Volume VI Part 18 (1/2)
The Seven Years' War was ended, shamefully and sadly for France; M. de Choiseul, who had concluded peace with regret and a bitter pang, was ardently pursuing every means of taking his revenge. To foment disturbances between England and her colonies appeared to him an efficacious and a natural way of gratifying his feelings. ”There is great difficulty in governing States in the days in which we live,” he wrote to M. Durand, at that time French minister in London; ”still greater difficulty in governing those of America; and the difficulty approaches impossibility as regards those of Asia. I am very much astonished that England, which is but a very small spot in Europe, should hold dominion over more than a third of America, and that her dominion should have no other object but that of trade. . . . As long as the vast American possessions contribute no subsidies for the support of the mother-country, private persons in England will still grow rich for some time on the trade with America, but the State will be undone for want of means to keep together a too extended power; if, on the contrary, England proposes to establish imposts in her American domains, when they are more extensive and perhaps more populous than the mother-country, when they have fis.h.i.+ng, woods, navigation, corn, iron, they will easily part asunder from her, without any fear of chastis.e.m.e.nt, for England could not undertake a war against them to chastise them.” He encouraged his agents to keep him informed as to the state of feeling in America, welcoming and studying all projects, even the most fantastic, that might be hostile to England.
When M. de Choiseul was thus writing to M. Durand, the English government had already justified the fears of its wisest and most sagacious friends.
On the 7th of March, 1765, after a short and unimportant debate, Parliament, on the motion of Mr. George Grenville, then first lord of the treasury, had extended to the American colonies the stamp-tax everywhere in force in England. The proposal had been brought forward in the preceding year, but the protests of the colonists had for some time r.e.t.a.r.ded its discussion. ”The Americans are an ungrateful people,” said Townshend; ”they are children settled in life by our care and nurtured by our indulgence.” Pitt was absent. Colonel Barre rose: ”Settled by your care!” he exclaimed; ”nay, it was your oppression which drove them to America; to escape from your tyranny, they exposed themselves in the desert to all the ills that human nature can endure! Nurtured by your indulgence! Nay, they have grown by reason of your indifference; and do not forget that these people, loyal as they are, are as jealous as they were at the first of their liberties, and remain animated by the same spirit that caused the exile of their ancestors.” This was the only protest. ”n.o.body voted on the other side in the House of Lords,” said George Grenville at a later period.
In America the effect was terrible and the dismay profound. The Virginia House was in session; n.o.body dared to speak against a measure which struck at all the privileges of the colonies and went to the hearts of the loyal gentlemen still pa.s.sionately attached to the mother-country.
A young barrister, Patrick Henry, hardly known hitherto, rose at last, and in an unsteady voice said, ”I propose to the vote of the a.s.sembly the following resolutions: 'Only the general a.s.sembly of this colony has the right and power to impose taxes on the inhabitants of this colony; every attempt to invest with this power any person or body whatever other than the said general a.s.sembly has a manifest tendency to destroy at one and the same time British and American liberties.'” Then becoming more and more animated and rising to eloquence by sheer force of pa.s.sion: ”Tarquin and Caesar,” he exclaimed, ”had each their Brutus; Charles I. had his Cromwell, and George III. . . .” ”Treason! treason!” was shouted on all sides . . . ”will doubtless profit by their example,” continued Patrick Henry proudly, without allowing himself to be moved by the wrath of the government's friends. His resolutions were voted by 20 to 19.
The excitement in America was communicated to England; it served the political purposes and pa.s.sions of Mr. Pitt; he boldly proposed in the House of Commons the repeal of the stamp-tax. ”The colonists,” he said, ”are subjects of this realm, having, like yourselves, a t.i.tle to the special privileges of Englishmen; they are bound by the English laws, and, in the same measure as yourselves, have a right to the liberties of this country. The Americans are the sons and not the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds of England. . . . When in this House we grant subsidies to his Majesty, we dispose of that which is our own; but the Americans are not represented here: when we impose a tax upon them, what is it we do? We, the Commons of England, give what to his Majesty! Our own personal property? No; we give away the property of the Commons of America.
