THE QUARREL WITH AMERICA.The failure of the non-importation agreements in 1770 led Englishmen to expect a peaceable end to the quarrel with America, and the colonists were for the most part inclined to let it die out. Samuel Adams had no such inclination, and did all in his power to fan the smouldering embers of strife. For some time longer he and his friends professed loyalty, but he at least was consciously working for separation. A rising in North Carolina, called the regulators' war, because the insurgents claimed to regulate their own police affairs, was smartly quelled by the governor, Tryon, in 1771; it need not detain us, for it had no connexion with the quarrel with England. There was much lawlessness elsewhere. Mobs tyrannised over their more loyal neighbours, tarring and feathering some of those who would not comply with their demands, and using other barbarous modes of advancing the cause of liberty. In Boston the revenue officers were exposed to insult and violence. Hutchinson held the assembly of the province at Cambridge, and further disgusted his opponents by informing them that he was no longer dependent on their votes for his salary; it would thenceforward be paid by the king. The more peaceable Americans were gratified in 1772 by the appointment of the Earl of Dartmouth to succeed Hillsborough as secretary for the colonies, for Dartmouth, a pious and amiable person of no political ability, was known to be anxious for conciliation. Fresh cause of offence, however, was found in a decision of the ministers that the salaries of the Massachusetts judges should be paid by the crown instead of by the colony. This change, which was designed to render the judges independent of popular feeling, was resented as an attempt to make them subservient to the crown, for they held office during the king's pleasure.
HUTCHINSON'S LETTERS.
Meanwhile the contempt with which the authority of the crown was regarded, and the necessity for restraining the provincial judges from political partisanship, were forcibly illustrated. Smuggling was carried on freely, especially in Rhode Island. The duty of preventing it in Narragansett Bay was discharged by Lieutenant Duddingston, in command of the Gaspee schooner. He was zealous, and, according to American accounts, was guilty of illegal and oppressive acts. On June 9, while engaged in a chase, the Gaspee ran aground, and on the night of the 10th was boarded by eight boat-loads of men. Duddingston was treacherously shot at and wounded; he and his men were set on shore, and the schooner was burnt. This destruction of one of the king's ships, an act alike of rebellion and piracy, and, as Thurlow said, "an event five times the magnitude of the stamp act," was unpunished. A law, enacted in the previous April, and evoked by a fire in an English dockyard, provided that the setting on fire of a public dockyard or a king's ship should be felony, and that those accused of such an offence should be tried in England. Commissioners were appointed by the crown to inquire into the destruction of the Gaspee, and send those concerned in it to England for trial. On their applying for warrants to the chief justice of the province, he declared that he would allow no one to be arrested with a view to deportation, and the commission was fruitless. The colonists were angered by this attempt to enforce the law; and in 1773 took an important step towards union and a future congress by establishing committees of correspondence between the provinces.Samuel Adams unexpectedly found an opportunity of rousing fresh excitement in Massachusetts. A number of private letters written by Hutchinson and Oliver, the deputy governor, to a gentleman of England, named Whately, and stolen after his death, were sent over by Franklin to the committee of correspondence at Boston, were read by Adams to the assembly, and were subsequently published. Hutchinson, a patriotic American, was a faithful servant of the crown and believed in the supremacy of parliament. His letters contained no statements that were not true and no comments discreditable to a man of honour, holding the opinions on which he had consistently acted. They were declared to be evidences of malice and bad faith; he and Oliver were, John Adams said, "cool-thinking, deliberate villains," and the assembly sent a petition to the king for their removal. The letters were industriously circulated throughout the province, and were denounced by preachers in their Sunday sermons. Such was the state of affairs when, in accordance with the act of parliament authorising the East India Company to export its surplus stock of tea direct to America, three ships laden with tea appeared in Boston harbour. Other ships with like cargoes had also been despatched to New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. At Boston, on the night of December 16, a large body of men, disguised as Indians and encouraged by Samuel Adams and his friends, boarded the ships and emptied their cargoes, 340 chests of tea valued at £18,000, into the sea. The ships for Philadelphia and New York returned to London without discharging their cargoes. At Charleston the tea was landed, but the consignees were forced to renounce their engagement, and the tea rotted in the cellars of the custom-house.In England the Boston riot caused much irritation. The news came when the publication of Hutchinson's letters was exciting strong feelings. Who was responsible for their abstraction from Whately's correspondence was for some time a mystery. Franklin kept his counsel, and a duel took place between Whately's brother and a Bostonian who was suspected of stealing them. Then Franklin declared that he alone had