Course of Parliament looked to with anxiety - Petition to the King rejected -Debates in Parliament -Foreign mercenaries to be employed Act prohibiting trade with colonies - Crisis had arrived-Paine's Common Sense Its effect — Dunmore's high-handed proceedings at the South - Norfolk bombarded — Conolly's scheme with the Indians-State of feeling in New York - Press of Rivington's Gazette destroyed - Plan of the English to seize upon the Hudson Lee in command in New York - Tory influence predominant The Johnson family Their course Scene in the camp - Washington and the "round jackets and rifle shirts" — Holmes's summing up of the year 1775-Singular aspect of affairs- The alternative, submission or independence – Washington before Boston - Scarcity of provisions in the city-Botta's account of the occupation of Dorchester Heights and the evacuation of Boston Thanks of Congress to Washington - British troops sail for Halifax - Putnam sent on to New York - Lee dispatched to the South-Washington meets Congress Plots of the Tories Attempt to seize Washington's person, and convey him to the enemy - Proceedings with respect to colonial governments - Chief Justice Drayton's charge to the grand jury Clinton's attack on Charleston - Sergeant Jasper's heroic conduct Declaration of Independence felt to be necessary - Instructions to delegates from various colonies — Proceedings and debates in Congress — The resolution that the colonies are, and of right ought to be, independent- THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE- Importance of the ground then taken -The jubilee day — Moral force of the position assumed by our fathers. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIV.—I. Draft of the Declaration of Independence and the amendments made by Congress.-II. Extract from John Quincy Adams's Fourth of July Oration, 1831. 1775. THE assembling of Parliament, in | October, 1775, was looked to with anxiety and concern by the Americans. On the course which it should resolve to pursue would depend very materially the nature and extent of the opposition which the colonists were prepared to sustain against its previous acts. If Parliament should see fit to make such concessions and assurances for the future, as the people in America demanded as their right, possibly the differences and disputes which had proceeded already to so great lengths, might be accommodated and amicably settled; but if, on the other hand, that body should persist in its offensive attitude, and continue to employ force in order to subdue the colonies, then force must be met by force, and the people must nerve themselves for war and bloodshed. The petition to the King, on which some had built considerable hope, was rejected with contempt, and in his speech at the opening of Parliament, George III. not only accused the colonists of revolt, hostility, and rebellion, but stated that the rebellious war carried on by them was for the purpose of establishing an independent empire. To prevent this, he informed Parliament that the most decisive and vigorous measures were necessary; that he had consequently increased his naval establishment, had augmented his land forces, and had also taken measures to procure the aid of foreign troops. He at the same time declared his intention of appointing certain persons with authority to grant pardons to individuals, and to receive the submission of those colonies disposed to return to their allegiance. In the debate on the address, in reply to the royal speech, the conduct of the ministry was severely canvassed. General Conway and the Duke of Grafton resigned their places and joined the opposition. The ill health of Lord Chatham prevented his advocating the cause of the Americans; but there were not wanting others to speak in tones of warning against the attempt to force the people of America to submission. Camden, Shelburne, Richmond, Barré, and others, did all in their power to prevent the action of the ministry; but Lord North was supported by large majorities, in both Houses. The king was obstinately bent upon this course, and the measures adopted were of the most stringent character.* Twenty-five thousand men were promptly voted to be employed in America. As it was not found easy to enlist troops in England, the employment of foreign mercenaries was determined upon. Between seventeen and eighteen thousand men, principally from Hesse Cassel and Brunswick, were hired at exorbitant rates. The odiousness of employing the Hessians against the Americans was forcibly pointed out in Parliament, and probably no measure could have been devised which 385 was calculated to wound so deeply the feelings of those who were contending for their rights and liberties. By this arrangement, a force of between forty and fifty thousand men was got together for the purpose of compelling the Americans to submission. Richard Penn, who had had charge of the petition to the king, was examined before the House of Lords, and gave it as his positive opinion, that no designs of independency had hitherto been formed by Congress, as none certainly had at that time been openly and formally avowed; but the ministry were