There is absurdity in the very terms.”
The bill was repealed, and agitation was calmed for a while in America.
But ere long, Mr. Pitt resumed office under the t.i.tle of Lord Chatham, and with office he adopted other views as to the taxes to be imposed; in vain he sought to disguise them under the form of custom-house duties; the taxes on tea, gla.s.s, paper, excited in America the same indignation as the stamp-tax. Resistance was everywhere organized.
”Between 1767 and 1771 patriotic leagues were everywhere formed against the consumption of English merchandise and the exportation of American produce; all exchange ceased between the mother-country and the colonies.
To extinguish the source of England's riches in America, and to force her to open her eyes to her madness, the colonists shrank from no privation and no sacrifice: luxury had vanished, rich and poor welcomed ruin rather than give up their political rights” [M. Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire de Was.h.i.+ngton_]. ”I expect nothing more from pet.i.tions to the king,” said Was.h.i.+ngton, already one of the most steadfast champions of American liberties, ”and I would oppose them if they were calculated to suspend the execution of the pact of non-importation. As sure as I live, there is no relief to be expected for us but from the straits of Great Britain.
I believe, or at least I hope, that there is enough public virtue still remaining among us to make us deny ourselves everything but the bare necessaries of life in order to obtain justice. This we have a right to do, and no power on earth can force us to a change of conduct short of being reduced to the most abject slavery. . . .” He added, in a spirit of strict justice: ”As to the pact of non-exportation, that is another thing; I confess that I have doubts of its being legitimate. We owe considerable sums to Great Britain; we can only pay them with our produce. To have a right to accuse others of injustice, we must be just ourselves; and how can we be so if we refuse to pay our debts to Great Britain? That is what I cannot make out.”
The opposition was as yet within the law, and the national effort was as orderly as it was impa.s.sioned. ”There is agitation, there are meetings, there is mutual encouragement to the struggle, the provinces concert opposition together, the wrath against Great Britain grows and the abyss begins to yawn; but such are the habits of order among this people, that, in the midst of this immense ferment among the nation, it is scarcely possible to pick out even a few acts of violence here and there; up to the day when the uprising becomes general, the government of George III.
can scarcely find, even in the great centres of opposition, such as Boston, any specious pretexts for its own violence” [M. Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire de Was.h.i.+ngton_]. The declaration of independence was by this time becoming inevitable when Was.h.i.+ngton and Jefferson were still writing in this strain:
Was.h.i.+ngton to Capt. Mackenzie.
”You are taught to believe that the people of Ma.s.sachusetts are a people of rebels in revolt for independence, and what not. Permit me to tell you, my good friend, that you are mistaken, grossly mistaken. . . .
I can testify, as a fact, that independence is neither the wish nor the interest of this colony or of any other on the continent, separately or collectively. But at the same time you may rely upon it that none of them will ever submit to the loss of those privileges, of those precious rights which are essential to the happiness of every free State, and without which liberty, property, life itself, are devoid of any security.”
Jefferson to Mr. Randolph.
”Believe me, my dear sir, there is not in the whole British empire a man who cherishes more cordially than I do the union with Great Britain.
But, by the G.o.d who made me, I would cease to live rather than accept that union on the terms proposed by Parliament. We lack neither motives nor power to declare and maintain our separation. It is the will alone that we lack, and that is growing little by little under the hand of our king.”
It was indeed growing. Lord Chatham had been but a short time in office; Lord North, on becoming prime minister, zealously promoted the desires of George III. in Parliament and throughout the country. The opposition, headed by Lord Chatham, protested in the name of the eternal principles of justice and liberty against the measures adopted towards the colonies.
”Liberty,” said Lord Chatham, ”is pledged to liberty; they are indissolubly allied in this great cause, it is the alliance between G.o.d and nature, immutable, eternal, as the light in the firmament of heaven!