obtained them and sent them to Boston. As agent for Massachusetts he appeared before a committee of the privy council on January 29, 1774, in support of the petition against Hutchinson and Oliver. Both sides were heard by counsel. Wedderburn, who spoke against the petition, made a violent attack on Franklin; he described him as a thief and accused him of acting from the meanest motives. The temper of his audience was irritated by the news from Boston, and his speech was received with manifestations of delight, indecent on the part of men sitting as judges in that august court. The petition was rejected as groundless and scandalous, and men went away "almost ready to throw up their hats for joy," as though a lawyer's bitter tongue had given England a victory. Franklin was at once dismissed from his office of deputy postmaster. Wedderburn's speech and the spirit in which it was received were impolitic as well as discreditable. While strongly opposed to the ministerial policy in America, Franklin had shown himself anxious to maintain the tie between Great Britain and her colonies. This attack upon his character made him one of England's enemies, and, as it proved, one of the most dangerous of them. His conduct is not palliated by the indecency of his opponents. It has been urged in his defence that, as Whately had shown the letters to certain English politicians, it was fair that Boston politicians should also see them, that as agent he was bound to do the best for his province, and that governments did intercept and use correspondence which was believed to contain important political information.[89] Conduct befitting a man of honour needs no defence.
FOX DISMISSED FROM OFFICE.
The general opinion in England was that Boston should be punished, and that if the government made an example of that rebellious town, the Americans would learn a wholesome lesson. The king held this opinion, and was delighted when General Gage told him that the Americans "would be lions whilst we are lambs, but if we take the resolute part they will undoubtedly prove very meek". He determined to force Boston to submission, and his ministers were at his command. A junior lord of the treasury was insubordinate, and was promptly dismissed. It seemed a small matter, but it had important consequences, for the rebel was Charles Fox. He had more than one grudge against the king, and he was perhaps growing impatient of serving under a minister who was virtually the king's representative, though his actual revolt may have been an unpremeditated ebullition of youthful vanity. A libel on the speaker, of which the turbulent parson, Horne, was the author, gave him an opportunity for self-display; he usurped the functions of leader of the house, persuaded it to enter on proceedings which might have ended in another awkward quarrel with a printer, and placed North in a most embarrassing position. The king, whom he had already offended by his opposition to the royal marriage bill, heartily disliked him, and urged North to get rid of him. He was curtly dismissed from office on February 24. He at once went into opposition, and acted generally with the Rockingham party, though he did not distinctly join it until a later period. He was already intimate with Burke, who soon gained much influence over him. On almost every question he combated the opinions which he had previously supported, and constantly attacked his former chief with great bitterness. In debate the opposition gained enormously by his alliance, but it was in the end injurious to their cause. His sympathy with the enemies of his country in time of war strengthened the king and his ministers in their efforts to maintain the honour of England by persevering in the struggle, for it revolted the patriotic feelings of the nation and kept it steadfast in its support of the government.
THE PENAL ACTS.
On March 14 North began to lay before the commons the measures by which the government hoped to bring the Americans to submission. By the first of these penal laws, as they are called, Boston was to be punished by the transference of the seat of government to Salem, and by the closing of its harbour, which entailed the suspension of its trade, until the town had made good the loss inflicted on the East India Company, and the king was satisfied that the laws would be observed. North spoke with remarkable moderation. Both he and Dartmouth disliked violent measures, and their tone with regard to America was so different from that of their colleagues, that it indicated a division in the cabinet.[90] The bill met with little opposition in the commons, though Dowdeswell and Burke spoke against it. In the lords, Rockingham and Shelburne opposed it, Chatham was absent through ill-health, and Mansfield strongly advocated it, declaring that Boston had committed "the last overt act of treason," and that it was a lucky event, for if the bill passed we should have crossed the Rubicon, the Americans would see that we would temporise no longer, and if it passed unanimously, Boston would submit without bloodshed. The bill passed both houses without a division. The next bill, "for regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay," overthrew the charter of the colony; it increased the power of the governor, vested the nomination of the council in the crown, altered the system by which juries were chosen, and prohibited town meetings, the principal engine of democratic rule, from being held without the consent of the governor. The abrogation of chartered rights excited strong, though ineffectual, opposition; the bill was passed in the commons by 239 to 64, and in the lords by 92 to 20, eleven peers signing a protest against it.