in possession of intercepted letters by John Adams, which plainly indicated designs of quite another description. The Duke of Richmond moved that the petition of Congress might be made the basis of a further reconciliation, but his motion was rejected. In the House of Commons, (November 16th,) Burke introduced and powerfully supported a bill for the repeal of the obnoxious Acts, granting an amnesty for the past, but his present efforts were as unsuccessful as the former, and the bill was rejected by a majority of two to one. A similar movement, made soon after by Hartley, met with no better fate. Toward the close of December, the ministry carried through Parliament an act prohibiting all trade and commerce with the colonies, and authorizing the capture and condemnation, not only of all American vessels, with their cargoes, but all other vessels found trading in any port or place in the colonies, as if the same were the vessels and effects of open enemies; and the vessels and lies, kindred, friends, and country; and after being plundered themselves, to become accomplices in plundering their brethren.' The ministry, on the other hand, pretended to view this treatment of American prisoners rather as an act of grace and favor than of injustice or cruelty. It was evident, from these measures of Parliament, that the great crisis had been reached, when the American people were called upon to choose whether they would yield submission to the mother country in her imperious demands, as children in fear of the rod, or whether they would persist in resisting aggression and wrong, as became freemen and the heirs of an illustrious ancestry of freemen. The time had now arrived, when they must either retrace their steps with shame and dishonor, or prepare to go forward and sustain their position at the risk of their lives and the great uncertainty of final success. Happily for us, their children, our fathers did not falter, but calmly and resolutely entered upon the work set before them. property thus taken were vested in the captors, and the crews were to be treated, not as prisoners, but as slaves. "By a most extraordinary clause in this act," says Pitkin, "it was made lawful for the commander of a British vessel to take the masters, crews, and other persons, found in the captured vessels, to put them on board any other British armed vessel, and enter their names on the books of the same; and from the time of such entry, such persons were to be considered in the service of his majesty, to all intents and purposes, as though they had entered themselves voluntarily on board of such vessel. By this means the Americans might be compelled to fight even against their own friends and countrymen. This clause in the act excited the indignation of many in both Houses of Parliament, and drew from them the strongest epithets of reprobation. This treatment of prisoners, they declared not only unjust, but a refinement in cruelty unknown among savage nations. No man, they said, could be despoiled of his goods as a foreign enemy, and at the same time compelled to serve the state as a citizen. Such a compulsion upon prisoners was un-ica, was felt to be a grievance utterly known in any case of war or rebellion; and the only example of the kind that could be produced, must be found among pirates, the outlaws and enemies of human society. Some of the lords, in their protest against the act, described it as a refinement in cruelty,' which, 'in a sentence worse than death, ‘in obliged the unhappy men who should be made captives in that predatory war, to bear arms against their fami The voting a band of foreign mercenaries to carry fire and sword into Amer insupportable, and a measure which clearly indicated that England would stop short at nothing less than absolute conquest over the colonists. However it might have been hoped by numbers, who loved peace and dreaded the horrors of war, that in some way a reconciliation could be effected, this last out * Pitkin's "Political and Civil History of the United States," vol. i., p. 357. CH. XIV.] LORD DUNMORE'S PROCEEDINGS. rage was sufficient to convince all that the time for decision had arrived. Americans must resolve now to purchase freedom at the cost of a long and expensive war. While men's minds were deeply stirred on this eventful topic, and while they mused, with various feelings, on the subject of INDEPENDENCE, the pamphlet of Thomas Paine, entitled "Common Sense," made its appearance. Paine, though an Englishman, was an ardent republican; and the style, manner and matter of his pamphlet were calculated to interest the passions, and to rouse all the energies of human nature. With a view of operating on the sentiments of a religious people, Scripture was pressed into his service, and the powers, and even the name of a king was rendered odious in the eyes of the numerous colonists who had read and studied the history of the Jews, as recorded in the Old Testament. The folly of that people in revolting from a government instituted by Heaven itself, and the oppressions to which they were subjected in consequence of their lusting after kings to rule over them, afforded an