RETROSPECT.—ENCROACHMENTS OF ENGLAND.—RESISTANCE TO THE REVENUE LAWS.—STAMP ACT.—SECOND CONGRESS OF COLONIES MET IN NEW YORK.—EDUCATIONAL INTEREST.

Thus far we have traced the progress of Rhode Island, step by step from the first small settlement on the banks of the Mooshausick to the flourishing Colony, which, by its firmness and perseverance had made it mistress of the shores and islands of Narragansett Bay. We have seen it taking for its corner stone a vital principle of human society, unrecognized as yet by the most advanced civilization. We have seen this principle and society with it constantly endangered by misinterpretations, and the little Colony brought more than once to the brink of the precipice by the malignity of implacable enemies. We have seen it gradually growing in strength and enlightenment, drawing abundant harvests from a niggard soil, spreading its ships of commerce over distant seas and protecting its coasts by its own ships of war. We have seen it working out its civil organization by patient experiment, making laws and unmaking them as they met or failed to meet the want for which they were made. And now we shall see her strong by virtue, resolute by conviction and rich by intelligent industry, gird herself up for the contest which was to decide forever the relations of the British colonies of North America to their mother country. But before we enter upon this part of our subject let us pause a moment and consider somewhat more closely our new starting point.

The society which Roger Williams brought with him to the banks of the Mooshausick was a morally constituted society, in which all the questions of moral law had been studied and discussed as revealed in the Scriptures. It was not till their numbers increased and their wants with them that the idea of law took root amongst them and they became a legally constituted society. Their laws arose from their necessities and followed the development of their legal sense. They felt the want and strove by experiment to discover the remedy. Successful experiment became law and the statute book the record of the progress of civilization.

To this statute book, therefore, we must go for our knowledge of colonial life in all its relations. It defines the condition of the individual and the qualifications, the rights and the duties of the citizen. It defines the powers and prerogatives of government, and assigns to each department its limits and its sphere. Its enumeration of crime is the key to the moral sense of the community, and its provisions for the moral and intellectual training of the citizen show how far it has comprehended the reciprocal obligations and true nature of the ties which bind the citizen to his commonwealth.

Following this guide we find that Rhode Island has worked out her problem of self-government and soul liberty, framing for herself a pure democracy and surrounding it with all the provisions required for protection against foreign violence and internal dissension. After many trials she has organized a judiciary system adequate to the protection of person and property and the prompt administration of justice. She has cultivated the sense of right and wrong and made careful provision for the enforcement of contracts and the punishment of crimes. She has opened highways, established ferries and built bridges. She has favored navigation by the institution of judicious harbor laws. She has provided for the extermination of wolves and foxes by the offer of liberal bounties, and for the protection of fish and deer by stringent laws. She has broached the difficult subject of public charities and made a beginning of provision for the poor and the insane. She has initiated a system of public schools and founded a college which in the course of half a century becomes a university. She has opened her doors wide for different creeds, and required only that they all should be equally free.

Her relations with the mother country had taken their coloring from the attitude of self-defence which she was compelled to maintain towards the adjacent colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut, which were eager to divide her territory between them. Against their long persecutions her last appeal was to the King, and she made it without humbling herself, for her enemy was at her own door and of her own household.

From the beginning of her civil life she had been contemptuously refused admission to the league from which Massachusetts and Connecticut derived the strength that made them bold both for aggression and for defence. More than once she seemed to be upon the point of being crushed, but of yielding—never. Hence in her relations with the mother country she never assumed the defiant attitude which her stronger sisters assumed and which at an early day awakened suspicions of their loyalty. Rhode Island was loyal as it behooved her to be; but she never carried her loyalty so far as to imperil the rights guaranteed to her by her charter.

We enter upon a new period of colonial history. The contest with France was over. The contest with England was beginning. For England, not satisfied with the advantage which she had derived from her colonies by constitutional means, resolved to deprive them of the protection which the constitution accorded to the humblest subject of the crown. They would gladly have contributed their portion to the expenses of the war and taxed themselves to pay it. But English constitutional law had prescribed the forms and conditions with which taxes could be raised, and colonial constitutional law taught that representation was an essential condition of taxation. This led to the stamp act and that train of disasters so fatal to English supremacy.

Equally fatal was the ill-timed jealousy with which she sought to fetter the commerce and check the manufacturing spirit of the colonists. It was from their commerce with the French islands that they drew not only many articles which habit had made essential to their comfort, but the greater part of their hard money. To England they sent their raw material, and receiving it back in the shape of manufactured goods paid liberally for the English labor and skill. England’s best customers were her colonies.

War had been a severe school in which much needed lessons had been learned. Farmers and mechanics had learned to be soldiers and bear the hardships of a soldier’s life. Taxes had increased and legislation had been compelled to busy itself largely with questions of military organization, with the building of forts, the raising of recruits, the providing of supplies. Maritime enterprise had lost none of its ardor, but had encountered sore rebuffs. From the port of Providence alone forty nine vessels richly laden had fallen into the hands of the enemy. On the land, also, many valuable lives had been lost and many industrious hands taken from the tilling of the soil to waste their strength in the barren offices of war. The time when these lessons would be turned to account was drawing nigh.