This measure was calculated to alarm and irritate the colonies generally, for the alteration of the charter of one of them would be taken as a menace to the constitutional liberties of all. In the hope of counteracting this effect, the opposition wished the house of commons, before it passed the bill, to conciliate the Americans by repealing the tax on tea.[91] A motion was made for the repeal on April 19, and was supported by Burke in a speech of remarkable power. He maintained that the concession would be well received, and entreated the house to resort to its old principles, to be content to bind the colonies by laws of trade, to disregard the question of its right, and to refrain from taxation. Only forty-nine voted for the motion. A third bill ordered that any one accused of a capital offence should, if the act was done in the execution of the law in Massachusetts, be tried in Nova Scotia or Great Britain; and a fourth provided for the quartering of troops. When the quartering bill was before the lords, Chatham returned to parliament. He opposed the bill, declared his dislike of the Boston port bill, which, he said, punished a whole town for the crime of a few; and while he condemned the turbulence of the Americans, declared that their discontent was due to the irritating treatment they had received, and urged that England should act towards them as a fond and forgiving parent, for the time was at hand when she would "need the help of her most distant friends". On all these bills the numbers of the minority were very low, and the king declared himself "infinitely pleased" with the reception they met with. Meanwhile Hutchinson was recalled, and Gage was appointed governor of Massachusetts as well as commander-in-chief.
THE QUEBEC ACT.
Another bill, closely connected with the state of affairs in America, though not devised merely with reference to it, provided for the government of Canada, which had remained as it had been settled temporarily by royal proclamation in 1763. The province of Quebec, as it was called, only extended eastward to the St. John's river on the north of the St. Lawrence, the territory beyond being annexed to the jurisdiction of Newfoundland, while on the south the islands of Cape Breton and St. John (Prince Edward's island) belonged to Nova Scotia. No settlement was made as to the country west of the Appalachian range, which was claimed by the old colonies, nor as to the vast tract between Lake Nipissing and the Mississippi, the boundary of the Spanish land. The government of Canada was in the hands of a military governor-general and a council. In 1764 the English-speaking and protestant population was a mere handful; in 1774 it numbered about 360, while the French Roman catholics were at the least 80,000. In accordance with the treaty of Paris the catholics had full liberty of worship. English was, however, the only official language, and all offices were held by men of British nationality. The administration of the law was confused, and, though the king's proclamation held out a prospect that an assembly might be called, it required oaths and declarations which would have shut Roman catholics out from it. The French disliked the English law with reference to land, and as far as possible evaded it. Constant difficulties arose, and, in 1766, Charles Yorke, then attorney-general, advised that English should cease to be the only official language, and that French law should be recognised in cases which concerned land. On the other hand the British minority, largely consisting of immigrants from New England, pressed for an assembly, which would have strengthened and perpetuated their supremacy over their French neighbours.
The discontent in the American colonies made the ministers specially anxious to conciliate the French Canadians, and with the advice of Sir Guy Carleton, the governor, they brought in a bill for the government of the province. The Quebec act of 1774 included in Canada the territory previously annexed to Newfoundland, and extended its boundaries to the Ohio and the Mississippi. It confirmed freedom of worship to the Roman catholics and secured to their priests, with the exception of the religious orders, their former tithes and dues, so far as concerned their own people only, for protestants were exempted from such payments. Civil cases were to be decided according to the French law, criminal cases according to the English law, by juries. It was declared inexpedient to call an assembly; a legislative council was nominated by the crown, and taxation was reserved to the parliament of Great Britain. The bill was strenuously opposed, Chatham in the lords, and Burke and BarrÉ in the commons speaking strongly against it. The government, it was urged, was setting up a despotism and was depressing the British population to please the French noblesse, and the trial of civil cases without juries and the withholding of the habeas corpus were represented as intolerable grievances.
