THE TRUE HISTORY OF
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
BY SYDNEY GEORGE FISHER
A REIGN OF TERROR
FOR THE LOYALISTS
IT was not merely
in final arguments
that the year 1774
was a crisis. The patriots were in an extreme and passionate
state of mind. Their violence to the loyalists increased,
and showed the typical symptoms of a revolution.
The loyalists were becoming more decided and outspoken,
and events seemed to be increasing
their numbers.
The rough element in the patriot party looked upon them
as enemies to be broken up
and disorganized
as quickly
as
possible. Disarming parties
visited loyalist houses and
took away all the weapons and it was a method well calculated
to check union and organization and prevent
the
loyalists from taking advantage
of their numbers. Such a
method would not perhaps be so effective in modern times
when fire-arms are so cheap and easy
to procure.
If the loyalists had formed some sort of organization
among themselves
; appointed
their committees of safety,
as the patriots did
; kept
their weapons,
instead of giving
them up at the patriot demand
; resisted, or taken the offensive,
instead of waiting passively
for the action of the
British army; or, if the British army had been more
prompt and active in assisting them, they might have
altered the course of history. If they had been as full of
the American atmosphere
of energy and organization
as
were the patriots, they might
have got
the start with the
disarming, and worked it to the suppression of the rebellion.
But the patriots were inspired and wrought
to the
highest pitch of energy by the rights of man. They not
only seized the loyalist arms, but took possession of most of the colony governments. The loyalists had no inspiring
ideas. They could talk only of the British empire and
the. regular army.
There were, it is true, numerous scattering attempts
at
loyalist organization
in the interior of the Carolina's,
in the
peninsula between the Delaware and the Chesapeake,
in
Monmouth County, New Jersey, and near Albany and
in Westchester County, New York. In some of these
places they resisted disarming, held their own, and took
their turn at violent methods, cutting the manes and tails
of patriot horses and throwing down patriot
fences. In
the South they were more successful and more murderous
in their dealings with the patriots. But their plans were
not generally adopted by their fellow-loyalists throughout
the country. They lacked the indomitable energy of the
patriots.*
* The patriot party seems to have been largely composed of that
class whom our over-educated people
often contemptuously described
as "typical Americans.
"
G-eneral Cornwallis noticed the difference
in character between the two parties, and described the loyalists as
"
timid" and the patriots
as
"
inveterate.
"
General Robertson,
in his
testimony on the conduct of the war, said that the patriots were only
about a third of the people, but by their energy
in seizing arms and
assuming the government they kept
the others in subjection. Parliamentary
Register, vol. ziii. p. 307
In their scattered, individualized condition they
became
more and more the prey
of the rough
element
among their opponents. Everywhere they were seized
unexpectedly, at the humor of the mob, tarred and feathered,
paraded through
the towns,
or left tied to trees in
the woods. Any accidental circumstance would cause
these visitations, and often the victim was not as politically
guilty as some of his neighbors who, by prudence
or
accident, remained unharmed to the end of the war.
Those patriots of the upper
classes who for many years had been rousing the masses of the people
to resist the principle
of taxation and all authority of Parliament were now
somewhat aghast at the success of their work. The patriot
colonists, when aroused, were lawless
; and, while clamoring
for independence,
violated in a most shocking manner
the rights of personal liberty and property.
In the South, as soon as the rebellion party got
a little
control, a loyalist might
be locked up
in the jail for the
mere expression of his opinion; and in the North, too,
when the rebellion party got
control in a county they were
apt to use the jail to punish loyalists.
"Out with him ! out with him !" shouted the mob, as
they rushed after Francis Green into the inn at Norwich,
Connecticut, where he was taking refuge. He had already
been driven out of Windham. They tumbled him into
his own carriage, lashed his horses, and, shouting and yelling,
chased him out of Norwich. What was his crime ?
He had signed the farewell address to Governor Hutchinson,
of Massachusetts.
In Berkshire, Massachusetts,
in that same summer of
1774, the mob forced the judges from their seats and shut
up the court-house, drove David Ingersoll from his house,
and laid his lands and fences waste
; they
riddled the
house of Daniel Leonard with bullets, and drove him to
Boston; they attacked Colonel Gilbert, of Freetown,
in
the night, but he fought them off. That same night Brigadier
Euggles fought
off a mob, but they painted
his horse
and cut off its mane and tail. Afterwards they robbed his
house of all the weapons
in it and poisoned
his other
horse. They stopped
the judges
in the highway,
insulted
them, hissed them as they
entered court. The house of
Sewell, Attorney-General
of Massachusetts, was wrecked;
Oliver, president of the council, was mobbed and compelled
to resign ;
an armed mob of five thousand at Worcester compelled the judges, sheriffs, and gentlemen of the
bar to march up and down before them., cap
in hand,
and read thirty times their disavowal of holding
court
under Parliament.
In a similar way the court at Taunton was handled by
the mob; also at Springfield and Plymouth and Great Barrington. Loyalists everywhere were driven from their
houses and families, some being obliged
to take to the
woods, where they nearly
lost their lives. One Dunbar,
who had bought fat cattle from a loyalist was, for that
offense, put into the belly of one of the oxen that had been
dressed, carted four miles, and deprived of four head of
cattle and a horse.
Men were ridden and tossed on fence-rails
,
were gagged
and bound for days
at a time
; pelted with stones
;
fastened
in rooms where there was a fire with the chimney stopped
on top ;
advertised as public enemies, so that they would be
cut off from all dealing with their neighbors. They had
bullets shot into their bedrooms; money or valuable plate
extorted to save them from violence and on pretense of
taking security for their good behavior. Their houses and
ships were burnt
; they were compelled
to pay
the guards
who watched them in their houses
;
and when carted about
for the mob to stare at and abuse they were compelled to
pay something at every town.
In the cases of rich loyalists the expenses put upon
them were very heavy. Mr. James Christie, a merchant
of Baltimore, after narrowly escaping with his life, had to
pay nine shillings per day to each of the men who guarded
his house, and was ordered to pay five hundred pounds to
the revolutionary convention
"
to be expended occasionally
towards his proportion of all charges and expenses,
incurred
or to be incurred,
for the defense of America during
the present contest."
Some of us perhaps have read of the treatment of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, afterwards the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. His house was invaded by the mob, his daughters insulted, their lives threatened, bayonets thrust through their caps, and all the money and silverware in the house taken. Seabury himself was paraded through New Haven and imprisoned for a month. Afterwards he and some other loyalists fled for their lives, and lived in a secret room, behind the chimney, in a private house, where they were fed by their friends through a trap-door.
In South Carolina the mob, in one instance, after applying the tar and feathers, displayed their Southern generosity and politeness by scraping their victim clean, instead of turning him adrift, as was usually done, to go home to his wife and family in his horrible condition or seek a pitiable refuge at the house of a friend, if he could find one.
"Of the few who objected (to the Charleston Association) there were only two who were hardy enough to ridicule or treat it with contempt, viz., Laughlin, Martin and John Dealey, on which account . . . Yesterday they were carted through the principal streets of the town in complete suits of tar and feathers. The very indecent and daring behaviors of the two culprits in several instances occasioned their being made public spectacles of. After having been exhibited for about half an hour, and having made many acknowledgments of their crime, they were conducted home, cleaned, and quietly put on board of Captain Lasley's ship." American Archives, 4th series, ii. p. 922.
It would be a comparatively easy task to collect from the records instances of this sort, entirely omitted from regulation histories, but which, if given in their full details, would fill a good-sized volume. For the three months, July, August, and September, of the year 1774,one can find in the "American Archives" alone over thirty descriptions of outrages of this sort.*
* American Archives, 4th. series, i. pp. 630, 663, 716, 724, 731, 732, 745, 762, 787, 806, 885, 965, 970, 974, 1009, 1042, 1061, 1070, 1105, 1106, 1178, 1236, 1243, 1253, 1260 ; 4th series, ii. pp. 33, 34, 91, 131, 174, 176, 318, 337, 340, 466, 507, 545, 552, 622, 725, 875, 920, 922, 1652, 1688, 1697; 4th series, iii. pp. 52, 59, 105, 119, 127, 145, 151, 170, 326, 462, 682, 823, 1072, 1254, 1266 ; 4th scries, iv. pp. 19, 29, 203, 247, 288, 475, 564, 679, 719, 847, 884, 887, 941, 1043, 1228, 1237, 1241, 1284, 1288, 1571, 1580, 1585, 1590, 1692, 1717.
