Volume I Part 26 (1/2)
DISCUSSION BETWEEN CHARLES TOWNSEND AND COLONEL BARRe IN THE DEBATE ON Pa.s.sING THE STAMP ACT, REFERRED TO ON PAGE 293.
It was during the discussion on this Bill that Colonel Barre made the famous retort to Mr. Charles Townsend, head of the Board of Trade. Mr.
Townsend made an able speech in support of the Bill and the equity of the taxation, and insisted that the colonies had borne but a small proportion of the expenses of the last war, and had yet obtained by it immense advantages at a vast expense to the mother country. He concluded in the following words:
”And now will these American children, planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms, grudge to contribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy burden under which we lie?”
As he sat down, Colonel Barre rose and replied with great energy, and, under the influence of intense excitement, uttered the following impa.s.sioned retort to the concluding words of Charles Townsend's speech:
”_They planted by your care!_ No; your oppressions planted them in America. They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated, inhospitable country, where they exposed themselves to almost all the hards.h.i.+ps to which human nature is liable, and among others to the cruelties of a savage foe--the most subtle, and I will take upon me to say the most formidable of any people upon the face of G.o.d's earth; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hards.h.i.+ps with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country from the hands of those who should have been their friends.
”_They nourished by your indulgence!_ They grew by your neglect of them.
As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them, in one department and another, who were perhaps the deputies of deputies to some members of this House, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them; men whose behaviour, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those _sons of liberty_ to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest seats of justice--some who, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of a Court of justice in their own.
”_They protected by your arms!_ They have n.o.bly taken up arms in your defence; have exerted a valour amidst their constant and laborious industry, for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And, believe me--remember, I this day told you so--the same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany them still. But prudence forbids me to explain myself further. G.o.d knows, I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat; what I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body of this House may be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conversant in that country. The people, I believe, are as truly loyal as any subjects the King has; but a people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them if ever they should be violated.
But the subject is too delicate; I will say no more.”
_Remarks on the Speeches of Mr. Charles Townsend and Colonel Barre._
Perhaps the English language does not present a more eloquent and touching appeal than these words of Colonel Barre, the utterances of a sincere and patriotic heart. They were taken down by a friend at the time of delivery, sent across the Atlantic, published and circulated in every form throughout America, and probably produced more effect upon the minds of the colonists than anything ever uttered or written. Very likely not one out of a thousand of those who have read them, carried away by their eloquence and fervour, has ever thought of a.n.a.lysing them to ascertain how far they are just or true; yet I am bound to say that their misstatements are such as to render their argument fallacious from beginning to end, with the exception of their just tribute to the character of the American colonists.
The words of Charles Townsend were insulting to the colonists to the last degree, and were open to the severest rebuke. He a.s.sumed that because the settlements in America were infant settlements, in comparison with those of the mother country, the settlers themselves were but children, and should be treated as such; whereas the fathers of new settlements and their commerce, the guiding spirits in their advancement, are the most advanced men of their nation and age, the pioneers of enterprise and civilization; and as such they are ent.i.tled to peculiar respect and consideration, instead of their being referred to as children, and taxed without their consent by men who, whatever their rank in the society and public affairs of England, could not compare with them in what const.i.tuted real manhood greatness. But though Charles Townsend's insulting haughtiness to the American colonists, and his proposal to treat them as minors, dest.i.tute of the feelings and rights of grown-up Englishmen, merited the severest rebuke, yet that did not justify the statements and counter-pretensions on which Colonel Barre founded that rebuke. Let us briefly examine some of his statements.
1. He says that the oppressions of England planted the settlers in America, who fled from English tyranny to a then uncultivated, inhospitable country.
In reply it may be affirmed, as a notorious fact, that the southern and middle colonies, even to Pennsylvania, were nationalized by the kings of England from their commencement, and were frequently a.s.sisted by both King and Parliament. The Dutch and the Swedes were the fathers of the settlements of New York and New Jersey. The ”Pilgrim Fathers,” the founders of the Plymouth colony, did, however, flee from persecution in England in the first years of King James, but found their eleven years'
residence in Holland less agreeable than settlement under English rule, or rather English indulgence, in America. The founders of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bay settlement were a Puritan section of the Church of England, of which they professed to be devoted members after they embarked for America. A wealthy company of them determined to found a settlement in America, where they could enjoy the pure wors.h.i.+p of the Church of England without the ceremonies enjoined by Archbishop Laud--where they could convert the savage Indians, and pursue the fur and fish trade, and agriculture; but they were no more driven to America by the ”tyranny” of England, than the hundreds of thousands of Puritans who remained in England, overthrew the monarchy, beheaded the king, abolished the Church of England, first established Presbyterianism and then abolished it, and determined upon the establishment of Congregationalism at the moment of Cromwell's death. But those ”Puritan Fathers” who came to Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, actually came under the auspices of a ”Royal Charter,” which they cherished as the greatest boon conferred upon any people. But among their first acts after their arrival at Ma.s.sachusetts Bay was that to abolish the Church of England wors.h.i.+p itself, and set up the Congregational wors.h.i.+p in its place; to proscribe the Common Prayer Book, and forbid its use even in private families, and to banish those who persisted in its use. And instead of converting and christianizing the savage heathen--the chief professed object of their emigration, and so expressed in their Royal Charter of incorporation--they never sent a missionary or established a school among them for more than twelve years; and then the first and long the only missionary among the Indians was John Elliott, self-appointed, and supported by contributions from England. But during those twelve years, and afterwards, they slew the Indians by thousands, as the Canaanites and Amalekites, to be rooted out of the land which G.o.d had given to ”the saints” (that is, to themselves), to be possessed and enjoyed by them.