The conflict was hottest on the religious question. The whigs, who secured the support of the dissenters by posing as the protestant party, had a hereditary claim to the popular cry of No popery. They denounced the bill as establishing popery, while it merely permitted protestantism. It was, Chatham declared, a breach of the reformation, of the revolution, and of the king's coronation oath. The City petitioned against the bill, and when, on June 22, the king went to give his assent to it and to prorogue parliament, he was received in the streets with angry cries of "No popery". The agitation soon died out, for the government was popular. In America the act caused much irritation; New York, Virginia, and other colonies complained that it deprived them of the right to extend their territories; the revolutionary party saw with uneasiness the establishment of the power of the crown over a vast district on their borders, and religious prejudices were aroused by the favour shown to the catholics. Strong protestant as he was, the king was thoroughly in favour of the bill. It was a wise and a just measure. It gave the French Canadians all that they really needed: they thought it absurd that rights to land should be decided by juries; they had no political ambitions, and only desired to enjoy in peace the ministrations of their own priests and the right to deal with their lands according to their ancient customs. They rejoiced that their priests were satisfied, and in the coming struggle between Great Britain and her colonies the priests were mindful of the justice with which they were treated and used their boundless influence with good effect on the British side.The Rubicon, as Mansfield said, was passed, but the event was to be different from the expectation of the king and the nation at large. When Gage went out to enforce the repressive acts neither he nor those who sent him thought that his task would be hard. Four regiments, he believed, would be enough to settle the business. The Americans, Sandwich said, were cowardly and undisciplined; they would not stand a cannon-shot. That they would not fight was the firm opinion of all but a very few. More than this, it was generally expected that Massachusetts would not be supported by the other colonies, and no special military preparation was thought necessary. On June 1, Boston harbour was closed. The busy little town lay desolate, its wharfs were deserted, its warehouses shut up, its streets silent; its merchants were threatened with ruin, its seamen, shipwrights, and labourers and their families with starvation. The act was enforced to the utmost, and small as Gage's force was, it was sufficient to keep the town in subjection. Its punishment was heavy, but surely not heavier than its offences. Be this as it may, it was worse than ineffectual. The penal acts irritated the Americans and did not intimidate them. Boston was regarded as suffering for the common cause. Supplies poured in from the towns and villages of New England, from the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland; and a continental congress was decided on. Encouraged by the prospect of support, the revolutionary party in Massachusetts defied Gage's authority; gatherings of armed men took place, and warlike preparations were set on foot. Gage began to fortify Boston Neck and brought in some guns which might otherwise have been seized by the people.
On September 5 the continental congress met at Philadelphia. Of the thirteen colonies only Georgia was unrepresented. Yet the delegates came with different instructions and different intentions, and even among delegates from the same province there was much difference of opinion. As a body the congress did not meet with any predetermined revolutionary purpose. Many loyalists and indeed moderate men of both parties believed that it would be a means of arranging a reconciliation with Great Britain, and though the most decided loyalists would have nothing to do with it, even they hoped for a good result:[92] one-third of the delegates, John Adams said, were whigs, one-third tories (loyalists), and the rest mongrel. A proposal for a new constitution with a president over all the colonies to be appointed by the crown, and a grand council to be elected by the several assemblies and to act in connexion with parliament, was only negatived by the votes of six colonies to five. Yet the revolutionists gained a decided preponderance, largely through the skilful management of Samuel Adams, who persuaded the congress to approve the "resolves" passed at a meeting of Suffolk county, Massachusetts. These "resolves" rejected the act for the government of the province, required tax collectors not to pay money into the governor's treasury, and advised towns to appoint their own officers of militia. Besides endorsing a policy of armed resistance to government, congress further demanded the revocation of a series of acts of parliament, including the Quebec act and the late penal legislation, drew up a declaration of rights, agreed on non-exportation and non-importation, sent a petition to the king, and published an address to the English people. It arranged that a new congress should meet the following May, and invited the Canadians to join in it, suggesting grounds of discontent with the English government and pretending a zeal for religious equality. But the Canadians were not to be caught.