If we went on collecting instances and used besides the volumes of the "American Archives" the numerous other sources of information, and carried the search through all the years when these things were done, there would be an enormous mass of instances. But we would not then have them all ; for there must have been countless instances of violence to loyalists which were not recorded in print. Like the other instances, they played their part; were well known by common report ; contributed towards forming opinion and action in the great problem; and now, being unpleasant or inconvenient to remember, have passed out of human recollection as though they had never happened.
Many saved themselves by yielding, by resigning the offices they held under British authority, or by writing out a humiliating apology and reading it aloud, or letting it be published in the newspapers. When this system of terrorism was once well under way, there was a crop of these recantations everywhere. But we do not always know from the records the severity by which these recantations were forced.
Loyalists would often resist for a time before subjecting themselves to the ignominy of a recantation. In one instance twenty-nine loyalists were carried about by a party of militia for several days from town to town. They were told that they were to be put in the Sunbury mines, which were damp, underground passages for mining copper in Connecticut, not far from Hartford. These mines were often used for terrorizing loyalists. The twenty-nine were exhibited, hectored, and tormented, until before they reached the mines the last one had humbled himself by a public confession and apology.
As time went on there were comparatively few who, when visited by the mob, did not finally make a public apology, because, although that was bad enough, they knew that in the end there was the far worse infamy and torture of the tar and feathers. There were few men of any position or respectability and it was men of this sort who were usually attacked who could bear the thought or survive the infliction of that process, unless they afterwards left the country altogether. To be stripped naked, smeared all over with disgusting black pitch, the contents of two or three pillows rubbed into it, and in that condition to be paraded through the streets of the town for neighbors and acquaintances to stare at, was enough to break down very daring spirits.
One could never tell when an angry mob might rush to this last resource. On August 24, 1774, a mob at New London were carrying off Colonel Willard, when he agreed to apologize and resign his office. But the account goes on to say,
"One Captain Davis, of Brimfield, -was present, who showing resentment, and treating the people with "bad language, was stripped, and honored with the new-fashion dress of tar and feathers ; a proof this that the act for tarring and feathering is not repealed." American Archives, 4th series, i. 731.
When we consider that this mob rule was steadily practiced for a period of more than ten years, it is not surprising that it left an almost indelible mark on. our people.They seem to have acquired from it that fixed habit now called lynch law, which is still practiced among us in many parts of the country in a most regular and systematic manner, and participated in by respectable people. The term lynch law originated in the method of handling the loyalists in the Revolution, and was named from the brother of the man who founded Lynchburgh in Virginia.*
* Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ixxxviii. p. 731
By the year 1775 the patriot portion of the people had grown so accustomed to dealing with the loyalists by means of the mob, that they regarded it as a sort of established and legalized procedure. In New Jersey we find an account of the tar and feathers inflicted on a loyalist closing with the words, "The whole was conducted with that regularity and decorum that ought to be observed in all public punishments."+
+ American Archives, 4th series, iv. p. 203.
Looking back at it with the long perspective the present gives, we can say that these things were the passion for independence, the instinct of nationality seizing for itself a country of its own, without violence if it could, but with the worst violence if it must. England, however, was not inclined to take that view. The greater the number of such occurrences, the more numerous became the Englishmen who were convinced that the colonies needed not more liberty, but more systematic government and control. The loyalists in America believed that such outrages increased their own numbers and made it more and more certain that they were, as they claimed to be, a majority of the people.
The vast number of written and spoken apologies were nearly all insincere ; even the oaths that were taken were nearly all considered as not binding by the victims, because obtained by threats or violence. They were often forced to take the oaths to save their children from beggary and ruin, and openly gave this as an excuse.
As for the liberty of the press, it was at the close of the year 1775 completely extinguished; and this increased and encouraged the enemies of the colonies in England. James Rivington, of New York, who printed and published many of the loyalist pamphlets, was boycotted and assailed by town and village committees until, though he apologized and humbled himself, he narrowly escaped with his life, and finally took refuge on a British man-of-war.
Prominent men among the rebel party regretted these things and worried over them ; but all to no effect. The loyalists were so numerous, possibly a majority, and might effect so much if they organized themselves, that it was a great temptation to let the rough and wild element among the patriots go on with its work and keep the loyalists broken up and terrorized.
John Adams had the enormity and cruelty of such conduct brought home to him very closely, for he was counsel in a famous case in which one of the victims, Richard King, attempted to have legal redress against the mob.
A party of people disguised as Indians broke into King's store and house as early in the difficulties with England as March 16, 1766. They destroyed all the books and papers relating to his business, laid waste his property, and threatened his life if he should seek redress. Seven or eight years afterwards, in 1774, the mob assailed him again because one of his cargoes of lumber, without any fault of his, had been purchased by the British army in Boston. Forty men visited him on this occasion, and, by threatening his life, compelled him to disavow his loyalist opinions. He shortly afterwards went insane and died.
"The terror and distress, the distraction and horror of his family," writes John Adams to his wife, u cannot be described in words or 163 [This file is missing pages 164 and 165, I am picking up at the top of page 166 sorry about that DC]
sacrificed every penny of their property, and from positions of importance and prominence in the colonies they retired to England to be submerged into insignificance and poverty, or they retired to Canada where their descendants can still be found working with their hands, or struggling back into the position their ancestors occupied more than a hundred years ago.
The disastrous effects of the rise of the lower orders of the people into power appeared everywhere, leaving its varied and peculiar characteristics in each community ; but New England suffered least of all. In Virginia its work was destructive and complete ; for all that made Virginia great, and produced her remarkable men, was her aristocracy of tobacco-planters. This aristocracy forced on the Revolution with heroic enthusiasm against the will of the lower classes, little dreaming that they were forcing it on to their own destruction. But in 1780 the result was already so obvious that Chastellux, the French traveler, saw it with the utmost clearness, and in his book he prophesies Virginia's gradual sinking into the insignificance which we have seen in our time.
Even in Massachusetts, where the dreaded class accomplished less evil than anywhere else, the prospect of their rule seemed so terrible that the strongest of the patriots were often shaken in their purpose. How it fretted and unnerved John Adams we know full well, for he has confessed it in his diary. A man in Massachusetts one day congratulated him on the anarchy, the mob violence, the insults to judges, the closing of the courts, and the tar and feathers which the patriots and their Congress were producing.
" Oh, Mr. Adams, what great things have you and your colleagues done for us ! We can never be grateful enough to you. There are no courts of justice now in this province, and I hope there never will be another."
Adams for once in his life could not reply.
"Is this the object for which. I have been contending, said I to myself, for I rode along without any answer to this wretch ; are these the sentiments of such people, and how many of them are there in the country ? Half the nation, for what I know for half the nation are debtors, if not more ; and these have been in all countries the sentiments of debtors. If the power of the country should get into such hands, and there is a great danger that it will, to what purpose have we sacrificed our time, health, and everything else?" Works of John Adams, vol. ii. p. 420.
If the loyalists could come back from the grave, they would probably say that their fears and prophecies had been fulfilled in the most extraordinary manner; sometimes literally; in most cases substantially. There is no question that the Revolution was followed by a great deal of bad government, political corruption, sectional strife, coarseness in manners, hostility to the arts and refinements of life, assassination, lynch law, and other things which horrified Englishmen and afforded the stock material for the ridicule of such writers as Dickens and Mrs. Montagu.