The savage foe, whose arms were bows and arrows,[276] were made ”formidable” in defence of their homes, which they had inherited from their forefathers; and if, in defence and attempted recovery of their homes when driven from them, they inflicted, after their own mode of warfare, ”cruelties” upon their invaders, yet they themselves were the greatest sufferers, almost to annihilation.[277]
2. ”The colonies being nourished by the indulgence” of England, a.s.sumed by Charles Townsend, is the second ground of Colonel Barre's retort, who affirmed that the colonies grew by England's neglect of them, and that as soon as she began to care for them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them in one department or another, etc.
In reply, let it be remembered that three out of the four New England colonies--Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut--elected their own governors and officers from the beginning to the end of their colonial existence, as did Ma.s.sachusetts during the first half century of her first Charter, which she forfeited by her usurpations, persecutions, and encroachments upon the rights of others, as I have shown in Chapter VI.
of this history; and it has been shown in Chapter VII., on the authority of Puritan ministers, jurists, and historians, that during the seventy years that Ma.s.sachusetts was ruled under the second Royal Charter, her governors being appointed by the Crown, she advanced in social unity, in breadth and dignity of legislation, and in equity of government, commerce, and prosperity, beyond anything she had enjoyed and manifested under the first Charter--so much so, that the neighbouring colonies would have gladly been favoured with her system of government. It is possible there may have been individual instances of inefficiency, and even failure of character, in some officers of the Government during a period of seventy years, as is the case in all Governments, but such instances were few, if they occurred at all, and such as to afford no just pretext for the rhapsody and insinuations of Colonel Barre on the subject.
3. In the third place, Colonel Barre denied that the colonies had been defended by the arms of England, and said, on the contrary, ”they have n.o.bly taken arms in your defence.” It is true the colonists carried on their own local contests with the Indians. The northern colonies conceived the idea of driving the French out of America, and twice attacked Quebec for that purpose, but they failed; and the French and Indians made such encroachments upon them that they implored aid from England ”to prevent their being driven into the sea.” It was not until England ”n.o.bly took up arms” in their behalf, and sent navies and armies for their ”defence,” that the progress of French arms and Indian depredations were arrested in America, and the colonists were delivered from enemies who had disturbed their peace and endangered their safety for more than a century. At the close of the last French war, the colonies themselves, through their Legislatures, gratefully acknowledged their indebtedness to the mother country for their deliverance and safety, which, without her aid, they said they never could have secured.
APPENDIX B.
OPINIONS OF MR. GRENVILLE, MR. PITT, AND LORD CAMDEN (FORMERLY CHIEF JUSTICE PRATT) ON THE STAMP ACT AND ITS REPEAL.
The great commoner, Pitt, was not present in the Commons when the Declaratory and Stamp Acts were pa.s.sed in 1765; but he was present at one sitting when an address to the King, in reply to a speech from the Throne, relating to opposition in America to the Stamp Act, was discussed, and in which the propriety of repealing that Act was mooted and partially argued. Mr. Pitt held the right of Parliament to impose external taxes on the colonies by imposing duties on goods imported into them, but not to impose internal taxes, such as the Stamp Act imposed.
In the course of his speech Mr. Pitt said:
”It is a long time since I have attended in Parliament. When the resolution was taken in the House to tax America, I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it. It is now an Act that has been pa.s.sed. I would speak with decency of every act of this House; but I must beg the indulgence to speak of it with freedom.
”As my health and life are so very infirm and precarious, that I may not be able to attend on the day that may be fixed by this House for the consideration of America, I must now, though somewhat unseasonably, leaving the expediency of the Stamp Act to some other time, speak to a point of infinite moment--I mean the right. On a question that may mortally wound the freedom of three millions of virtuous and brave subjects beyond the Atlantic Ocean, I cannot be silent. America being neither really nor virtually represented in Westminster, cannot be held legally, or const.i.tutionally, or reasonably subject to obedience to any money bill of this kingdom. The colonies are, equally with yourselves, ent.i.tled to all the natural rights of mankind, and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by the laws, and equally partic.i.p.ating in the const.i.tution of this free country. The Americans are the sons, not the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, of England. As subjects, they are ent.i.tled to the common right of representation, and cannot be bound to pay taxes without their consent....
”The Commons of America, represented in their several a.s.semblies, have ever been in possession of the exercise of this their const.i.tutional right, of giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it....