Have a care; foreign war is suspended over your heads by a thin and fragile thread; Spain and France are watching over your conduct, waiting for the fruit of your blunders; they keep their eyes fixed on America, and are more concerned with the dispositions of your colonies than with their own affairs, whatever they may be. I repeat to you, my lords, if ministers persist in their fatal counsels, I do not say that they may alienate the affections of its subjects, but I affirm that they will destroy the greatness of the crown; I do not say that the king will be betrayed, I affirm that the country will be ruined!”
Franklin was present at this scene. Sent to England by his fellow-countrymen to support their pet.i.tions by his persuasive and dexterous eloquence, he watched with intelligent interest the disposition of the Continent towards his country. ”All Europe seems to be on our side,” he wrote; ”but Europe has its own reasons: it considers itself threatened by the power of England, and it would like to see her divided against herself. Our prudence will r.e.t.a.r.d for a long time yet, I hope, the satisfaction which our enemies expect from our dissensions. . . .
Prudence, patience, discretion; when the catastrophe arrives, it must be clear to all mankind that the fault is not on our side.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Destruction of the Tea----378]
The catastrophe was becoming imminent. Already a riot at Boston had led to throwing into the sea a cargo of tea which had arrived on board two English vessels, and which the governor had refused to send away at once as the populace desired; already, on the summons of the Virginia Convention, a general Congress of all the provinces had met at Philadelphia; at the head of the legal resistance as well as of the later rebellion in arms marched the Puritans of New England and the sons of the Cavaliers settled in Virginia; the opposition, tumultuous and popular in the North, parliamentary and political in the South, was everywhere animated by the same spirit and the same zeal. ”I do not pretend to indicate precisely what line must be drawn between Great Britain and the colonies,” wrote Was.h.i.+ngton to one of his friends, ”but it is most decidedly my opinion that one must be drawn, and our rights definitively secured.” He had but lately said: ”n.o.body ought to hesitate a moment to employ arms in defence of interests so precious, so sacred, but arms ought to be our last resource.”
The day had come when this was the only resource henceforth remaining to the Americans. Stubborn and irritated, George III. and his government heaped vexatious measures one upon another, feeling sure of crus.h.i.+ng down the resistance of the colonists by the ruin of their commerce as well as of their liberties. ”We must fight,” exclaimed Patrick Henry at the Virginia Convention, ”I repeat it, we must fight; an appeal to arms and to the G.o.d of Hosts, that is all we have left.” Armed resistance was already being organized, in the teeth of many obstacles and notwithstanding active or tacit opposition on the part of a considerable portion of the people.
It was time to act. On the 18th of April, 1775, at night, a picked body of the English garrison of Boston left the town by order of General Gage, governor of Ma.s.sachusetts. The soldiers were as yet in ignorance of their destination, but the American patriots had divined it. The governor had ordered the gates to be closed; some of the inhabitants, however, having found means of escaping, had spread the alarm in the country; already men were repairing in silence to posts a.s.signed in antic.i.p.ation. When the king's troops, on approaching Lexington, expected to lay hands upon two of the princ.i.p.al movers, Samuel Adams and John Hanc.o.c.k, they came into collision, in the night, with a corps of militia blocking the way. The Americans taking no notice of the order given them to retire, the English troops, at the instigation of their officers, fired; a few men fell; war was begun between England and America. That very evening, Colonel Smith, whilst proceeding to seize the ammunition depot at Concord, found himself successively attacked by detachments hastily formed in all the villages; he fell back in disorder beneath the guns of Boston.
Some few days later the town was besieged by an American army, and the Congress, meeting at Philadelphia, appointed Was.h.i.+ngton ”to be general- in-chief of all the forces of the united colonies, of all that had been or should be levied, and of all others that should voluntarily offer their services or join the said army to defend American liberty and to repulse every attack directed against it.”
George Was.h.i.+ngton was born on the 22d of February,