^0 O ,0 a r - ^^^ -^c^. ^' ^^- ^^^ .'^V A <:> 1 -f .^' .<^ ..^^ ^-^ ^ ! Z^^' ;% , . =» •^^^""^. -^^ v^^ .0 o o> Xl ""-p. o^ ■T'^ .^^ THE HISTORY American Rea^olution; COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE WESTERN WORLD FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES. BY Wl'^'n'r^^B ART LETT, AUTHOR OF "WALKS ABOUT JERUSALEM," "FOOTSTEPS OF OUR LOUD AND HIS APOSTLES, "FORTY DAYS IN THE DESERT,'" "THE NILE BOAT," "GLEANINGS ON THE OVERLAND ROUTE," "PICTURES FROM SICILY," &C., &C. 1^ -9>-t^7- NEW YORK : THE ARUNDEL PRINT. Copyright, 1881, BY JOHN D. WILLIAMS. ^^1 oQj THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. PREFACE. Next after the study of Eevealed Truth, that of history has been wisely affirmed to be the duty of every man who would discipline his understanding, enlarge his sympathies, and look over the wide domain of human affairs from the loftiest point of view which it is permitted to mortals to attain. The love of liberty to which the Eepublic of the United States owes its origin was cultivated under such circumstances of profound difficulty, and the stirring scenes of romantic adventure that attended the achievement of our national independence on the battle-field give the history of the early growth and foundation of our country an interest that does not attach to any other. This volume narrates the discovery and colonization of the country, and the earlier and more momentous disputes regarding its possession ; the arbitrary rule of the imperial government of Great Britain, owing to which the desire and capacity for political liberty were nurtured, and the events of the war by which the Independence of the United States was effected. The materials employed in the composition of ^ PREFACE. this history have been for the most part the letters. State papers, and records ivhich are the original sources for the yarious periods, and special care has been taken to authenticate them before their use. W. H. BARTLETT. 4bIL^ ^"^9 C-^y'/tC^ ' :iJC9U CONTENTS. BOOK I. FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT OF AMERICA TO THE FIRST INTERCOLONIAL WAR. CHAPTER I. • PASB Earliest Discoveries in North America.— Sebastian Cabot.— Verezzani. — Corte- REAL.— WllLOUGHBT AND ChANCELOUR.— CARTIER AND THE FRENCH IN CANADA.— DIS- COVERT or THE Mississippi by De Soto. — The Huguenots and Catholics in Florida. 1 CHAPTER II. Gilbert's Expedition to Newfoundland. — Discovert of Virginia, and First Attempts AT its Colonization. — Gosnold's Voyages 23 CHAPTER III. Settlement of New France. — The Jesuits at Mount Desert Island.— Discoveries of Champlain. — Foundation of Quebec. — Destruction of Port Royal 49 CHAPTER IV. Voyages and Discovert of Henrt Hudson. — Settlement of New Netherlands. . . 53 CHAPTER V. The Pilgrim Fathers. — Robinson and his Church in England and at Letden. — Nego- tiations. — Voyage of the Mayflower. — Hardships and Mortality.— Settlement AT Plymouth 57 CHAPTER VI. Colony of Massachusetts Bay. — Preliminary Attempts. — Emigration under Win- throp. — Establishment of the Theocracy. — Religious Intolerance. — Roger Wil- liams AND Mrs. Hutchinson. — Foundation of Connecticut. — The Pequod War. . 75 CHAPTER VII. Colonization op Maryland by Lord Baltimore.— Its Advantages and Progress.— Dis- pute with Clayborne. — Establishment of Religious Toleration 88 CHAPTER VIII. The New England States during the Parliament.— Persecutions op the Baptists and Quakers in Massachusetts. — Elliot and the Indians. — General Progress of the Northern Colonies 91 vii viii CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER IX. The Aboriginal Indians. — Their Physical and Mental Characteristics, Customs, Manners, Antiquities, and Languages 110 CHAPTER X. Progress op New Netherlands. — Dissolution of New Sweden. — Difficulties with Connecticut.— Capture of New York by the English.— Recapture by the Dutch, AND Final Cession to England • , . .118 CHAPTER XI. Continuation of the History of Virginia, from the Death of James I. to the Deposition of James II 127 CHAPTER XII. Foundation of Carolina. — Locke's System of Legislation found Unsuitable. — Dif- ficulties with the Colonists. — Abrogation of the "Grand Model." . . . 138 CHAPTER XIII. Affairs of Massachusetts, from the Accession of Charles II. to the Deposition of James II. — Difficulties with the English Government.— War with Philip of Pokanoket.