authorized by the 15th chapter of the 4th George III., in such a manner as to make the same more commodious to those who sue or are sued in the said courts; and to provide for the more decent maintenance of the judges of the same."

Edmund Burke, Works, volume 2.

ALSO IN: T. MacKnight, Life and Times of Edmund Burke, chapter 21 (volume 2).

J. Adolphus, History of England, Reign of George III., chapter 25 (volume 2).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (January-April). Aims at independence disclaimed.

"The denial that independence was the final object, was constant and general. To obtain concessions and to preserve the connection with England was affirmed everywhere; and John Adams, after the peace, went farther than this, for he said:—'There was not a moment during the Revolution, when I would not have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of things before the contest began, provided we could have had a sufficient security for its continuance.' If Mr. Adams be regarded as expressing the sentiments of the Whigs, they were willing to remain Colonists, provided they could have had their rights secured to them; while the Tories were contented thus to continue, without such security. Such, as it appears to me, was the only difference between the two parties prior to hostilities. … Franklin's testimony, a few days before the affair at Lexington, was, that he had 'more than once travelled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, [and] never had heard from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America.' Mr. Jay is quite as explicit. 'During the course of my life,' said he, 'and until the second petition of Congress in 1775, I never did hear an American of any class, or of any description, express a wish for the independence of the Colonies.' 'It has always been, and still is, my opinion and belief, that our country was prompted and impelled to independence by necessity, and not by choice.' {3222} Mr. Jefferson affirmed, 'What, eastward of New York, might have been the dispositions towards England before the commencement of hostilities, I know not; but before that I never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain; and after that its possibility was contemplated with affliction by all.' Washington, in 1774, fully sustains these declarations, and, in the 'Fairfax County Resolves,' it was complained that 'malevolent falsehoods' were propagated by the ministry to prejudice the mind of the king: 'particularly that there is an intention in the American Colonies to set up for independent States.' Mr. Madison was not in public life until May, 1776, but he says, 'It has always been my impression, that a reëstablishment of the Colonial relations to the parent country, as they were previous to the controversy, was the real object of every class of the people, till the despair of obtaining it,' &c. … The only way to dispose of testimony like this, is to impeach the persons who have given it."

L. Sabine, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, volume 1, pages 64-66.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (January-September). Revolution in South Carolina.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (April). The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Lexington. Concord.