AMERICAN LOYALISM.
Congress separated without having laid down any basis for conciliation save complete surrender on the part of parliament, which was clearly impossible. It professed loyalty to the crown, and it is probable that certain eminent Americans, who, like George Washington, declared that they knew of no wish for independence, really desired to maintain the connexion with England, if they could bring affairs back to their condition before 1763, and actually believed that by cutting off commercial relations with her, they could compel her to assent to their demands without an appeal to arms. Like the vast majority of Englishmen, who did not believe that the Americans would fight, they failed to understand the situation. In the case of others, like Patrick Henry and the Adamses, it is useless to attach any weight to loyal expressions. Too much, indeed, has been made of the American professions of loyalty, for men's loyalty is better judged by their actions than by their words. Thousands of Americans proved their loyalty by tremendous sacrifices. Loyalism on its religious side was connected with the teaching of the English Church; politically it was the outcome of attachment to law, monarchy, and the unity of the empire as against revolution, democracy, and separation.[93] The loyalists, however, included men of various religious persuasions and of different shades of political opinion. As Americans, they felt the British colonial system burdensome, and only the more extreme among them approved of the stamp act and the Townshend duties. Many took the American view of the rights of the colonies; they desired reforms and redress of grievances, and some of them were not averse from the milder forms of resistance. Yet all were loyal to the crown and acknowledged the supremacy of parliament. The hopes of the moderate section were disappointed by the congress of 1774; in common with the more extreme loyalists they held that it exceeded its powers, and their denial of its authority united the loyalist party.
The loyalists, or tories as they were called, comprised, in addition to the royal officers, many of the best and most cultivated people in the colonies, a majority of the larger landowners, by far the greater number of the episcopal clergy together with some other religious teachers, very many physicians, fewer lawyers, though some of the most eminent among them, and many of the wealthier merchants, who disliked the interruption of trade and believed that its prosperity depended on British commerce. Among the lower classes some farmers, mechanics, and labourers were loyalists. They were weakest in New England, though fairly numerous in Connecticut. New York was throughout the loyalist stronghold, and, of the other middle colonies, Pennsylvania was disinclined to revolution and New Jersey contained a strong loyalist minority. In the southern colonies they were about as numerous as the whigs, and in South Carolina and Georgia perhaps outnumbered them. John Adams, who would be inclined to underestimate their number, thought that they were a third of the population of the thirteen colonies. The number on each side fluctuated from time to time; the loyalists claimed to be in a majority, and it is probable that at least half of the most respected part of the population were throughout the struggle either avowedly or secretly averse from revolution.[94] At the lowest computation 20,000 loyalists joined the British army, and some thirty regiments or battalions of them were regularly organised and paid. Most of them were peaceable men, not more inclined for fighting than the mass of their opponents who were forced into war by an active minority. Through the skilful management of this minority the loyalists were disarmed everywhere at the beginning of the struggle. They suffered terrible persecution. A man suspected of loyalism would be summoned to a meeting of the "sons of liberty," and ordered to take an oath to them. If he refused he was tarred and feathered, or set to ride upon a rail, and his house was defiled with filth. Loyalists were declared liable to imprisonment, exile, and confiscation. These men were not less patriotic than the revolutionists; they believed that the welfare of their country depended on its remaining part of the British empire; and holding this belief they suffered, fought, and died for their country's sake.
A GENERAL ELECTION.