— Abrogation of the Charter.— Affairs of the other Colonies. 145 CHAPTER XIV. Foundation of Pennsylvania.— Life of Penn.— Grant from Charles II.— Establish- ment op the Colony.— Dispute with the Settlers 164 CHAPTER XV. Progress of New France.— The Jesuits.— Their Discoveries.— Descent of the Mis- sissippi.— Expedition of La Salle 172 BOOK II. ! FROM THE FIRST INTERCOLONIAL WAR TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. CHAPTER I. Incidents of the First, Second, and Third Intercolonial, Wars.— "Witchcraft De- lusion in New England.— Foundation op Georgia 183 CHAPTER II. General Progress of the Colonies during the Period of the Intercolonial Wars. —Massachusetts. — New York. —Pennsylvania. —Virginia. — The Carolinas.— Georgia. — Louisiana 204 CHAPTER III. General View of the Colonies before the Revolution.— Religion.— Education.— The Press.— Slavery.— State of the Towns and Country.— Militia.— Currency. — Post Office, etc 216 CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER IV. PAGE Final Struggle between the French and English, terminating in the Conquest OF Canada, and the Cession of North America to the British Crown. . . 239 CHAPTER V. From the Conquest of Canada to the Repeal of the Stamp Act 281 CHAPTER VI. From the Repeal of the Stamp Act to the Passing of the Boston Port Bill. . 297 CHAPTER VII. From the Passing of the Boston Port Bill to the Declaration of Independence. 329 BOOK III. FROM THE DECLAEATION OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. CHAPTER I. Campaign of 1776.— Battle of Gowanus. — Retreat of Washington- through New Jersey.— Engagement on Lake Ticonderoga.— Success at Trenton.— Battle of Princeton, etc. . . • 395 CHAPTER II. Proceedings op Congress. — Campaign of 1777. — Battle op the Brandtwine. — Occu- pation OF Philadelphia. — Expedition and Surrender of Burgotne. — Battle of Germantown. — Conway Cabal.— Winter Encampment at Valley Forge. . . 416 CHAPTER III. Alliance with France. — Lord North's Measures of Conciliation. — Battle of Monmouth. — Affair of Newport. — Destruction of Wyoming. — End of the Cam- paign OF 1778 . 457 CHAPTER IV. Campaign of 1779. — Reduction of Georgia.— State op the South.— Storming op Stony Point.— Repulse of D'Estaing at Savannah. — Affairs in Congress. — Paul Jones. — Encampment in the Highlands 468 CHAPTER V. Campaign of 1780.— Capture of Charleston.— State of the Southern Provinces.— Battle of Camden. — Arrival of the French under Rochambeau. — Treason op Arnold and Execution of Andre. — Franklin at Paeis. — ^Armed Neutrality. . 477 CHAPTER VI. Campaign of 1781. — Mutiny of the Troops. — Greene and Cornwallis ln the South. — Investment and Capture of Torktown. — Battle of Eutaw Springs. — Treaty OF Peace.— Massacre of Gnadenhutten.— Retirement of Washington. . . .503 BOOK I. FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT OF AMERICA, TO THE FIRST INTERCOLONIAL WAR. HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. CHAPTER I. EARLIEST DISCOTERIES IN NORTH AMERICA. — SEBASTIAN CABOT. — VEREZZANI. — CORTEREAl. — ■WILLOtTGHBY AND CHANCELOUR. — CARTIER AND THE FRENCH IN CANADA. — DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY SOTO. — THE HUGUENOTS AND CATHOLICS IN FLORIDA. On the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the neighhouring kingdom of Portugal, arose, in the fifteenth century, that sj^irit of maritime adventure of which the first-fruits were to he the discovery of a New World. The ma- riners' compass, invented by a native of the little republic of Amalphi, had given an impiilse to navigation, and citizens of Genoa and Florence, the seats of reviving art, science, and literature, were the principal pioneers of daring and successful enterprise. To find a shorter path to the riches of the East, of which Marco Polo had recently given such glowing accounts, Columbus, steering boldly across the western ocean beyond the known limits of naviga- tion, lighted upon the verge of that vast continent, of the true nature of which he died without entertaining a suspicion. To Amerigo Vespucci, the first to conjecture its real import, was destined the glory of giving to it a name As succeeding adventurers followed up the track, they were astonished at dis- covering in INIexico, and in Central and Southern America, states which had long subsisted in a high degree of civilization and luxury ; and