The descendants of the loyalists, whom our passion
for
independence scattered in Canada and the British empire,
find plenty of material for their purpose, and they have
often said that we reaped
the evil fruit of our self-will and
blindness
;
that we would have been better governed,
life
and property would have been safer, living more comfortable,
and all the arts of life more flourishing,
if we had
remained colonies of the British empire
instead of becoming
an independent nation.
If you had remained under Great Britain, you would be free from the scourge of lynch law with its two hundred victims every year ; you would be free from the burning of Negroes at the stake ; and from the wholesale murder and assassinations which have prevailed in parts of your country. Such conditions are unknown under British rule. By remaining under Great Britain you would have avoided the Civil War of 1861, with all its train of evils, the long years of misgovernment which preceded it when the slaves were escaping to the free States, and the frightful misgovernment of the carpet-bag and reconstruction period, because all your slaves would have been set free and their owners paid their value in 1833, when slavery was abolished by England in all her colonies. In a similar way you would have escaped your vast political corruption and the disgraceful misgovernment of your large cities. You made a mistake when you broke up the British empire in 1776.
The patriots of 1776, however, believed that they had ideas to contribute, and a mission to accomplish in spite of bad government, or through bad government, as every other nation and individual has done. They were seized with the spirit of independence, and believed that as a separate people they had an inalienable right to rule themselves ; and, if they chose, rule themselves badly. Liberty without independence to decide what their liberty or what their development should be was of little value in their eyes.
If we assume that the patriots really thought that England would frankly approve of all they were doing, repeal to order her acts of Parliament, and give the colonists what they wanted, we must suppose them to have been very childlike. Such sublime confidence that England would see the great question exactly as they saw it would have been very beautiful and touching.
There may have been some who attained this romantic state of mind. As the loyalists idealized the strength and power of England, believed it irresistible, and believed it also beneficial, and lovable even as a conqueror, and were willing to accept it as a conqueror without any guarantees or securities for their own liberties, so these childlike rebels on their side may have idealized it as too strong, too magnanimous and just to be other than as liberal and freedom-loving as themselves.
Many of them perhaps had hardly yet become aware that in living by themselves for nearly two hundred years they had grown into a totally different moral fiber ; and that although they used the same language and laws, and the same furniture and linen as the English, swore the same oaths and drank the same toasts as England, they were in character and principle as far removed from the majority of her people as though they belonged to another race. Unconsciously they had been wrought by climate, association, and environment into a distinct and different people, a people of keener, broader intelligence, and more determined energy and courage. They were already a separate people without fully knowing it.
The inward struggles of some of the loyalists who had become partially Americanized without knowing it were very pathetic. Curwen and Van Schaack, both of whom sought refuge in England, reveal this all through their diaries and letters. In America their imaginations had been fed with pleasing tales of the charms of English life and the honor and liberal intentions of British statesmen. They were both bitterly disappointed. Van Schaack completely changed his opinions of the political intentions of the British government towards the colonies. Curwen, dealing more in details of every-day life, laments its discomfort and unhappiness. " The fires here," he says, "are not to be compared to our large American ones of oak and walnut, nor near so comfortable. Would that I was away." He had thought he was going "home," as some of the colonists with strange simplicity called England but he says he finds himself in a "country of aliens." He was treated with arrogance and contempt. He was told to his face that Americans were a "sort of serfs." He was expected to be servile and subservient. London he calls a "sad lick penny", and he is heartily tired of it.*
* Curwen's Journal and Letters, 45, 57, 59, etc
Both he and Van Schaack, and their fathers before them, had lived so long in the colonies that in heart and habit they were Americanized beyond recall. But by study at a distance they had so convinced their minds, or imaginations, of the splendor of the British empire that when their fellow-colonists doubted the immaculateness of British rule, and, above all, when they thought they could govern themselves without it, the ludicrousness of the suggestion was overwhelming.
In describing the different ways in which the growing sense or instinct of a separate nationality was affecting the people, it is due to my readers to say that some Americans have denied that there was any feeling of this sort. They have denied most positively that there was any desire for independence, and have adopted the modern English opinion that independence was forced upon us suddenly against our will.
For my part I find it difficult to understand how a million or more colonists could suddenly decide on a dash for independence, maintain the struggle for seven years, refusing every proposal for peace that offered less than absolute independence, unless they had been passionately nourishing that idea for a long period of time. But, if we are to believe certain statesmen and historians, they not only did not entertain such an idea for any long period, but detested the thoughts of it until the summer of 1776, and then shed tears over it.
Of course, it is true that all the patriot documents are full of profuse expressions of the most devoted loyalty, and the leaders were constantly putting forth these profuse expressions. If such assertions are proof, it is easy enough to accumulate great numbers of them. In fact, judged by their documents, the nearer the patriots approached to the year 1776, the more devoted, loving, and loyal they became. If we can accept their own account of themselves, they were more loyal than the Tories in England.
Washington, while attending the Congress at Philadelphia, wrote to a loyalist, October 9, 1774 :
"Give me leave to add, and I think I can announce it as a fact, that it is not the wish or interest of that government (Massachusetts) or any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence" Works, Ford edition of 1889, vol. ii. p. 443.
That was a safe statement, because it spoke of the governments of the colonies, not of a party or individuals. The government of Massachusetts was at that time under the military control of General Gage and the loyalists, and certainly had not the slightest intention of attempting independence. None of the colony governments, as governments, had any wish at that time to make such an attempt. Some of them were in the hands of moderates or loyalists, and it would not have been for the interest even of those in the hands of patriots to make any move for independence. It was too dangerous and too impractical ; the time had not, in the opinion of any, yet arrived. As to what the government formed by the rebel party in Massachusetts wanted to do about independence, we shall see when we come to treat of the Suffolk resolutions.
Washington's statement refers only to what would be outwardly and openly done, and in that respect is entirely correct. It is entirely consistent with a determination in his heart, and in the hearts of thousands of others, to make a break for independence at the first opportunity.
Franklin, in England, in August, 1774, was talking with Lord Chatham about American affairs. His lordship favored the withdrawal of troops and very liberal treatment of the Americans. But he said it had been reported that they aimed at statehood and independence, and to that he was unalterably opposed. Franklin replied with the very sweeping assertion that has been so often quoted :
"I assured him that having more than once traveled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America." Works, Bigelow edition, vol. v. pp. 445, 446.
But the word independence had several meanings. Franklin says that he had never heard the colonists wish " for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous." If questioned closely, he and they would have said that they did not wish to be absolutely separated ; they wished merely to be separated from Parliament and retain such a connection with the crown that it would be a protectorate for them against other nations. This was the old device to which they all tightly clung, and, under the circumstances, we cannot blame them.
When Franklin made that sweeping statement to Lord Chatham in 1774, he had been away from America for ten years ; and he could have said that he was speaking of his experiences before the French War closed. It was a statement of diplomacy, and Franklin was in a delicate position. Lord Chatham and a large section of the Whigs, who were straining every nerve to restore themselves to office and power by means of the disturbances in America, were obliged, of course, to base their assistance of the Americans on the understanding that those rebels were seeking merely a redress of grievances, and not absolute independence. Franklin's whole course of conduct in England was devoted to assisting the Whig party. He believed that if that party could get into power they would be very favorably inclined towards the patriots. But if he once, for a moment, admitted that the patriots were bent on independence, his usefulness to the Whigs was gone.
It is difficult to believe that Franklin meant to say that there was no general movement for independence either absolute, as advocated by men like Samuel Adams and newspapers like the Boston Gazette, or modified, as advocated by the moderate patriots who seemed to be willing to accept an independence which would leave the American communities distinct states, entirely free from all control of Parliament, and attached to England only by the slight thread of a protectorate against foreign invasions. If he intended to make a complete and absolute denial, he is contradicted by a great deal of evidence. I have already, in the first chapter, cited the passage from Kalm, who traveled in the colonies in 1748, and described the movement for independence as so advanced that the people were prophesying a total separation within thirty or fifty years, which prophecy was literally fulfilled. Franklin himself, in 1766, two years after he went to England, had received a letter from Joseph Galloway describing the plans for independence.
