remonstrance, to the French commandant stationed near the Ohio. George Washington, then just of age, offered his services; with only one companion and a gun, the youthful hero and future statesman proceeded on his journey. On the 12th of December he delivered the letter in person to the French commander. Washington hastened back with the reply, and delivered it to the governor about the 15th of January, 1754. Historians have traced the events that ensued. Hostilities were commenced by a surprise and capture of a French force, at a place known as the Great Meadows; at which place Washington acted as lieutenant-colonel.

The English Colonies, during a greater part of the time of the difficulties with the French, were true and loyal to the crown, resisting all aggression from abroad with patriotic fervor and zeal; they had not at this time thought of resistance to the Mother Country. Had not British cupidity and tyranny, by a series of burdensome enactments, driven the Colonies first to protestations and ultimately to arms, the Mother Country might have enjoyed for a long series of years a large and constant accession to her revenue from the American Colonies. During the earlier years of the Colonies the Mother Country exhibited no tenderness, yet there was an absence of that rigid policy practiced by the English government, which first occupied the minds and engrossed the attention of the ministry immediately after the attempt to abrogate the American charters, which was about the year 1720. About the same period, Sir William Keith, who had been the Governor of Pennsylvania, endeavored to extend the stamp-act of England over the Colonies. The measure at that time met no favor. Sir Robert Walpole, the firm friend of the Colonies, the fearless and upright advocate of justice, opposed the measure. "I will leave," said he, "the taking of the British Colonies for some of my successors, who may have more courage than I have and be less a friend to commerce than I am." The policy of Walpole was just and eminently judicious; he knew, from the monopoly of trade enjoyed by England, that the exchequer would be more constantly replenished than by levying onerous duties, the tendency of which was to crush the energies and cripple the resources of the Colonies without bearing the slightest approximation to an adequate return to England.

Previous to the year 1720 the commercial policy of England had been content with enjoying the monopoly of trade

with the Colonies, which was the wisest position she could occupy; after which period a new commercial system was introduced. The Colonies had rapidly increased in numbers and resources, when, by an overreaching cupidity, the British government, in the vain endeavor to extricate herself from the distressing accumulation of debt arising from wars, sought relief by resorting to heavy and unjust requisitions upon America. Thus England planted in the soil she fain would exhaust those principles which, in their growth and progress, nursed by the fostering care of her transatlantic children, served to cripple rather than advance the interest of the Mother Country. Her loyal subjects had ascertained their strength and skill by upholding with a firm and fearless hand the interest of England when assailed by the French Colonies; they knew their own prowess could be relied on; they determined not to submit. No occurrence could have produced more surprise; history presents no like instance of folly to the course pursued by the English ministry.

5 Geo. II., c. 22.

1719.

Tribute was levied on every branch of industry; as far as practicable every form of consumption was secured to British manufactures. The manufacture of hats, upon the remonstrance of the London company of hatters, was protected by statute, forbidding the transportation of hats from one plantation to another. The English iron masters, becoming jealous of American industry, the House of Commons passed an act declaring, "that the erecting manufactories in the Colonies tended to lessen their dependence on Great Britain." "In the formation of the colonial system, each European nation valued most the Colonies of which the products interfered less with its own. Jealous of the industry of New England, England saw with exultation the increase of its tropical plantations. It was willing, therefore, to check the North, and favour the South. Hence, permission was given the planters of Carolina, and afterwards of Georgia, to ship their rice directly to any port in Europe south of Cape Finisterre." The Southern plantations were consequently considered of more importance than those of the North. After a long discussion, 6 Geo. II., an act of parliament was passed, esteeming the prosperity of the sugar plantations in America as of the greater consequence to the trade of England;" and likewise imposing a duty of ninepence on every gallon of rum, sixpence on every gallon of molasses, and five shillings

c. 13.

66

on every hundredweight of sugar imported from the Colonies into any of the British plantations;* subjecting, by this unfair system, the trade of the Northern Colonies to that of the West Indies. The inimical and unjust policy of the English government was urged and insisted upon by some of the most prominent statesmen of England; whilst, to add accumulated injury to oppression, George Grenville, in the year 1765, brought forward a measure which, though previously discountenanced, was at this time easily adopted and avariciously seized upon the odious stamp-act-by which every instrument of writing, all law documents, and contracts, were to be void unless written upon stamp-paper. Newspapers, pamphlets, and almanacs, were likewise required to be printed on stamp-paper.