Although parliament had not lasted its full term of seven years, it was dissolved on September 30. The king was probably anxious that a new parliament should be elected before any event took place which might suggest doubt as to the success of his American policy. Besides, he was anxious to secure more men of landed property as members, and reckoned that a sudden dissolution would foil "the nabobs, planters, and other volunteers," who would not be ready for the battle.[95] His design was successful, and the election as a whole was marked by the predominance of the country gentlemen, at that period the best element in a house of commons. Much to George's annoyance the Grenville election act had been made perpetual during the last session. Its good effects were apparent in the election of 1774; it made the bribery of borough electors dangerous, and there was far less of it than before. Bargains, however, could still be made with the owners and patrons of boroughs, and the king made himself responsible for the money North expended. North offered Lord Falmouth £2,500 a piece for three Cornish seats and had "to make it guineas". Other bargains of the same kind were made. George, who was great at electioneering manoeuvres, took much interest in the proceedings. He was unable to find a candidate to stand against Wilkes, then lord mayor elect, and Wilkes and Glynn were returned for Middlesex without opposition. Wilkes took his seat without encountering any difficulties and his political importance virtually ended with his exclusion. Bristol returned Burke, who was recommended to that great commercial city by his desire for conciliation with America, and his knowledge of mercantile affairs. At the declaration of the poll he dwelt on the relations which should exist between a member and his constituents: he should, he said, as their representative in all cases prefer their interests to his own, but he should not sacrifice his mature judgment to their opinion, or be subservient to their mandates. As a whole the election satisfied the king, for the ministers had a large and indeed an increased majority."I am not sorry," George wrote on hearing of the proceedings of congress, "that the line of conduct seems now chalked out; the New England colonies are in a state of rebellion, blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent." He expressed the feeling of by far the larger part of his people. Not of all, for his ministers North and Dartmouth and a few of their party, were averse from violent measures; the merchants who traded with America were anxious for conciliation; and the whigs as a body were opposed to the king's policy. Chatham exulted in "the manly wisdom and calm resolution of congress". The experience and sentiments of his great days led him to foresee that, in case of war France and Spain would seize the opportunity of attacking England. Unfortunately his theory that the colonies owed only a limited obedience to the crown, that while parliament had a right to crush disobedience and to pass acts regulating trade, it had no right to impose taxes, his violence, his inveterate habit of "talking fustian,"[96] and his friendship with Franklin, who was commonly regarded as a rebel, deprived his warnings of the weight which they deserved. The Rockingham party did not act cordially with him. It was inspired by Burke who urged that parliament should disregard the question of right, should act in accordance with the spirit rather than the letter of the constitution, should respect a desire for free institutions, and should be guided by what was practicable and what was advisable, specially with reference to England's trade. His influence was somewhat injured by the fact that since 1771 he had been the paid agent of the province of New York. Equally with Chatham, he considered that colonial trade and industry should be restrained in order to bring wealth to the mother-country, nor does either of them seem to have perceived that the root of American discontent lay in these restrictions.
It was not until 1776 that Adam Smith in his famous Wealth of Nations showed that such restrictions were actually injurious to the prosperity of the country which imposed them, and combated the theories on which the relations of England with her colonies had been built up. He desired that the colonies should be represented in parliament, a proposal which found some advocates both here and in America, but was condemned by Burke and did not enter into practical politics. Meanwhile a pamphleteer of originality and genius, Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, maintained that separation was inevitable and advisable, that the Americans were a turbulent and ill-conditioned people, a source of expense to which they would not contribute, and that England would be better off without them. She would not, he contended, lose commercially; for, like Adam Smith, he pointed out that trade goes to the best market, and that so long as England remained superior to other countries in capital and industry, she would keep the American trade, and, as war was destructive of trade, he would have had her separate herself peacefully from her rebellious colonies. His proposal was denounced by Burke and found no acceptance with either party in England.