Meanwhile internal improvements continued to receive the attention of the legislature. Church’s Harbor was made safer for fishermen by the erection of a breakwater. Providence Cove was the seat of a prosperous trade, and especially of shipbuilding. To facilitate the communication with the water below a draw was opened in Weybosset bridge.

The cancer of paper money was still eating into the vitals of the community, in spite of the legislative palliatives which were from time to time fruitlessly applied to it. Party spirit also had reached its fullest development, and the two rival factions of Ward and Hopkins continued to hate each other bitterly and fight each other obstinately at the polls. These were minor evils. But in the great northwest new war clouds were gathering under the influence of the mighty Pontiac, its king and lord. Parliament prepared for the outbreak, and voted an appropriation of a hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds and an army of ten thousand men for the defence of the American colonies. The regulars were sent against the Indians and parts of the provincials were distributed through the frontier garrisons. The Rhode Islanders were stationed at Fort Stanwix. We are spared the story of the war of Pontiac. It belongs to the frontier and is in no way connected with Rhode Island history. Another contest on which hung the fate of all the colonies is already begun.

I have often spoken of the Board of Trade and the jealous scrutiny with which it watched the growth of the colonies. Too short-sighted to see that their prosperity was intimately connected with the prosperity of the mother country, the ministry by advice of the Board of Trade drew tight the bands of commerce and encumbered the communications of the two countries with dangerous restraints. Trade had increased, but the revenue had not increased in its natural proportion. The form of the evil was smuggling, but its root was the imposition of oppressive duties. Walpole alone had seen forty years before that the surest way to enlarge the revenue was to make the importation of the raw material and the exportation of the manufactured goods as easy as possible. But Walpole stood alone in his wisdom. An attempt was made to enforce the acts of trade. New officers were appointed, a ship of war was stationed in Newport harbor during the winter of 1763 and the noisome tribe of revenue officers stimulated to zealous exertion.

In 1739 a heavy blow had been dealt the commercial and manufacturing industry of the colonies by the molasses and sugar act, imposing a duty on those articles which looked very much like taxation. The colonists looked anxiously to 1764 when the odious act would expire by limitation. But when the time came it was promptly renewed and extended to other articles of domestic consumption. And now was first heard the ominous words stamp act and committees of correspondence. By the stamp act no legal or commercial act was valid unless it was written on stamped paper. The price of this paper was fixed by government and a body of agents appointed to carry on the sale. Thus every transaction in which there was a legal form became tributary to government. In what does this differ from taxation without representation? asked the colonists. But so little did government comprehend the real nature of what it was doing that instead of foreseeing the collision of the two constitutions Parliament assumed by a formal vote the right to tax the colonies. All that remonstrance could gain was a postponement of the stamp act till some more acceptable form of impost could be devised. Even the colonial agents in London failed to see that a radical change in the relations of the two countries was at hand. “The sun of liberty is set,” wrote Franklin from London to Charles Thompson at Philadelphia. “The Americans must light the candles of industry and economy.”

“They will light a very different kind of candle,” was the reply.

The spirit of resistance gained strength daily. Massachusetts took the lead in recommending the call of a Congress of Delegates to meet at New York and take counsel concerning the condition of the country. Rhode Island followed close in her footsteps. In Virginia Patrick Henry brought forward a series of resolutions which going directly to the fundamental principles of constitutional taxation found adherents everywhere. In Providence the Gazette reappeared in an extra number with “vox populi vox Dei” for superscription, and “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty,” for motto. Augustus Johnston, the attorney-general, was appointed stamp distributor, but refused to “execute his office against the will of our sovereign Lord the People.”

In Newport riots took place and popular feeling manifested itself with extreme violence. The effigies of three obnoxious citizens were kept hanging on a gallows in front of the court house through the day, and in the evening cut down and burned in the presence of a great crowd. Next morning the violence of the mob increased, the obnoxious three and equally obnoxious revenue officers were compelled to take refuge on board the Cygnet sloop-of-war that was lying in the harbor.

Meanwhile a calm, firm voice came from the soberer and more thoughtful citizens assembled in town meeting, instructing their deputies to give their “utmost attention to those important objects, the court of admiralty and the act for levying stamp duties.” ... “It is for liberty, that liberty for which our fathers fought, that liberty which is dearer to a generous mind than life itself that we now contend.”

The day for the enforcement of the stamp act came. But the Congress at New York and the town meetings and assemblies of the different colonies had done their work thoroughly. In a session of the Assembly held at East Greenwich, Rhode Island declared her intention to assert her “rights and privileges with becoming freedom and spirit, ... and to express these sentiments in the strongest manner.” Six energetic resolutions were passed pointing unequivocally at independence if grievances were not redressed. The grave duty of representing her in the New York Congress was entrusted to Henry Ward, colonial secretary, and Metcalf Bowler. Governor Ward, Governor Fitch, of Connecticut, and the Royal Governors were called upon to make oath that they would support the obnoxious act. Samuel Ward alone refused.