"A certain sect of people, if I may judge from their late conduct, seem to look on this as a favorable opportunity of establishing their republican principles, and of throwing off all connection with their mother-country. Many of their publications justify the thought. Besides, I have other reasons to think that they are not only forming a private union among themselves from one end of the continent to the other, but endeavoring also to bring into this union the Quakers and all other dissenters, if possible." Sparks, "Franklin," 77 vol. vii. p. 303. This letter is dated January 13, 1766.
John Wesley, in one of his pamphlets, says that his brother visited the colonies in 1737, and reported "the most serious people and men of consequence almost continually crying out we must be independent ; we shall never be well until we shake off the English yoke," * Galloway,in his examination before the House of Commons, testified that there had been a considerable number of persons who advocated independence in the principal towns of the colonies as early as 1754.
* "A Calm Address to the Inhabitants of England,' 7 pp. 6, 9, London, 1777.
Dr. Eliot, writing to England, in 1767, says, "We are not ripe for disunion; but our growth is so great that in a few years Great Britain will not be able to compel our submission."*
* Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series, vol. iv. p. 240 ; "EjOm's Travels," vol. i. p. 265. A pamphlet called "The Conduct of the Late Administration examined," pp. 22, 31, 37, 43, 44, 45, London, 1767, refers to the plans for independence in numerous passages. People were saying that their children would l live to see a duty laid by Americans on some things imported from Great Britain." The ministry, it was said, had been repeatedly informed of the plans for independence (p. 37). In "Reflections on the Present Combination of the American Colonies," p. 5, London, 1777, the author says he has been personally acquainted with the colonies for forty years, and that they had been talking independence all that time. "The principles they suck in with milk, " he says, "naturally lead to rebellion." On page 35 he gives the patriot toast to the mother country as "Damn the old B ." See, also, Bancroft, "History of the United States," edition of 1883, vol. iii. pp. 406, 427 ; Boston Evening Post, May 27, June 24, October 28, 1765 Boston Gazette, January 6 and 27, March 2, August 17 and 24, November 1 and 2, 1772; January 11, March 15, 1773 ; American Whig, April 11, 1768 j "Americans against Liberty," p. 39, London, 1776; "The Constitutional Bight of the Legislature of Great Britain to tax the British Colonies," pp. 27, 28, etpassim} London, 1768.
That very plain-spoken Englishman, Dean Tucker, writing in 1774, took a common-sense view when he said,
"It is the nature of them all (i.e., colonies) to aspire after independence, and to set up for themselves as soon as ever they find they are able to subsist without being beholden to the mother-country, and if our Americans have expressed themselves sooner on this head than others have done, or in a more direct and daring manner, this ought not to be imputed to any greater malignity.'' "The True Interest of Great Britain set forth," p. 12. See, also, Stedman, " American War," vol. i. p. 1, London, 1794.
That maker of sweeping phrases, John Adams, has often been quoted to show that there was no desire for independence, and that it was resorted to at last with regret and tears.
"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."
This statement was made in 1821, long
after the Revolution
was over, and is one of those carefully hedged
generalities which public men know how to make when
they wish to appear
to have always been conservative. In
his hopeless moments during
the long contest, Adams no
doubt often thought
that he would give everything he
possessed to go back to the old times, for if things went on
as they were going, he soon might
not have anything to
possess,
not even the head on his shoulders.
He saves his statement by the proviso that there must be "sufficient security" for the continuance of the old times. There was the rub. England would not give that security. The only security, as Adams well knew, was independence. His statement, moreover, bears quite a different meaning when, the whole passage in which it occurs is read.
"There is great ambiguity in the expression, there existed in the Colonies a desire of Independence. It is true there always existed in the Colonies a desire of Independence of Parliament, in the articles of internal Taxation, and internal policy ; and a very general if not a universal opinion, that they were constitutionally entitled to it, and as general a determination if possible to maintain, and defend it, but there never existed a desire of Independence of the Crown, or of general regulations of Commerce, for the equal and impartial benefit of all parts of the Empire. It is true there might be times and circumstances in which an Individual, or a few Individuals, might entertain and express a wish that America was Independent in all respects, but these were ' Rari nantes in gurgite vasto. For example in one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, seven and eight, the conduct of the British Generals Shirley, Braddock, Loudon, Webb and Abercromby was so absurd, disastrous, and destructive, that a very general opinion prevailed that the "War was conducted by a mixture of Ignorance, Treachery and Cowardice, and some persons wished we had nothing to do with Great Britain for ever. Of this number I distinctly remember, I was myself one, fully believing that we were able to defend ourselves against the French and Indians, without any assistance or embarrassment from Great Britain. In fifty-eight and fifty-nine, when Amherst and Wolfe changed the fortune of the War, by a more able and faithful conduct of it, I again rejoiced in the name of Britain, and should have rejoiced in it, to this day, had not the King and Parliament committed high Treason and Rebellion against America as soon as they had conquered Canada, and made Peace with France. That there existed a general desire of Independence of the Crown in any part of America before the Revolution, is as far from the truth, as the Zenith is from the Nadir. That the encroaching disposition of Great Britain was early foreseen by many wise men, in all the States; [that It] would one day attempt to enslave them by an unlimited submission to Parliament, and rule them with a rod of Iron ; that this attempt would produce resistance on the part of America, and an awful struggle was also foreseen, but dreaded and deprecated as the greatest Calamity that could befall them. For my own part, there was not a moment during the Revolution, when I would not have given every thing I possessed for a restoration to the State of things before the Contest began, provided we could have had any sufficient security for its continuance. I always dreaded the Revolution as fraught with ruin, to me and my family, and indeed it has been but little better." New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1876, vol. xxx. p. 329
There we have it all; the whole story, and the old device of the king alone to which they always clung to save necks in case of failure. It should be observed that Adams says that he and his party were for independence in 1756-58 ; and this should be compared with the statements made by Franklin and others. Then he says that he became loyal, and would have remained a really good boy if it had not been for something that happened, namely, that "Parliament committed high treason and rebellion against America," which is a delightful way of putting it, and very characteristic of the Adams family.
It should also be remembered that although Adams says that the patriots were entirely willing to remain under the king alone, yet when this very condition was offered to them by the peace commissioners in 1778, they voted against it, and Adams himself was more ardent than any of them in opposing it.
His final statement that the Revolution ruined him is very amusing. The Revolution was the making of him and without it, he would have remained insignificant. But he never got enough of anything, and he always considered himself abused.
The truth is that, like many others, he was a rebel hot for independence from the day of his birth to the day of his death. His independence party was small before the year 1760 ; but it steadily grew, and was most diligently and shrewdly worked up and encouraged by himself, his cousin, and the other leaders. It was impossible for a man of his stamp to belong to any other party.
They used to tell an apocryphal story about him which even if not true is very characteristic. When he lay dying at the great age of ninety-one, they roused him for a moment in order to hear his last words. The old hero was taken off his guard and had no time to hedge. "Independence forever," he said, and sank back dead.
We might go on quoting John Jay, and also Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, all of them positive that they never thought of such a thing until about five or six minutes before they did it ; and then it was contemplated " with affliction by all." No doubt there was much affliction, for it was a dangerous business. If, however, the affliction was so great, how was it that even in their darkest hours they refused all offers of compromise, even the very terms of freedom from Parliament which they had themselves proposed ?
We can perhaps understand better how independence was secretly nourished when we remember the indomitable energy our climate produces ; how the desire to plan, to act, to do, to invent with surpassing ingenuity, and to be forever going, climbing, and achieving is uncontrollable. The patriot colonists who had been born in the country, and their fathers before them, were of this sort. Colonialism, with the essential political degradation entailed on even the best and most liberally governed colony, exasperated them.