Numerically weak as the opposition in parliament was, it made a vigorous fight over American affairs. Parliament opened on November 30, and the king's speech took note of the resistance to the law which prevailed in Massachusetts, and the "unwarrantable combinations for the obstruction" of trade. In both houses an amendment to the address was proposed. The divisions illustrate the strength of the two parties; in the lords it was defeated by 63 to 13, and in the commons by 264 to 73. The ministers asserted that the force already in America was sufficient to bring the colonies to obedience; the naval establishment was reduced to a peace footing, and no extra soldiers were voted. Gage, however, who had only some 3,000 troops, asked for a large reinforcement, and wrote that, if matters came to an extremity, 20,000 men would be needed for the conquest of New England, a number which, Dartmouth said, "the nation would not be able to furnish in a twelvemonth".[97] The ministers resolved to send a small reinforcement from Ireland, they were encouraged to believe that the Americans would yield by tidings that the New York assembly had rejected the decisions of congress and by more hopeful news from Gage. After the recess the campaign opened in earnest. On January 20, 1775, Chatham moved for the recall of the troops from Boston, and declared that, if the ministers persisted in their policy, they would mislead the king and the kingdom would be undone. He was defeated by a large majority. Petitions against coercion were presented from London, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, and other trading towns, and were virtually shelved. Meanwhile Lord Howe, encouraged by the dislike of North and Dartmouth to coercive measures, made ineffectual attempts to arrange terms of conciliation through Franklin.
CONCILIATORY RESOLUTIONS.
On February 1 Chatham, who was in constant communication with Franklin, brought in a conciliation bill. It was a strange composition, florid in terms, embracing a multiplicity of subjects, and depending for its operation on the good-will of the Americans. He proposed to assert the supremacy of parliament, specially in matters of trade, to confine taxation to the provincial assemblies, and to legalise the coming congress in order that it might make a perpetual free grant to the crown, which was to be appropriated by parliament to the reduction of the national debt. Having obtained this grant, parliament was to reduce the power of the admiralty courts, which checked illicit trading, and to suspend all the acts, including the Quebec act, of which the Americans complained. The bill was not allowed a second reading. Soon after its ignominious rejection the gout laid hold on Chatham, and he did not appear in parliament again for two years. Franklin returned to America about this time; he disclaimed responsibility for Chatham's proposals, which, he considered, would only have been useful as a basis for future arrangement. North at last informed parliament of the threatening state of affairs. Massachusetts was declared in rebellion; votes were passed for 2,000 additional seamen and about 4,400 soldiers; it was resolved to increase the force at Boston to 10,000 men; and a bill was passed confining the commerce of the New England provinces to Great Britain and the West Indies, and shutting them out from the Newfoundland fishery. These restraints, which were evoked by the American non-intercourse agreements, were soon extended to five other provinces.
While George promoted these strong measures, he willingly fell in with North's desire to "hold out the olive-branch"; and on the 20th North moved a resolution to the effect that if any colony provided what parliament considered its fair proportion towards the common defence and the expenses of its civil administration, no duty or tax should be imposed upon it, except for the regulation of trade. His proposal excited the indignation of the high prerogative party, who thought themselves betrayed; his followers rose in revolt; "the treasury bench seemed to totter". The storm was stilled at last, and then BarrÉ, Burke, and Dunning fell upon the bill, describing it as a mean attempt to divide the Americans, and a plan for coercing each province separately. The motion was, however, carried. As the opposition scorned North's plan, which Burke called "a project of ransom by auction," it behoved them to bring forward a plan of their own which would be acceptable to the Americans. Accordingly, on March 22, Burke propounded a series of conciliatory resolutions which he enforced in one of his most famous speeches. He urged the house to return to its old policy, to respect the Americans' love of freedom, to look to the colonial assemblies to supply the expenses of their government and defence, to abandon the futile attempt to impose taxation, and to extend to Americans the privileges of Englishmen. His proposal was defeated. Nevertheless, by accepting North's resolution parliament showed a desire for pacification. The resolution proposed a compromise; while it maintained the authority of parliament, it offered the Americans self-taxation. It was made with a sincere desire to end the quarrel. At one time it might have led to pacification, but it came too late.Gage found the fortification of Boston Neck no easy matter; the people would not sell him materials, and somehow his barges sank, his waggons were bogged, and their loads caught fire. The work was finished at last, and with his small force he could do little else. In Rhode Island the people seized the cannon mounted for the defence of the harbour, and in New Hampshire they surprised a small fort, and carried off ordnance and stores. Manufactories of arms and powder-mills were set up in different places. In February, 1775, the Massachusetts provincial congress met, and urged the militia, and specially the "minute-men"—militiamen ready to serve on the shortest notice—to perfect their discipline. Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas were astir with warlike preparations; in Massachusetts men were practising the use of arms on every village green, a number of Stockbridge Indians were enlisted as minute-men, and efforts were made to induce the Six Nations to "whet the hatchet" against the English.[98] Express-riders kept the country people well supplied with intelligence, in order that they might anticipate any projected movement of the British troops. On the 26th Gage sent a detachment to Salem to bring in some guns, but the people removed them in time. Some opposition was offered to the troops, but they were kept well in hand and no blood was shed.