The fatal day came, and with its inauspicious dawn legal life ceased. Ships lay idle at the wharves for want of clearance. Merchants could not fill an invoice, the officers of the law could not enforce its decrees. Men and women could not marry or be given in marriage. Civil life was paralyzed in all its functions. Whither will this lead us? was the question that rose to every lip. It was soon evident that the colonies were terribly in earnest. They would rely upon personal honesty and do without stamps. Mobs and riots showed to what lengths the heated popular mind was prepared to go. Engagements to suspend all commercial intercourse with England and employ their means in fostering their own manufactures and productions manifested an intelligent union of purpose which could not be mistaken. Of the stamp distributors some resigned, some refused to act. Throughout the whole country, in town and village not a stamp was to be found, not an agent dared to receive or sell the hateful ware. England bowed to the blast and repealed the act, but as if to leave the way open for future taxation coupled the appeal with an act declaring that Parliament had a right “to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever.” The wound was salved over, not healed.

There were other subjects of collision. We have seen that British ships of war visiting Newport harbor were sometimes welcomed. Sometimes, however, they were held to strict account for their conduct. Lieutenant Hill, of the schooner St. John, was fired into from Fort George for some unrecorded offence. In the following year the Maidstone roused the indignation of the inhabitants by impressing seamen openly in the harbor. Even market boats were stopped and their men taken violently from them. A ship from the coast was boarded as she entered the harbor and her crew impressed. Popular forbearance could go no further. In the evening a mob of sailors five hundred strong seized one of the Maidstone’s boats and burned it on the common. The way was opening for the burning of the Gaspee.

Meanwhile there were great rejoicings over the repeal of the stamp act. Very soon men will begin to look closely to the act that was tacked to it—the declaratory act.

The great step towards securing the concurrent action of the colonies in their resistance was taken. On the 7th of October, 1765, the second colonial Congress met in New York, and after a three weeks earnest discussion sent forth an address to the King, an address to the people, and a memorial to both houses of Parliament, claiming that as Englishmen they could not be taxed without their own consent or deprived of the right of trial by jury. It was soon made evident that the country would stand by them. Associations were formed under the name of “Sons of Liberty.” Rhode Island went a step further, and formed associations of the “Daughters of Liberty.” Hitherto the correspondence with the colonies had been conducted by the Board of Trade. But as the dispute assumed a more definite shape, the infatuated King, who was resolutely persisting in his unconstitutional scheme of personal government, gave orders that the colonial dispatches should be addressed to him.

It has been seen that Parliament had resolved to indemnify the colonies for their expenses during the late war. Several payments for this purpose had already been made. But after the stamp act riots the balance though voted was withheld under the pretext that the sufferers by those riots should first be indemnified for their losses. As the Colony had exerted itself beyond its strength to bear its part in the war, this withholding of its just compensation was felt to be a great wrong. When the day for summing up her share in the common grievances came, Rhode Island did not forget this wrong.

Taxes continued to excite bitter complaints, and though called for to meet the daily wants of government, were not collected without great difficulty. In 1767 this dissatisfaction reached its height, unseating Governor Ward and working a complete political revolution. A new valuation of ratable property was made to serve as the basis of a just taxation, but was opposed as favoring trade at the expense of the landholders.

Among the laws demanded by the growing trade was an act fixing interest at six per cent., and making contracts for higher rates usury to be punished by the forfeiture of principal and interest. The true nature of money loans was not yet understood. Among the important civil acts of this period was the completion of an elaborate digest of the laws, two hundred copies of which were printed and distributed among the people.

We have seen that early attention was given to education, and schools opened in Newport, Portsmouth and Providence. In 1766 a grammar school was founded in Exeter upon a gift of five hundred acres of land made seventy years before by Samuel Sewall, of Boston, one of the original purchasers of Pettaquamscot. But more important still was the effort that was made about the same time for the establishment of free schools in Providence to be supported by taxation. Like all such movements it met with most opposition where such schools were most needed, among the poor. In part, however, it was successful, a brick school-house was built and the supervision of all the schools given to a committee of nine, composed in part of the town council.

The foundation of a university, chiefly in order to secure for Baptists the same educational advantages that were enjoyed by other denominations, also belongs to this period. Foremost among its founders was the Rev. Morgan Edwards, and among its benefactors John Brown, of Providence, in record of whose liberality it was removed from Warren, its first seat, to Providence, and its name changed from Rhode Island College to Brown University. Four denominations were represented in its corporation, but a large majority reserved to its founders, the Baptists. Religious tests were forbidden by charter, but the president was required to be a Baptist. Its property and all those connected officially with it were exempted from taxation.

To the ecclesiastical history of this period belongs the Warren Association of Baptist Churches. The pen also claims its part in the discussion of rights, and among the causes of the rupture we must count the “Farmer’s Letters,” among its instruments committees of correspondence.

Among the things effecting the material interests of the Colony was the discovery of a new bed of iron ore on the Pawtuxet River, in Cranston. In the preparations which were immediately made for working it, the rights of the fish, which had so often been the subject of legislation, were not forgotten.