They may have said all sorts of things about "home'' king, and loyalty. They had been brought up under the British monarchy, and among such people such phrases became a habit. It was also important for them not to alarm the moderate or hesitating patriots by word or action that would be too direct. Those followers had to be educated and led by degrees. Thousands of them were in terrible uncertainty. At the thought of independence they trembled about the future which they could not see or fathom ; on which was no landmark or familiar ground ; and which their imaginations peopled with monsters and dragons like those with which the old geographers before Columbus filled the Western Ocean. We laugh at their fears because that future has now become the past. But their fears were largely justified by the history of the world up to that time.
They felt that the old argument with which the loyalists continually plied them might very well be true. The colonies, if left to themselves, would fight one another about their boundaries. They had been quarreling about boundaries for a century, with England for their final arbiter. What would they do when they had no arbiter but the might of the strongest? Would not Pennsylvania combine with the South to conquer New England ? or, more likely still. New England would combine with New York to conquer all the South, New York, for the sake of her old Dutch idea of trade, and New England, for the sake of improving the fox-hunting, Sabbath-breaking Southerner and freeing his slaves; for the estrangement between North and South on the slavery question was already quite obvious at the time of the Revolution. Then there would be rebellions and struggles to reform the map and straighten the lines and boundaries. If in the confusion France or Spain did not gobble them up, or England reduce them again to colonies, they would likely enough try to form a confederacy among themselves for protection against Europe. Then there would be one war to decide which section should have the commercial advantage of the seat of government in this confederacy, and another war to decide what should be the form of government of the confederacy, monarchical, aristocratic, or republican, and probably a third war to establish securely the form of government finally adopted.*
* "A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies," p. 47, New York, 1775; " What think ye of the Congress now?" p. 25, New York, 1775; "Works of John Adams, vol. ii. p. 351; "The Origin of the American Contest with Great Britain, " ISTew York, 1775; Bancroft, " History of the United States," edition of 1886, vol. v. p. 406.
We must remember that in South America there has been much confusion and misgovernment as the result of independence, and out of it only two stable governments Chile and Brazil have as yet arisen. The monsters that the timid ones saw were unquestionably possibilities ; and the loyalist prophecies of sectional war have been largely fulfilled, We have not had quite as many sectional wars as they foretold. But we have had one great war between the North and the South, very much as they prophesied ; and in costliness, slaughter, and fierceness of contest far exceeding their warnings.
They prophesied also that even if, with the assistance of France, a sort of independence was won, it would be an independence only on the land. Great Britain would still retain sovereignty on the sea ; and there would be another war or series of wars over this question. This happened exactly as they foretold, and thirty years after the Revolution we fought the war of 1812, often called at the time of its occurrence the Second War for Independence.
With these monsters before their eyes the rebel colonists hesitated, deceived themselves, or resorted to shrewdness. They had mental reservations and cautious politic insincerity. They caught at every foolish straw, and the most extraordinary one of all was that the colonies should be ruled by the king alone, that by this invisible thread they would remain a part of the British empire, and always have the advantage of its steadying hand, with Parliament merely an object of outside historic interest. They would always pray for the king, as some one in New England suggested, and would kindly vote him from time to time little presents of money to help him in his wars, he in return to protect them from the ravages of the great powers, France and Spain, and possibly from their own disunion and anarchy.
To be continued....next
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
Some of us perhaps have read of the treatment of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, afterwards the first bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. His house was invaded by the mob, his daughters insulted, their lives threatened, bayonets thrust through their caps, and all the money and silverware in the house taken. Seabury himself was paraded through New Haven and imprisoned for a month. Afterwards he and some other loyalists fled for their lives, and lived in a secret room, behind the chimney, in a private house, where they were fed by their friends through a trap-door.
In South Carolina the mob, in one instance, after applying the tar and feathers, displayed their Southern generosity and politeness by scraping their victim clean, instead of turning him adrift, as was usually done, to go home to his wife and family in his horrible condition or seek a pitiable refuge at the house of a friend, if he could find one.
"Of the few who objected (to the Charleston Association) there were only two who were hardy enough to ridicule or treat it with contempt, viz., Laughlin, Martin and John Dealey, on which account . . . Yesterday they were carted through the principal streets of the town in complete suits of tar and feathers. The very indecent and daring behaviors of the two culprits in several instances occasioned their being made public spectacles of. After having been exhibited for about half an hour, and having made many acknowledgments of their crime, they were conducted home, cleaned, and quietly put on board of Captain Lasley's ship." American Archives, 4th series, ii. p. 922.
It would be a comparatively easy task to collect from the records instances of this sort, entirely omitted from regulation histories, but which, if given in their full details, would fill a good-sized volume. For the three months, July, August, and September, of the year 1774,one can find in the "American Archives" alone over thirty descriptions of outrages of this sort.*
* American Archives, 4th. series, i. pp. 630, 663, 716, 724, 731, 732, 745, 762, 787, 806, 885, 965, 970, 974, 1009, 1042, 1061, 1070, 1105, 1106, 1178, 1236, 1243, 1253, 1260 ; 4th series, ii. pp. 33, 34, 91, 131, 174, 176, 318, 337, 340, 466, 507, 545, 552, 622, 725, 875, 920, 922, 1652, 1688, 1697; 4th series, iii. pp. 52, 59, 105, 119, 127, 145, 151, 170, 326, 462, 682, 823, 1072, 1254, 1266 ; 4th scries, iv. pp. 19, 29, 203, 247, 288, 475, 564, 679, 719, 847, 884, 887, 941, 1043, 1228, 1237, 1241, 1284, 1288, 1571, 1580, 1585, 1590, 1692, 1717.
If we went on collecting instances and used besides the volumes of the "American Archives" the numerous other sources of information, and carried the search through all the years when these things were done, there would be an enormous mass of instances. But we would not then have them all ; for there must have been countless instances of violence to loyalists which were not recorded in print. Like the other instances, they played their part; were well known by common report ; contributed towards forming opinion and action in the great problem; and now, being unpleasant or inconvenient to remember, have passed out of human recollection as though they had never happened.
Many saved themselves by yielding, by resigning the offices they held under British authority, or by writing out a humiliating apology and reading it aloud, or letting it be published in the newspapers. When this system of terrorism was once well under way, there was a crop of these recantations everywhere. But we do not always know from the records the severity by which these recantations were forced.
Loyalists would often resist for a time before subjecting themselves to the ignominy of a recantation. In one instance twenty-nine loyalists were carried about by a party of militia for several days from town to town. They were told that they were to be put in the Sunbury mines, which were damp, underground passages for mining copper in Connecticut, not far from Hartford. These mines were often used for terrorizing loyalists. The twenty-nine were exhibited, hectored, and tormented, until before they reached the mines the last one had humbled himself by a public confession and apology.
As time went on there were comparatively few who, when visited by the mob, did not finally make a public apology, because, although that was bad enough, they knew that in the end there was the far worse infamy and torture of the tar and feathers. There were few men of any position or respectability and it was men of this sort who were usually attacked who could bear the thought or survive the infliction of that process, unless they afterwards left the country altogether. To be stripped naked, smeared all over with disgusting black pitch, the contents of two or three pillows rubbed into it, and in that condition to be paraded through the streets of the town for neighbors and acquaintances to stare at, was enough to break down very daring spirits.
One could never tell when an angry mob might rush to this last resource. On August 24, 1774, a mob at New London were carrying off Colonel Willard, when he agreed to apologize and resign his office. But the account goes on to say,
"One Captain Davis, of Brimfield, -was present, who showing resentment, and treating the people with "bad language, was stripped, and honored with the new-fashion dress of tar and feathers ; a proof this that the act for tarring and feathering is not repealed." American Archives, 4th series, i. 731.
When we consider that this mob rule was steadily practiced for a period of more than ten years, it is not surprising that it left an almost indelible mark on. our people.They seem to have acquired from it that fixed habit now called lynch law, which is still practiced among us in many parts of the country in a most regular and systematic manner, and participated in by respectable people. The term lynch law originated in the method of handling the loyalists in the Revolution, and was named from the brother of the man who founded Lynchburgh in Virginia.*
* Atlantic Monthly, vol. Ixxxviii. p. 731
By the year 1775 the patriot portion of the people had grown so accustomed to dealing with the loyalists by means of the mob, that they regarded it as a sort of established and legalized procedure. In New Jersey we find an account of the tar and feathers inflicted on a loyalist closing with the words, "The whole was conducted with that regularity and decorum that ought to be observed in all public punishments."+
+ American Archives, 4th series, iv. p. 203.
