The American colonies, though subjects of Great Britain, stoutly resisted the payment of revenues of customs; not because they doubted the justice, but they did object to the intolerant manner of demanding the revenues. Rhode Island, the smallest of the thirteen colonies, was destined to take an important part in this resistance which brought about the American Revolution.

The English parliament, in 1733, passed the famous "Sugar Act" which laid a heavy tax upon West India products imported into the northern colonies. Rhode Island protested, declaring that only in this way could she be paid for her exports to the West Indies and thus be able to purchase from England. The other colonies also objected and Richard Partridge, the appointed agent to look after the interests of the Rhode Island colony, conducted this affair for all the colonies. In his letter he declared that the act deprived the colonists of their rights as Englishmen, in laying taxes upon them without their consent or representation. Thus, thirty-seven years before the Declaration of Independence, the war-cry of the Revolution was first sounded and by the Quaker agent of Rhode Island.

In 1764 a new "Sugar Act" was passed. Parliament hoped that a reduction from six pence to three pence would conciliate the colonies. Neither the "Sugar Act" nor the proposed "Stamp Act" was accepted. The colonists still contended such an act and its acceptance to be inconsistent with the rights of British subjects. A special session of the Rhode Island assembly was convened. A committee of correspondence was appointed to confer with the other colonies and the agent was directed "to do anything in his power, either alone or joining with the agents of other governors to procure a repeal of this act and to prevent the passage of any act that should impose taxes inconsistent with the rights of British subjects." Thus did Rhode Island expressly deny the right of Parliament to pass such an act and also declare her intention to preserve her privileges inviolate. She also invited the other colonies to devise a plan of union for the maintenance of the liberties of all.

The following year the "Stamp Act" was passed and disturbances followed. The assembly convened and through a committee prepared six resolutions more concise and emphatic than any passed by the other colonies, in which they declared the plantation absolved from all allegiance to the King unless these "obnoxious taxes" were repealed. Bold measures! But they show the spirit of the colony. Johnston, the stamp-collector for Rhode Island, resigned, declaring he would not execute his office against "the will of our Sovereign Lord, the People." In Newport three prominent men who had spoken in defence of the action of Parliament were hung in effigy in front of the court house. At evening the effigies were taken down and burned. The revenue officers, fearing for their lives, took refuge on a British man-of-war lying in the harbor and refused to return until the royal governor would guarantee their safety. The assembly appointed two men to represent Rhode Island in the convention about to assemble in New York. This convention, after a session of nearly three weeks, adopted a declaration of the rights and grievances of the colonies. The Rhode Island delegates reported the assembly and a day of public thanksgiving was appointed for a blessing upon the endeavors of this colony to preserve its valuable privileges. The day before the "Stamp Act" was to take effect all the royal governors took the oath to sustain it, except Samuel Ward, governor of Rhode Island, who stoutly refused.

The fatal day dawned. Not a stamp was to be seen. Commerce was crushed. Justice was delayed. Not a statute could be enforced. The leading merchants of America agreed to support home manufacturers and to this end pledged themselves to eat no more lamb or mutton.

The following year, January, 1766, the papers of remonstrance had reached England; and Parliament turned its attention to American affairs. The struggle was long and stormy; but the "Stamp Act" was repealed, with the saving clause that "Parliament had full right to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever."

Meanwhile, patriotic societies were being formed in all the colonies under the name of "Sons of Liberty." Rhode Island has the peculiar honor of organizing a similar society: "Daughters of Liberty." By invitation eighteen young ladies assembled at the house of Dr. Ephriam Bowen, in Providence, and spent the day in spinning. They agreed to purchase no goods of British manufacture until the "Stamp Act" should be repealed and cheerfully agreed to dispense with tea. This society rapidly increased and became popular throughout Rhode Island.

England kept her faith but a little while and then proposed to raise a revenue by imposing duties on glass, lead, paint and paper, and a tax of three pence a pound on tea. This aroused fresh indignation throughout the colonies. In Virginia the house of burgesses passed a series of resolutions that in them was vested the sole right of taxing the colony. Copies were sent to every colonial assembly. The Rhode Island assembly cordially approved.

The next month the British armed sloop Liberty, cruising in Narraganset Bay in search of contraband traders, needlessly annoyed all the coasting vessels that came in her way. Two Connecticut vessels suspected of smuggling were taken into Newport. A quarrel ensued between the captain of one of the vessels and the captain of the Liberty. The yankee captain was badly treated and his boat fired upon. The same evening the British captain went ashore, was captured by Newport citizens and compelled to summon all his crew ashore except the first officer. The people then boarded the Liberty, sent the officer on shore, then cast the cable and grounded the Liberty at the Point. There they cut away the masts, scuttled the vessel, carried the boats to the upper end of the town and burned them. This occurred July, 1769, and was "the first overt act of violence offered to the British authorities in America."