SKIRMISH AT LEXINGTON.
He determined to be beforehand at Concord, where the provincials had gathered a quantity of military stores, and on April 18 sent some companies of grenadiers and light infantry under Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn to destroy them. They went by night up the Charles river in boats, landed, and began their march. The alarm had been given and the country was aroused. When they arrived at Lexington at 5 in the morning of the 19th they found a body of militia on the green. "Disperse, you rebels!" shouted Pitcairn, and the troops advanced with a cheer. As the militia dispersed some shots were fired. From which side the first shot came is not clear. A soldier was hit and Pitcairn's horse was wounded. The troops fired a volley, a few militiamen were killed and others wounded, and the soldiers marched on. While the grenadiers were destroying the stores at Concord a sharp engagement took place with the militia, and several on both sides were killed and wounded. The troops, having accomplished their purpose as far as was possible, for part of the stores had already been removed, set out to return to Boston. As they marched back, tired and impeded by their wounded, militiamen and volunteers fired upon them from every hedge, and wall, and house, and the shots told heavily on their close ranks. Forced on by the ceaseless fire, like a driven flock of sheep, thick together and helpless, they staggered back to Lexington, where they arrived completely exhausted. There they were met by a large detachment under Lord Percy, which had been sent to their relief. After a rest the whole body marched back, harassed all the way by an incessant fire from cover, which they were for the most part unable to return. The British loss was sixty-five killed, about 157 wounded, and a few missing; the American casualties are stated as ninety-three in all. Not, unhappily, for the last time did our soldiers find that farmers and the like, who know their country, are accustomed to shoot, and understand the importance of taking cover, may be more than a match for brave and disciplined soldiers with no knowledge of war save the drill of a parade ground. It was evident that there was fighting stuff in the Americans, that they had some good marksmen, and that, undisciplined as they were, like the Boers of our own day, they knew how to use such advantages as they possessed.
Thus was the first blood shed in this long quarrel. The revolution was begun. Sooner or later it must have come, though the date of its coming and the violent means by which it was accomplished were decided by individual action. The spirit which underlay it can be traced with growing distinctness since 1690; it was a spirit of independence, puritan in religion and republican in politics, impatient of control, self-assertive, and disposed to opposition. It was irritated by restraints on industry and commerce, and found opportunities for expression in a system which gave the colonies representative assemblies while it withheld rights of self-government. Great Britain has since then adopted a more enlightened colonial policy; yet the statesmen of past times are not to be condemned because they were men of their own days and lacked the experience of a future age. And it is to be remembered that England's colonial policy was then, as it is now, the most liberal in the world. American discontent existed before the reign of George III.; it was kept in check by the fear of French invasion. It was when that fear was removed that England began to enforce the restraints on commerce. This change in policy fell most heavily on the New England provinces, where whig tendencies were strongest, and specially on Massachusetts. A small and violent party in the province fanned the flame of discontent, and the attempts at taxation, which added to the grievances of the colonists, afforded a respectable cry to the fomenters of resistance. Their work was aided by the apprehension aroused in the minds of their fellow-countrymen, by the increase in the part played by the prerogative, and by the predominance of the tories in England. While men in other provinces, as Patrick Henry in Virginia, worked in sympathy with Samuel Adams and his associates, the revolution was at its outset engineered at Boston, and was immediately determined by the quarrel between Great Britain and Massachusetts. In the events which led to the revolution the British government appears to have shown a short-sighted insistence on legal rights and a contemptuous disregard of the sentiments and opinions of the colonists; the revolutionists generally a turbulent, insolent, and unreasonable temper.
