34 ORATORS DID NOT TAKE A LEADING PART. solidly on his centre. They chose, universally, delegates for the convention.' He was himself returned for his own county." * Throughout the whole course of his career, Jefferson preserved this faculty of accurately fathoming the masses, this capacity of exciting them, and this repugnance to addressing public assemblies otherwise than by writing, or through intermediate agents. It is in allusion to this latter trait that the fiery and conceited John Adams, who had been a greater orator and a less able statesman than Jefferson, informs us in his memoirs, with a mixed tone of triumph and disparagement, that his successful competitor in the election for the presidency of the United States had been one of the most silent members in congress. I never heard him utter three sentences together.' He then adds, with a melancholy reference to himself: 'From all I have read of the history of Greece and Rome, England and France, and all I have observed at home and abroad, eloquence in public assemblies is not the surest road to fame or preferment at least, unless it be used with caution, very rarely, and with great reserve. The examples of Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson are enough to show that silence and reserve in public are more efficacious than argumentation or oratory. A public speaker who inserts himself, or is urged by others, into the conduct of affairs, by daily exertions to justify his measures, and answer the objections of opponents, makes himself too familiar with the public, and unavoidably makes himself enemies.'t Never, in fact, did any orator during the American revolution play so great a part as Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington; but has Adams given us the correct Jefferson's Works, Autobiography, vol. i. p. 7. † John Adams's Works, vol. ii. p. 511. THEIR REAL AND EFFECTIVE SERVICES. 35 explanation of the fact? I take the liberty of doubting it. The distance of the colonial assemblies from one another, the standing orders of congress, the particular character of this revolution, which owed its victory, not to intestine struggles between classes and parties, but to a war of power against power, militated against the possibility of a statesman taking the lead in America by the influence of his eloquence. Each province, each city, had its platform; the United States had no national platform from which an orator could address the whole country; congress deliberated with closed doors; those of its members who were instructed to promulgate the result of its deliberations were the only persons who had an opportunity of making their services known to the country. The act, moreover, by which it consummated the revolution, putting an end to the hesitations of the people, also put an end to any great internal discussion, left nothing surviving but a question of international right, which could be decided only by war or diplomacy, and which made the future success of the revolution depend, not on the energy of debate, but on the courage of soldiers, and the dexterity of diplomatists. Supposing their merits to be otherwise equal, the patriots who, in the secret deliberations of the great national council, secured the victory by their eloquence to the policy of colonial emancipation, could not expect so universal a renown as the fortunate writer who announced the declaration of independence to the world, the able negotiator who caused it to be accepted by Europe, and the virtuous general who compelled Great Britain to acknowledge it. It is, therefore, all the more incumbent on the historian to bring more fully into light the grandeur of their services, and the difficulty of their task, which 36 RELUCTANCE TO BREAK WITH ENGLAND. * there is a considerable tendency in the present day to underrate. The rupture between America and England appears to us so simple a fact, was foreseen in Europe so long before it occurred, and has been so rich in fortunate results, that it requires a certain amount of effort, on our part, in order to believe that it was not eagerly desired by the colonies long before the War of Independence broke out; and when we hear John Adams, Jay, Madison, and Jefferson protesting vehemently against the insulting imputations' of Botta, charging them and their fellow-countrymen with not having been thoroughly sincere in their continued protestations of fidelity to George III.-when we hear them speaking of the opposition they encountered within their own country on the day when, compelled by a sense of duty, they came to the painful determination of breaking off all connection with the mother country-we are rather apt, on this side of the Atlantic, to accuse them of having, in the account they give of their inward feelings, been guilty of historical duplicity, the more effectually to conceal their political duplicity; and also of having exaggerated the difficulties they had to grapple with, the better to give an exaggerated impression of their own merits. Nothing is more unfounded. Therefore, were it only from a feeling of equity, the history of the growth and developement of the idea of independence could hardly find a more appropriate place than in this sketch of the man whose name has been identified with its triumph. Life and Works of Jay, vol. ii. Writings of Washington, vol. ii. pp. 497. pp. 410-417. Life and CHAPTER III. 1750-1776. THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE BRITISH COLONIES IN NORTH CANS ABOUT THEIR RIGHTS INDEPENDENCE (1770) — VARIOUS THEORIES OF THE AMERI- DECIDES IN FAVOUR OF A RUPTURE, AND PLAYED IN IT CONGRESS PETITIONS THE KING FOR THE LAST TIME THE MAJORITY OF THE COUNTRY CONGRESS A RECONCILIATION CONGRESS LOOKS OUT FOR ALLIANCES IN COLONIES are like fruits, which adhere to the tree only until they are ripe. The instant they suffice to themselves, they do what Carthage did, what America 38 IDEA OF INDEPENDENCE: ITS GROWTH. will one day do;'* so said Turgot in 1750. The thirteen colonies of North America contained at that time about 1,260,000 souls; the population doubled every twenty years, and John Adams could already exclaim, in his patriotic pride: 'It looks likely to me, for if we can remove the turbulent Gallicks (from Canada), our people, according to the exactest computations, will in another century become more numerous than England itself. And then the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue us.' + The reverses experienced in America by the British arms at the beginning of the Seven Years' War, far from shaking the confidence of the colonies in their resources, moved them to great discontent against the government which had so mismanaged them : 'Some persons,' said John Adams, 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. 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." In 1758 and 1759, 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 Great 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.'t * Euvres de Turgot, vol. ii. p. 66. See his second discourse, delivered at the Sorbonne, on Dec. 11, 1750. † John Adams's Works, vol. i. p. 23; vol. ix. pp. 591, 597. John Adams's Works, vol. x. pp. 394, 373. |