"On April 19, 1775, the Committees of safety could only count up twelve field-pieces in Massachusetts; and there had been collected in that colony 21,549 fire-arms, 17,441 pounds of powder, 22,191 pounds of ball, 144,699 flints, 10,108 bayonets, 11,979 pouches, 15,000 canteens. There were also 17,000 pounds of salt fish, 35,000 pounds of rice, with large quantities of beef and pork. Viewed as an evidence of the forethought of the colonists, these statistics are remarkable; but there was something heroic and indeed almost pathetic in the project of going to war with the British government on the strength of twelve field-pieces and seventeen thousand pounds of salt fish. Yet when, on the night of the 18th of April, 1775, Paul Revere rode beneath the bright moonlight through Lexington to Concord, with Dawes and Prescott for comrades, he was carrying the signal for the independence of a nation. He had seen across the Charles River the two lights from the church-steeple in Boston which were to show that a British force was going out to seize the patriotic supplies at Concord; he had warned Hancock and Adams at Reverend Jonas Clark's parsonage in Lexington, and had rejected Sergeant Monroe's caution against unnecessary noise, with the rejoinder, 'You'll have noise enough here before long—the regulars are coming out.' As he galloped on his way the regulars were advancing with steady step behind him, soon warned of their own danger by alarm-bells and signal-guns. When Revere was captured by some British officers who happened to be near Concord, Colonel Smith, the commander of the expedition, had already halted, ordered Pitcairn forward, and sent back prudently for reinforcements. It was a night of terror to all the neighboring Middlesex towns, for no one knew what excesses the angry British troops might commit on their return march. The best picture we have of this alarm is in the narrative of a Cambridge woman, Mrs. Hannah Winthrop, describing 'the horrors of that midnight cry,' as she calls it. The women of that town were roused by the beat of drums and ringing of bells; they hastily gathered their children together and fled to the outlying farm-houses; seventy or eighty of them were at Fresh Pond, within hearing of the guns at Menotomy, now Arlington. The next day their husbands bade them flee to Andover, whither the college property had been sent, and thither they went, alternately walking and riding, over fields where the bodies of the slain lay unburied. Before 5 A. M. on April 19, 1775, the British troops had reached Lexington Green, where thirty-eight men, under Captain Parker, stood up before six hundred or eight hundred to be shot at, their captain saying, 'Don't fire unless you are fired on; but if they want a war let it begin here.' It began there; they were fired upon; they fired rather ineffectually in return, while seven were killed and nine wounded. The rest, after retreating, reformed and pursued the' British towards Concord, capturing seven stragglers—the first prisoners taken in the war. Then followed the fight at Concord, where four hundred and fifty Americans, instead of thirty-eight, were rallied to meet the British. The fighting took place between two detachments at the North Bridge, where 'once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.' There the American captain, Isaac Davis, was killed at the first shot—he who had said, when his company was placed at the head of the little column, 'I haven't a man that is afraid to go.' He fell and Major Buttrick gave the order, 'Fire! for God's sake fire!' in return. The British detachment retreated in disorder, but their main body was too strong to be attacked, so they disabled a few cannon, destroyed some barrels of flour, cut down the liberty-pole, set fire to the court-house and then began their return march. It ended in a flight; they were exposed to a constant guerilla fire; minute-men flocked behind every tree and house; and only the foresight of Colonel Smith in sending for reinforcements had averted a surrender. At 2 P. M., near Lexington, Percy with his troops met the returning fugitives, and formed a hollow square, into which they ran and threw themselves on the ground exhausted. Then Percy in turn fell back. Militia still came pouring in from Dorchester, Milton, Dedham, as well as the nearer towns. A company from Danvers marched sixteen miles in four hours. The Americans lost ninety-three in killed, wounded and missing that day; the British, two hundred and seventy-three. But the important result was that every American colony now recognized that war had begun."

T. W. Higginson, History of the United States of America, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: R. Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, chapter 2.

E. H. Goss, Life of Paul Revere, volume 1, chapter 7.

J. L. Watson, Paul Revere's Signal (Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, November 1876).

P. Force, editor, American Archives, series 4, volume 2.

E. Phinney, History of Battle at Lexington.

C. Hudson, History of Lexington, chapters 6-8.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (April). The first Provincial Convention in New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (APRIL).

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (April-May). The siege of Boston begun.