Looking back at it with the long perspective the present gives, we can say that these things were the passion for independence, the instinct of nationality seizing for itself a country of its own, without violence if it could, but with the worst violence if it must. England, however, was not inclined to take that view. The greater the number of such occurrences, the more numerous became the Englishmen who were convinced that the colonies needed not more liberty, but more systematic government and control. The loyalists in America believed that such outrages increased their own numbers and made it more and more certain that they were, as they claimed to be, a majority of the people.
The vast number of written and spoken apologies were nearly all insincere ; even the oaths that were taken were nearly all considered as not binding by the victims, because obtained by threats or violence. They were often forced to take the oaths to save their children from beggary and ruin, and openly gave this as an excuse.
As for the liberty of the press, it was at the close of the year 1775 completely extinguished; and this increased and encouraged the enemies of the colonies in England. James Rivington, of New York, who printed and published many of the loyalist pamphlets, was boycotted and assailed by town and village committees until, though he apologized and humbled himself, he narrowly escaped with his life, and finally took refuge on a British man-of-war.
Prominent men among the rebel party regretted these things and worried over them ; but all to no effect. The loyalists were so numerous, possibly a majority, and might effect so much if they organized themselves, that it was a great temptation to let the rough and wild element among the patriots go on with its work and keep the loyalists broken up and terrorized.
John Adams had the enormity and cruelty of such conduct brought home to him very closely, for he was counsel in a famous case in which one of the victims, Richard King, attempted to have legal redress against the mob.
A party of people disguised as Indians broke into King's store and house as early in the difficulties with England as March 16, 1766. They destroyed all the books and papers relating to his business, laid waste his property, and threatened his life if he should seek redress. Seven or eight years afterwards, in 1774, the mob assailed him again because one of his cargoes of lumber, without any fault of his, had been purchased by the British army in Boston. Forty men visited him on this occasion, and, by threatening his life, compelled him to disavow his loyalist opinions. He shortly afterwards went insane and died.
"The terror and distress, the distraction and horror of his family," writes John Adams to his wife, u cannot be described in words or 163 [This file is missing pages 164 and 165, I am picking up at the top of page 166 sorry about that DC]
sacrificed every penny of their property, and from positions of importance and prominence in the colonies they retired to England to be submerged into insignificance and poverty, or they retired to Canada where their descendants can still be found working with their hands, or struggling back into the position their ancestors occupied more than a hundred years ago.
The disastrous effects of the rise of the lower orders of the people into power appeared everywhere, leaving its varied and peculiar characteristics in each community ; but New England suffered least of all. In Virginia its work was destructive and complete ; for all that made Virginia great, and produced her remarkable men, was her aristocracy of tobacco-planters. This aristocracy forced on the Revolution with heroic enthusiasm against the will of the lower classes, little dreaming that they were forcing it on to their own destruction. But in 1780 the result was already so obvious that Chastellux, the French traveler, saw it with the utmost clearness, and in his book he prophesies Virginia's gradual sinking into the insignificance which we have seen in our time.
Even in Massachusetts, where the dreaded class accomplished less evil than anywhere else, the prospect of their rule seemed so terrible that the strongest of the patriots were often shaken in their purpose. How it fretted and unnerved John Adams we know full well, for he has confessed it in his diary. A man in Massachusetts one day congratulated him on the anarchy, the mob violence, the insults to judges, the closing of the courts, and the tar and feathers which the patriots and their Congress were producing.
" Oh, Mr. Adams, what great things have you and your colleagues done for us ! We can never be grateful enough to you. There are no courts of justice now in this province, and I hope there never will be another."
Adams for once in his life could not reply.
"Is this the object for which. I have been contending, said I to myself, for I rode along without any answer to this wretch ; are these the sentiments of such people, and how many of them are there in the country ? Half the nation, for what I know for half the nation are debtors, if not more ; and these have been in all countries the sentiments of debtors. If the power of the country should get into such hands, and there is a great danger that it will, to what purpose have we sacrificed our time, health, and everything else?" Works of John Adams, vol. ii. p. 420.
If the loyalists could come back from the grave, they would probably say that their fears and prophecies had been fulfilled in the most extraordinary manner; sometimes literally; in most cases substantially. There is no question that the Revolution was followed by a great deal of bad government, political corruption, sectional strife, coarseness in manners, hostility to the arts and refinements of life, assassination, lynch law, and other things which horrified Englishmen and afforded the stock material for the ridicule of such writers as Dickens and Mrs. Montagu.
If you had remained under Great Britain, you would be free from the scourge of lynch law with its two hundred victims every year ; you would be free from the burning of Negroes at the stake ; and from the wholesale murder and assassinations which have prevailed in parts of your country. Such conditions are unknown under British rule. By remaining under Great Britain you would have avoided the Civil War of 1861, with all its train of evils, the long years of misgovernment which preceded it when the slaves were escaping to the free States, and the frightful misgovernment of the carpet-bag and reconstruction period, because all your slaves would have been set free and their owners paid their value in 1833, when slavery was abolished by England in all her colonies. In a similar way you would have escaped your vast political corruption and the disgraceful misgovernment of your large cities. You made a mistake when you broke up the British empire in 1776.
The patriots of 1776, however, believed that they had ideas to contribute, and a mission to accomplish in spite of bad government, or through bad government, as every other nation and individual has done. They were seized with the spirit of independence, and believed that as a separate people they had an inalienable right to rule themselves ; and, if they chose, rule themselves badly. Liberty without independence to decide what their liberty or what their development should be was of little value in their eyes.
CHAPTER IX
THE REAL INTENTION
AS TO INDEPENDENCE
I HAVE described the patriot party
as moving towards
independence, and have given many instances to show that
that was their intention. Sometimes the intention, though
partially veiled, was notorious,
as in the case of such men
as Samuel Adams
; sometimes it was openly expressed,
as
in such newspapers
as the Boston Gazette; and very
often
it was nourished in secret, or the individuals who entertained
it were scarcely conscious of how far they were
going, or were timid and hesitating about the risks to be run. If we assume that the patriots really thought that England would frankly approve of all they were doing, repeal to order her acts of Parliament, and give the colonists what they wanted, we must suppose them to have been very childlike. Such sublime confidence that England would see the great question exactly as they saw it would have been very beautiful and touching.
There may have been some who attained this romantic state of mind. As the loyalists idealized the strength and power of England, believed it irresistible, and believed it also beneficial, and lovable even as a conqueror, and were willing to accept it as a conqueror without any guarantees or securities for their own liberties, so these childlike rebels on their side may have idealized it as too strong, too magnanimous and just to be other than as liberal and freedom-loving as themselves.
Many of them perhaps had hardly yet become aware that in living by themselves for nearly two hundred years they had grown into a totally different moral fiber ; and that although they used the same language and laws, and the same furniture and linen as the English, swore the same oaths and drank the same toasts as England, they were in character and principle as far removed from the majority of her people as though they belonged to another race. Unconsciously they had been wrought by climate, association, and environment into a distinct and different people, a people of keener, broader intelligence, and more determined energy and courage. They were already a separate people without fully knowing it.