Charles Townshend, when this discussion was under consideration, expressed himself warmly in its behalf. "Children," said he, "planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, till they are grown up to a degree of opulence and strength, and protected by our arms, will they grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the weight of that heavy burden under which we lie?" This elicited a warm and animated reply from Colonel Barre, true, eloquent, and just. "They planted by your care!" said he; "no, they were planted by your oppression; they fled from tyranny to an uncultivated, inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to all the hardships to which human nature is liable. They nourished by your indulgence! they grew up by your neglect. As soon as you began to extend your care, that care was displayed in sending persons to gull them in one department and another, who perhaps were the deputies of deputies to some members of this House; sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon their substance. They protected by your arms! they have nobly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted a valor, amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, whilst its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emolument."

There existed with the ministry a fixed determination, which, originating in pecuniary distress, assumed, when opposed by the best and most enlightened patriots of the realm,

* Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 385.

a party aspect, mingled with acerbity at home, and tempered with a strong resentment towards the Colonies. In vain did the bold and fiery eloquence of the immortal Chatham, urging his own sublimated sense of justice, fall upon the House of Lords; unheeded the deep philosophy of Burke, who, calmly surveying the power of the growing Colonies, persuaded the British Senate to forbear. Side by side stood the statesman and philosopher; strength of eloquence and force of wisdom passed unfelt before a weak and rapacious majority, incited by the parasites of a weaker monarch and the fatlings of his favor.

Conspicuous among the friends of young America, whilst he looked upon her growing energies with tender consideration, exhibiting a patriotism towards the Mother Country founded on genuine principle and foresighted sagacity, stood the Marquis of Granby, who, from the fullest conviction of right, exclaimed,-"I disclaim every idea both of policy and right, internally, to tax America; I disclaim the whole system: it is commenced in iniquity, it is pursued with resentment, and it can terminate in nothing but blood."

Long will be the grateful remembrance, in the bosom of honorable soldiers and distinguished patriots, as they reflect upon the noble bearing of Lord Effingham, who resigned his military commission rather than bear arms in a cause he deemed unholy. Freely expressing himself, he declares in his own emphatic way,-"It is no small sacrifice which a man. makes who gives up his profession; but it is a much greater when a predilection, strengthened by habit, has given him so strong an attachment to his profession as I feel. I have, however, this consolation, that by making this sacrifice I at least give to my country an unequivocal proof of the sincerity of my principles.'

These examples, and this recurrence to the political history of the times, are mentioned in no spirit of complaint, but to show the high and righteous position of the Colonies, in the steps they took towards the Mother Country. Why should any citizen of the United States object? It placed them in the right, invoked the justice of Heaven in their cause, and was the prelude to the development of that principle of liberty which has not only made us a nation of freemen, but shed its halcyon light over the civilized world. The pages of history attest, and the patriot will never forget, how our forefathers marked their very footsteps with blood; and whilst many died

amidst the clash of arms, their memory is more endeared to posterity. Who would not share their glorious lot? Who would not die the death they chose?

The interest of North America was cherished by many who, not conspicuous in the annals of their country, yet with a firm heart and unshaken steadiness of purpose, left their home, to see no more their native hills, to swell the tide of emigration flowing towards the Colonies. England lost many of her most cherished sons and daughters. Ireland, unhappy land, rich though it be in song and genius, poured her chivalric boys and bonnie lasses into this land of promise. There came too from the land of steady habits, from old Scotia's shore, the plain and honest Scotch. These, the pioneers who settled and formed the Colonies into a strong and enduring union, had penetrated the deep forest, and, amidst the difficulties of nature, the prowling wild beasts, and more dreaded savage, planted the white man's habitation. Here, with their friends and families, they discoursed of liberty: the impetuous rivers had been ascended, the forest echoed to the advancing footsteps of civilization. Here hardy industry, that defied the suns of summer and the chilling blast of winter, determined the future destiny of this country; whilst England, experimenting on those feelings imbibed from her own Revolution, unmindful of the power they had acquired in the western wilds, was alike unconscious of the energy she was exerting.

Progress marked the characters of the Colonies. In 1738, forty-one topsail vessels-six thousand three hundred and twenty-four tons-were built in Boston. In its vicinity the increase of population frequently justified the division of townships. The maritime enterprise of Maine became, after the settlement of the French difficulties, flourishing. At the time of the treaty of Utrecht, the inhabitants of the Colonies numbered nearly four hundred thousand; before the termination of peace they were nearly eight hundred thousand. Before the Colonies had assumed a distinctive character, or developed their purpose, many difficulties bore heavily upon them, independent of the acts of direct aggression inflicted. by the English ministry. The financial difficulties of the Colonies were oppressive to the heaviest degree, occasioned by their commercial dependence on the metropolis. It is impossible for a new country to keep free from debt: the