But armed vessels continued their molestations. The Rhode Island colony was not asleep but awaiting a favorable opportunity which came at last and the capture of the Gaspee was planned and accomplished. Rewards were offered for the apprehension of the perpetrators of this deed, but without effect. Some of Rhode Island's most honored citizens were engaged in the affair and some of the younger participants are said to have boasted of the deed before the smoke from the burning vessel had ceased to darken the sky. The capture of the Gaspee in June, 1772, was the first bold blow, in all the colonies for freedom. There was shed the first blood in the war for Independence. The Revolution had begun.

Then followed resolutions from Virginia that all the towns should unite for mutual protection. Rhode Island went a step farther and proposed a continental congress, and thus has the distinguished honor of making the first explicit movement for a general congress, and a few weeks later she was the first to appoint delegates to this congress.

The "Boston Port Bill" followed, and Massachusetts records tell of the money and supplies sent from Rhode Island to Boston's suffering people. England ordered that no more arms were to be sent to America. Rhode Island began at once to manufacture fire arms. Sixty heavy cannon were cast, and home-made muskets were furnished to the chartered military companies. When the day arrived upon which Congress had decreed that the use of tea should be suspended, three hundred pounds of tea were burned in Market Square, Providence, while the "Sons of Liberty" went through the town with a pot of black paint and a paint-brush and painted out the word "Tea" on every sign-board. This was February 1, 1775. The fight at Lexington followed on the 19th of April. Two weeks after this battle the Rhode Island assembly suspended Gov. Walton, the last colonial governor of Rhode Island. He repeatedly asked to be restored and was as often refused. At the end of six months he was deposed. This was a bold act, but men who could attack and capture a man-of-war were not afraid to depose from office one single man who was resolved to destroy them.

The British war-ship Rose was a constant menace to the vessels in Rhode Island waters. Altercations ensued. Captain Abraham Whipple, who headed the expedition to burn the Gaspee, discharged the first gun at any part of the British navy in the American Revolution. Two armed vessels were ordered for the protection of Rhode Island waters; and this was the beginning of the American navy.

Passing over much of interest we come to the last important act of Rhode Island colonial assembly: an act to abjure allegiance to the British crown. It was a declaration of independence and it was made on May 4, 1776, just two months before the Declaration of Independence, signed at Philadelphia. This act closed the colonial period and established Rhode Island as an independent state. The records of the assembly had always closed with "God save the King!" This was changed to "God save the United Colonies!" The smallest of the colonies had defied the empire of Great Britain and declared herself an independent state!

Dark days followed. The British army occupied Newport. By command of congress, Rhode Island had sent her two battalions to New York, thus rendering herself defenseless. The militia was organized to protect the sea-coast. I may not linger to tell of the capture of Gen. Prescott; of the unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the British, nor of the battle of Rhode Island, in which Col. Christopher Greene with his famous regiment of blacks distinguished himself, and which Lafayette afterwards declared was the best-planned battle of the war. For three years the English army held this fair island and left it a scene of desolation. Newport never recovered. Her commerce was destroyed. Her ships never returned.

Meanwhile momentous events were occurring at the seat of war. Philadelphia was threatened and the continental congress had been moved to Baltimore. Washington, with less than twenty-three hundred men, recrossed the Delaware at night. The men he placed in two divisions, one under General Greene, the other under Gen. Sullivan, and successfully attacked the Hessians at Trenton capturing nine hundred prisoners (Dec. 26th, 1776).

Washington recrossed the Delaware into Pennsylvania with his prisoners and spoils that very night. On January 1st, 1777, with 5,000 men he again crossed the Delaware and took post at Trenton. The next day Cornwallis appeared before Washington's position with a much larger forces. Only a creek separated the two armies. The Rhode Island brigade distinguished itself at the successful holding of the bridge and received the thanks of Washington. That night Washington withdrew, leaving his camp fires burning. Next morning, January 3rd, 1777, Cornwallis was amazed to find Washington gone and still more astounded, as he heard in the direction of Princeton the guns of the Americans, who won that day another decisive victory.

We must not dwell upon the record of Gen. Nathaniel Greene. His campaign in South Carolina was brilliant. He has been called the saviour of the South. It was he, a Rhode Island general, who, because of his military skill, stood second only to Washington.

At the closing event of the war, the siege of Yorktown, a Rhode Island regiment under Capt. Stephen Olney, headed the advancing column. Sword in hand the leaders broke through the first obstructions. Some of the eager assailants entered the ditch. Among these was Capt. Olney who, as soon as a few of his men collected, forced his way between the palisades, leaped upon the parapet and called in a voice that rose above the din of battle "Capt. Olney's company form here!" A gunshot wound in the arm, a bayonet thrust in the thigh and a terrible wound in the abdomen which he was obliged to cover with one hand, while he parried the bayonets with the other, answered the defiant shout. Capt. Olney was borne from the field, but not until he had given the direction to "form in order." In ten minutes after the first fire the fort was taken. Three days later Cornwallis accepted terms of surrender, which were formally carried out on October 19th, 1781. The war was over. The gallantry of Olney was lauded by Lafayette in general orders and more handsomely recognized in his correspondence. But the historian, thus far, has failed to record the fact, noted by Arnold, that the first sword that flashed in triumph above the captured heights of Yorktown was a Rhode Island Sword!—Anna B. Manchester in American Monthly Magazine.