The inward struggles of some of the loyalists who had become partially Americanized without knowing it were very pathetic. Curwen and Van Schaack, both of whom sought refuge in England, reveal this all through their diaries and letters. In America their imaginations had been fed with pleasing tales of the charms of English life and the honor and liberal intentions of British statesmen. They were both bitterly disappointed. Van Schaack completely changed his opinions of the political intentions of the British government towards the colonies. Curwen, dealing more in details of every-day life, laments its discomfort and unhappiness. " The fires here," he says, "are not to be compared to our large American ones of oak and walnut, nor near so comfortable. Would that I was away." He had thought he was going "home," as some of the colonists with strange simplicity called England but he says he finds himself in a "country of aliens." He was treated with arrogance and contempt. He was told to his face that Americans were a "sort of serfs." He was expected to be servile and subservient. London he calls a "sad lick penny", and he is heartily tired of it.*
* Curwen's Journal and Letters, 45, 57, 59, etc
Both he and Van Schaack, and their fathers before them, had lived so long in the colonies that in heart and habit they were Americanized beyond recall. But by study at a distance they had so convinced their minds, or imaginations, of the splendor of the British empire that when their fellow-colonists doubted the immaculateness of British rule, and, above all, when they thought they could govern themselves without it, the ludicrousness of the suggestion was overwhelming.
In describing the different ways in which the growing sense or instinct of a separate nationality was affecting the people, it is due to my readers to say that some Americans have denied that there was any feeling of this sort. They have denied most positively that there was any desire for independence, and have adopted the modern English opinion that independence was forced upon us suddenly against our will.
For my part I find it difficult to understand how a million or more colonists could suddenly decide on a dash for independence, maintain the struggle for seven years, refusing every proposal for peace that offered less than absolute independence, unless they had been passionately nourishing that idea for a long period of time. But, if we are to believe certain statesmen and historians, they not only did not entertain such an idea for any long period, but detested the thoughts of it until the summer of 1776, and then shed tears over it.
Of course, it is true that all the patriot documents are full of profuse expressions of the most devoted loyalty, and the leaders were constantly putting forth these profuse expressions. If such assertions are proof, it is easy enough to accumulate great numbers of them. In fact, judged by their documents, the nearer the patriots approached to the year 1776, the more devoted, loving, and loyal they became. If we can accept their own account of themselves, they were more loyal than the Tories in England.
Washington, while attending the Congress at Philadelphia, wrote to a loyalist, October 9, 1774 :
"Give me leave to add, and I think I can announce it as a fact, that it is not the wish or interest of that government (Massachusetts) or any other upon this continent, separately or collectively, to set up for independence" Works, Ford edition of 1889, vol. ii. p. 443.
That was a safe statement, because it spoke of the governments of the colonies, not of a party or individuals. The government of Massachusetts was at that time under the military control of General Gage and the loyalists, and certainly had not the slightest intention of attempting independence. None of the colony governments, as governments, had any wish at that time to make such an attempt. Some of them were in the hands of moderates or loyalists, and it would not have been for the interest even of those in the hands of patriots to make any move for independence. It was too dangerous and too impractical ; the time had not, in the opinion of any, yet arrived. As to what the government formed by the rebel party in Massachusetts wanted to do about independence, we shall see when we come to treat of the Suffolk resolutions.
Washington's statement refers only to what would be outwardly and openly done, and in that respect is entirely correct. It is entirely consistent with a determination in his heart, and in the hearts of thousands of others, to make a break for independence at the first opportunity.
Franklin, in England, in August, 1774, was talking with Lord Chatham about American affairs. His lordship favored the withdrawal of troops and very liberal treatment of the Americans. But he said it had been reported that they aimed at statehood and independence, and to that he was unalterably opposed. Franklin replied with the very sweeping assertion that has been so often quoted :
"I assured him that having more than once traveled almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a great variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, I never had heard in any conversation from any person, drunk or sober, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America." Works, Bigelow edition, vol. v. pp. 445, 446.
But the word independence had several meanings. Franklin says that he had never heard the colonists wish " for a separation, or hint that such a thing would be advantageous." If questioned closely, he and they would have said that they did not wish to be absolutely separated ; they wished merely to be separated from Parliament and retain such a connection with the crown that it would be a protectorate for them against other nations. This was the old device to which they all tightly clung, and, under the circumstances, we cannot blame them.
When Franklin made that sweeping statement to Lord Chatham in 1774, he had been away from America for ten years ; and he could have said that he was speaking of his experiences before the French War closed. It was a statement of diplomacy, and Franklin was in a delicate position. Lord Chatham and a large section of the Whigs, who were straining every nerve to restore themselves to office and power by means of the disturbances in America, were obliged, of course, to base their assistance of the Americans on the understanding that those rebels were seeking merely a redress of grievances, and not absolute independence. Franklin's whole course of conduct in England was devoted to assisting the Whig party. He believed that if that party could get into power they would be very favorably inclined towards the patriots. But if he once, for a moment, admitted that the patriots were bent on independence, his usefulness to the Whigs was gone.
It is difficult to believe that Franklin meant to say that there was no general movement for independence either absolute, as advocated by men like Samuel Adams and newspapers like the Boston Gazette, or modified, as advocated by the moderate patriots who seemed to be willing to accept an independence which would leave the American communities distinct states, entirely free from all control of Parliament, and attached to England only by the slight thread of a protectorate against foreign invasions. If he intended to make a complete and absolute denial, he is contradicted by a great deal of evidence. I have already, in the first chapter, cited the passage from Kalm, who traveled in the colonies in 1748, and described the movement for independence as so advanced that the people were prophesying a total separation within thirty or fifty years, which prophecy was literally fulfilled. Franklin himself, in 1766, two years after he went to England, had received a letter from Joseph Galloway describing the plans for independence.
"A certain sect of people, if I may judge from their late conduct, seem to look on this as a favorable opportunity of establishing their republican principles, and of throwing off all connection with their mother-country. Many of their publications justify the thought. Besides, I have other reasons to think that they are not only forming a private union among themselves from one end of the continent to the other, but endeavoring also to bring into this union the Quakers and all other dissenters, if possible." Sparks, "Franklin," 77 vol. vii. p. 303. This letter is dated January 13, 1766.
John Wesley, in one of his pamphlets, says that his brother visited the colonies in 1737, and reported "the most serious people and men of consequence almost continually crying out we must be independent ; we shall never be well until we shake off the English yoke," * Galloway,in his examination before the House of Commons, testified that there had been a considerable number of persons who advocated independence in the principal towns of the colonies as early as 1754.
* "A Calm Address to the Inhabitants of England,' 7 pp. 6, 9, London, 1777.
Dr. Eliot, writing to England, in 1767, says, "We are not ripe for disunion; but our growth is so great that in a few years Great Britain will not be able to compel our submission."*
* Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series, vol. iv. p. 240 ; "EjOm's Travels," vol. i. p. 265. A pamphlet called "The Conduct of the Late Administration examined," pp. 22, 31, 37, 43, 44, 45, London, 1767, refers to the plans for independence in numerous passages. People were saying that their children would l live to see a duty laid by Americans on some things imported from Great Britain." The ministry, it was said, had been repeatedly informed of the plans for independence (p. 37). In "Reflections on the Present Combination of the American Colonies," p. 5, London, 1777, the author says he has been personally acquainted with the colonies for forty years, and that they had been talking independence all that time. "The principles they suck in with milk, " he says, "naturally lead to rebellion." On page 35 he gives the patriot toast to the mother country as "Damn the old B ." See, also, Bancroft, "History of the United States," edition of 1883, vol. iii. pp. 406, 427 ; Boston Evening Post, May 27, June 24, October 28, 1765 Boston Gazette, January 6 and 27, March 2, August 17 and 24, November 1 and 2, 1772; January 11, March 15, 1773 ; American Whig, April 11, 1768 j "Americans against Liberty," p. 39, London, 1776; "The Constitutional Bight of the Legislature of Great Britain to tax the British Colonies," pp. 27, 28, etpassim} London, 1768.
That very plain-spoken Englishman, Dean Tucker, writing in 1774, took a common-sense view when he said,
"It is the nature of them all (i.e., colonies) to aspire after independence, and to set up for themselves as soon as ever they find they are able to subsist without being beholden to the mother-country, and if our Americans have expressed themselves sooner on this head than others have done, or in a more direct and daring manner, this ought not to be imputed to any greater malignity.'' "The True Interest of Great Britain set forth," p. 12. See, also, Stedman, " American War," vol. i. p. 1, London, 1794.