"Reinforcements of foreign troops and supplies were constantly arriving in Boston. Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne came, as generals, on the 25th of May. Bitterness, ridicule, and boasting, with all the irritating taunts of a mercenary soldiery, were freely poured on the patriots and on the 'mixed multitude' which composed the germ of their army yet to be. The British forces had cooped themselves up in Bos·ton, and the provincials determined that they should remain there, with no mode of exit save by the sea. The pear-shaped peninsula, hung to the mainland only by the stem called the 'Neck,' over which the tide-waters sometimes washed, was equally an inconvenient position for crowding regiments in war-like array, and a convenient one for the extemporized army which was about to beleaguer them there. … The town of Charlestown, which lay under the enemy's guns, had contained a population of between two and three thousand. The interruption of all the employments of peace, and the proximity of danger, had brought poverty and suffering upon the people. They had been steadily leaving the town, with such of their effects as they could carry with them. It proved to be well for them that they had acted upon the warning. It would seem that there were less than 200 of its inhabitants remaining in it at the time of the battle, when the flames kindled by the enemy and bombs from a battery on Copp's Hill laid it in ashes. On the third day after the affair at Concord, the Provincial Congress again assembled, voted to raise at once 13,000 men, to rally at Cambridge and the neighborhood, and asked aid from the other provinces, to which Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire responded. The forts, magazines, and arsenals, such as they then were, were secured for the country. … Of the 15,000 men then gathered, by the cry of war, at Cambridge and Roxbury, all virtually, but not by formal investment, under the command of General Ward, nearly 10,000 belonged to Massachusetts, and the remainder to New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. They have been designated since, at various times and by different writers, under the extreme contrast of terms, as an 'organized army,' and a 'mob.' Either of these terms would be equally inappropriate. … Our troops were 'minute-men' extemporized into fragmentary companies and skeleton regiments. The officers, chosen on the village-green or in its public-house, paying for the honor by a treat, or perhaps because they kept the premises where the treat could be most conveniently furnished, were not commissioned or ranked as the leaders of an army for campaign service. The yeomen of town and village had not come together at the summons of a commander-in-chief through adjutant, herald, or advertisement. They came unbidden, at an alarm from the bell on their meeting-house, or from a post-rider, or from the telegrams transmitted by tongue and ear. … And for the most part they were as free to go away as they had been to come. They were enlisted after a fashion, some prime conditions of which were their own convenience or pleasure. … Such of them as came from the seaboard might bring with them old sails for tents, while the midsummer days made it scarcely a hardship to many to have only the heavens for a roof. Generally their towns were expected to keep them supplied with food. … The forces then mustered at Cambridge as a central camp, and, stretching from the left at Chelsea almost round to Dorchester on the right, for nearly three quarters of a circle, were indeed not organized, nor yet had they any characteristic of a mere mob. They combined in fact four inde·pendent armies, united in resistance to a foreign enemy. … Each of the Provinces had raised, commissioned, and assumed the supply of its respective forces, holding them subject to their several orders. After the battle in Charlestown, the Committee of War in Connecticut ordered their generals, Spencer and Putnam, while they were on the territory of this Province, to regard General Ward as the commander-in-chief, and suggested to Rhode Island and New Hampshire to issue the same instructions to their soldiers. … General Artemas Ward was a conscientious and judicious patriot. In the French war he had earned some military experience and fame. … On October 27, 1774, the Provincial Congress, in which he was a delegate, appointed him a general officer, and on May 19 following, Commander-in-chief. As such he served at Cambridge till the arrival of Washington. On the very day of the battle in Charlestown, when the great chieftain was selected for his high service, Ward was chosen by the Continental Congress as its first major-general. Though he was only in his 48th year when he was burdened with the responsibility of the opening warfare, his body was infirm from disease and exposure. Lieutenant-General Thomas, two years the senior of Ward, was second in command. … General Israel Putnam preceded his Connecticut troops in hurrying to the scene of war on the news of the affair at Lexington and Concord. His men soon followed him, with like enthusiasm. The New Hampshire troops, on their arrival at Medford, made choice of Colonel John Stark as their leader. Colonel Nathaniel Greene commanded a regiment from Rhode Island. … A few days after the affair at Lexington, when virtually the siege began, General Gage, the British commander, at the solicitation of some of the leading citizens assembled in Faneuil Hall, had, by a mutual understanding, entered into an agreement that such of the inhabitants as wished to depart from the town should be at liberty to do so, if they would leave their arms behind them and covenant not to engage in any hostility against his army. The agreement was availed of by many of the suffering and frightened people. … But the original freedom and fulness of this understanding, on the part of General Gage, were soon reduced by a very strict examination of those who sought to go out of the town, and by a rigid search of the effects which they wished to take with them. … Several of the inhabitants remained in it from different motives: some as devoted loyalists; some as timid neutrals; some as spies, to watch each hostile movement and to communicate it to their friends outside. … After hostilities commenced, General Gage, of course, regarded the citizens as alike prisoners, either in the same sense in which he was himself under restraint, or as abettors of those who were his enemies. … The population of the town, independent of the military, was then about 18,000. To all those who were not in sympathy with them the British behaved in an insulting and exasperating manner. … To show, as members of the English Church establishment, their contempt of congregational places of worship, they removed the pews and pulpit from the Old South meeting-house, and, covering the floor with earth, they converted it into a riding-school for Burgoyne's squadron of cavalry. {3224} The two eastern galleries were allowed to remain, one for spectators, the other for a liquor-shop, while the fire in the stove was occasionally kindled by books and pamphlets from the library of a former pastor, Dr. Prince, which were in a room in the tower. … At the time of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord there were about 4,000 British troops in Boston and at the Castle. The number was increased to more than 10,000 before the action in Charlestown."