excellent handle for prepossessing the colonists in favor of republican institutions, and prejudicing them against kingly government. Hereditary succession was turned into ridicule. The absurdity of subjecting a great continent to a small island on the other side of the globe, was represented in such striking language, as to interest the honor and pride of the colonists in renouncing the government of Great Britain. The necessity, the advantage, and practicability of independence were 387 forcibly demonstrated. Nothing could be better timed than this production; it was addressed to freemen, who had just received convincing proof, that Great Britain had thrown them out of her protection, had engaged foreign mercenaries to make war upon them, and seriously designed to compel their unconditional submission to her unlimited power. It found the colonists most thoroughly alarmed for their liberties, and disposed to do and suffer any thing that promised their establishment. In union with the feelings and sentiments of the people, it produced surprising effects. Many thousands were convinced, and were led to approve and even long for a separation from the mother country. At the south, the proceedings of Lord Dunmore stirred up great opposition. Most of the royal governors remained inactive in the midst of popular excitement, but the governor of Virginia was determined to do something in behalf of the cause of the ministry. Several steps which he took roused the ire of the Virginians, and among other things he held out threats of proclaiming liberty to the slaves, destroying the town of Williamsburg, and the like. The people held frequent assemblies. Some of them took up arms to force the governor to restore the powder, and to get the public money into their own possession. Lord Dunmore was so much intimidated by these resolute proceedings on the part of the people, that he sent his family on board a man-of-war. He himself, however, issued a proclamation, in which he declared the behavior of the person who promoted the tumult treasonable, accused the people of disaffection, etc. On their part, they were by no means deficient in recriminating; and some letters of his to England being about the same time discovered, consequences ensued similar to those which had been occasioned in the case of Hutchinson and Oliver, at Boston. into by some of the townsmen; for which reason spring-guns had been placed there by the governor, which discharged themselves upon the offenders at their entrance: these circumstances, with others of a similar kind, raised such a violent uproar, that as soon as the preliminary business of the session was over, the governor retired on board a man-of-war, informing the Assembly that he durst no longer trust himself on shore. This produced a long course of disputation, which ended in a positive refusal of the governor to trust himself again in Williamsburg, even to give his assent to the bills, which could not be passed without it, and though the Assembly offered to bind themselves for his personal safety. In his turn he requested them to meet him on board the man-of-war, where he then was; but this proposal was rejected, and all further correspondence of a friendly kind was discontinued. In this state of confusion, the governor thought it necessary to fortify his palace with artillery, and procure a party of marines to guard it. Lord Lord North's conciliatory proposal arriving also about the same time, he used his utmost endeavors to cause the people to comply with it. The arguments he used were of such a description that had not matters already gone too far, it is highly probable that some attention would have been paid to them. "The view," he said, "in which the colonies ought to behold this conciliatory proposal was no more than an earnest admonition from Great Britain to relieve Lord Dunmore, thus deprived of his her wants: that the utmost condescend-government, attempted, in the autumn ence had been used in the mode of 1775, to reduce by force those whom of application; no determinate he could no longer govern. Some of sum having been fixed, as it was thought the most strenuous adherents to the most worthy of British generosity to British cause, whom their zeal had rentake what they thought could be con- dered obnoxious at home, now repaired veniently spared, and likewise to leave to him. He was also joined by numthe mode of raising it to themselves," bers of black slaves. With these, and etc. But the clamor and dissatisfaction the assistance of the British shipping, were now so universal, that nothing else he was for some time enabled could be attended to. The governor to carry on a kind of predatory had called an Assembly in May, for the war, sufficient to hurt and exasperate, purpose of laying this conciliatory pro- but not to subdue. After some inconposal before them; but it had been lit- siderable attempts on land, proclaiming tle attended to. The Assembly began liberty to the slaves, and setting up the their session by inquiries into the state royal standard, he took up his residence of the magazine. It had been broken at Norfolk, a maritime town of some 1775. 1775. |