That maker of sweeping phrases, John Adams, has often been quoted to show that there was no desire for independence, and that it was resorted to at last with regret and tears.
"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."
He saves his statement by the proviso that there must be "sufficient security" for the continuance of the old times. There was the rub. England would not give that security. The only security, as Adams well knew, was independence. His statement, moreover, bears quite a different meaning when, the whole passage in which it occurs is read.
"There is great ambiguity in the expression, there existed in the Colonies a desire of Independence. It is true there always existed in the Colonies a desire of Independence of Parliament, in the articles of internal Taxation, and internal policy ; and a very general if not a universal opinion, that they were constitutionally entitled to it, and as general a determination if possible to maintain, and defend it, but there never existed a desire of Independence of the Crown, or of general regulations of Commerce, for the equal and impartial benefit of all parts of the Empire. It is true there might be times and circumstances in which an Individual, or a few Individuals, might entertain and express a wish that America was Independent in all respects, but these were ' Rari nantes in gurgite vasto. For example in one thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, seven and eight, the conduct of the British Generals Shirley, Braddock, Loudon, Webb and Abercromby was so absurd, disastrous, and destructive, that a very general opinion prevailed that the "War was conducted by a mixture of Ignorance, Treachery and Cowardice, and some persons wished we had nothing to do with Great Britain for ever. Of this number I distinctly remember, I was myself one, fully believing that we were able to defend ourselves against the French and Indians, without any assistance or embarrassment from Great Britain. In fifty-eight and fifty-nine, when Amherst and Wolfe changed the fortune of the War, by a more able and faithful conduct of it, I again rejoiced in the name of Britain, and should have rejoiced in it, to this day, had not the King and Parliament committed high Treason and Rebellion against America as soon as they had conquered Canada, and made Peace with France. That there existed a general desire of Independence of the Crown in any part of America before the Revolution, is as far from the truth, as the Zenith is from the Nadir. That the encroaching disposition of Great Britain was early foreseen by many wise men, in all the States; [that It] would one day attempt to enslave them by an unlimited submission to Parliament, and rule them with a rod of Iron ; that this attempt would produce resistance on the part of America, and an awful struggle was also foreseen, but dreaded and deprecated as the greatest Calamity that could befall them. For my own part, there was not a moment during the Revolution, when I would not have given every thing I possessed for a restoration to the State of things before the Contest began, provided we could have had any sufficient security for its continuance. I always dreaded the Revolution as fraught with ruin, to me and my family, and indeed it has been but little better." New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1876, vol. xxx. p. 329
There we have it all; the whole story, and the old device of the king alone to which they always clung to save necks in case of failure. It should be observed that Adams says that he and his party were for independence in 1756-58 ; and this should be compared with the statements made by Franklin and others. Then he says that he became loyal, and would have remained a really good boy if it had not been for something that happened, namely, that "Parliament committed high treason and rebellion against America," which is a delightful way of putting it, and very characteristic of the Adams family.
It should also be remembered that although Adams says that the patriots were entirely willing to remain under the king alone, yet when this very condition was offered to them by the peace commissioners in 1778, they voted against it, and Adams himself was more ardent than any of them in opposing it.
His final statement that the Revolution ruined him is very amusing. The Revolution was the making of him and without it, he would have remained insignificant. But he never got enough of anything, and he always considered himself abused.
The truth is that, like many others, he was a rebel hot for independence from the day of his birth to the day of his death. His independence party was small before the year 1760 ; but it steadily grew, and was most diligently and shrewdly worked up and encouraged by himself, his cousin, and the other leaders. It was impossible for a man of his stamp to belong to any other party.
They used to tell an apocryphal story about him which even if not true is very characteristic. When he lay dying at the great age of ninety-one, they roused him for a moment in order to hear his last words. The old hero was taken off his guard and had no time to hedge. "Independence forever," he said, and sank back dead.
We might go on quoting John Jay, and also Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, all of them positive that they never thought of such a thing until about five or six minutes before they did it ; and then it was contemplated " with affliction by all." No doubt there was much affliction, for it was a dangerous business. If, however, the affliction was so great, how was it that even in their darkest hours they refused all offers of compromise, even the very terms of freedom from Parliament which they had themselves proposed ?
We can perhaps understand better how independence was secretly nourished when we remember the indomitable energy our climate produces ; how the desire to plan, to act, to do, to invent with surpassing ingenuity, and to be forever going, climbing, and achieving is uncontrollable. The patriot colonists who had been born in the country, and their fathers before them, were of this sort. Colonialism, with the essential political degradation entailed on even the best and most liberally governed colony, exasperated them.
They may have said all sorts of things about "home'' king, and loyalty. They had been brought up under the British monarchy, and among such people such phrases became a habit. It was also important for them not to alarm the moderate or hesitating patriots by word or action that would be too direct. Those followers had to be educated and led by degrees. Thousands of them were in terrible uncertainty. At the thought of independence they trembled about the future which they could not see or fathom ; on which was no landmark or familiar ground ; and which their imaginations peopled with monsters and dragons like those with which the old geographers before Columbus filled the Western Ocean. We laugh at their fears because that future has now become the past. But their fears were largely justified by the history of the world up to that time.
They felt that the old argument with which the loyalists continually plied them might very well be true. The colonies, if left to themselves, would fight one another about their boundaries. They had been quarreling about boundaries for a century, with England for their final arbiter. What would they do when they had no arbiter but the might of the strongest? Would not Pennsylvania combine with the South to conquer New England ? or, more likely still. New England would combine with New York to conquer all the South, New York, for the sake of her old Dutch idea of trade, and New England, for the sake of improving the fox-hunting, Sabbath-breaking Southerner and freeing his slaves; for the estrangement between North and South on the slavery question was already quite obvious at the time of the Revolution. Then there would be rebellions and struggles to reform the map and straighten the lines and boundaries. If in the confusion France or Spain did not gobble them up, or England reduce them again to colonies, they would likely enough try to form a confederacy among themselves for protection against Europe. Then there would be one war to decide which section should have the commercial advantage of the seat of government in this confederacy, and another war to decide what should be the form of government of the confederacy, monarchical, aristocratic, or republican, and probably a third war to establish securely the form of government finally adopted.*
* "A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies," p. 47, New York, 1775; " What think ye of the Congress now?" p. 25, New York, 1775; "Works of John Adams, vol. ii. p. 351; "The Origin of the American Contest with Great Britain, " ISTew York, 1775; Bancroft, " History of the United States," edition of 1886, vol. v. p. 406.
We must remember that in South America there has been much confusion and misgovernment as the result of independence, and out of it only two stable governments Chile and Brazil have as yet arisen. The monsters that the timid ones saw were unquestionably possibilities ; and the loyalist prophecies of sectional war have been largely fulfilled, We have not had quite as many sectional wars as they foretold. But we have had one great war between the North and the South, very much as they prophesied ; and in costliness, slaughter, and fierceness of contest far exceeding their warnings.
They prophesied also that even if, with the assistance of France, a sort of independence was won, it would be an independence only on the land. Great Britain would still retain sovereignty on the sea ; and there would be another war or series of wars over this question. This happened exactly as they foretold, and thirty years after the Revolution we fought the war of 1812, often called at the time of its occurrence the Second War for Independence.
With these monsters before their eyes the rebel colonists hesitated, deceived themselves, or resorted to shrewdness. They had mental reservations and cautious politic insincerity. They caught at every foolish straw, and the most extraordinary one of all was that the colonies should be ruled by the king alone, that by this invisible thread they would remain a part of the British empire, and always have the advantage of its steadying hand, with Parliament merely an object of outside historic interest. They would always pray for the king, as some one in New England suggested, and would kindly vote him from time to time little presents of money to help him in his wars, he in return to protect them from the ravages of the great powers, France and Spain, and possibly from their own disunion and anarchy.
To be continued....next
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
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