the accounts of the chroniclers who accompanied them teem with expressions of surprise at the magnificence of their monuments, the remains of which have been so accurately broug'ht before us by recent travellers. Not such was then the condition of the northern half of this great continent, which was destined to afford a lasting seat to the power and enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon race. Along the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries, were scattered, indeed, at wide intervals, the vestiges of p-rior occupation, mounds, partly natural and partly improved by art, walls and fortifica- tions, exclusively composed of earth, with arms, pottery, and other traces of the former occ^^pation of semi-civilized tribes, to which tradition but dimly pointed. But the whole sea-board, from the shores of the Northern Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, was entirely destitute even of these rude vestiges, and 3 EARLIEST EXPLORERS OF AMERICA. [1492. tKe vast primeval foi'ests with which it was covered were exclusively occu- pied as hunting grounds by the roaming savages of the Red Race. Traditions of a discovery of America long anterior to that of Columbus are contained in the ancient Chronicle of Glaus, who relates that the hardy Nor- wegian rovers who colonized Iceland as early as the year 874, left also settlers in Greenland, who, in A. D. 982, launched westward, and finding there a milder scat of habitation, and woody valleys overgrown with wild vines, gave to it the name of Vinland, supjDOsed to be identical with Massachusetts or Rhode Island. Danish antiquaries confidently adduce elaborate, and what they consider irrefragable, evidence of this early settlement, and of successive visits to the same coasts ; but their opinions, though not without advocates, are by no means generally received by American antiquaries, and cannot be cited as a portion of authentic history. To England justly belongs the claim to the first indisputable discovery of the northei'n continent. Her hardy sailors had long acquired their character- istic nerve and sinew in buiFeting the stormy seas of their own coasts and the neighbouring continent, and even in trading voyages to Iceland. The country was emerging from the confusion occasioned by the wars of the Roses iinder the prudent and thrifty management of Henry VII. Yet the spirit of intel- lectual culture and enlightened enterprise which centred in Italy, Portugal, and the Hanse Towns had scarcely as yet penetrated to England, and thus we find that, after the success of Columbus had given the first impulse to voj^ages of discovery, they were still for some time projected and carried out by the agency of foreigners. — " I cannot," says Charlevoix, " dispense with a passing remark. It is very glorious to Italy, that the three powers which now divide between them almost the whole of America, owe their first discoveries to Italians — the Spanish to Columbus, a Genoese, the English to John Cabot and his sons, Venetians, and the French to Verezzani, a citizen of Florence." Giovanni Gaboto or Cabot, had settled in Bristol, then the second port in England; and it is a singular coincidence, that this ancient city, which sent forth the first fleet of discovery to North America, should have also equipped the famous " Great "Western " steam ship, the first expressly con- structed to shorten the communication with that continent, which the lapse of three centuries had so astonishingly altered. At this sea-port the expedi- tion " was bound and holden only to arrive." The Commission, signed at Westminster on the 5th of March, 1495, (in less than two years after the return of Columbus from America,) authorized Cabot, with his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancho, " to seeke out and discover whatsoever isles, countreys, regions, or provinces of the infidels and heathen," to set up the royal " banners and ensigns in every village, towne, castle, isle, or continent," to take possession of them, and to carry on an exclusive trade with the inhabit- ants, reserving a fifth part of the profits to the crown. The British merchants equipped four vessels ; another, on board of which John Cabot himself cm- barked, with his son Sebastian, born to him at Bristol, was furnished by the parsimonious monarch. Of their first voyage the records are but scanty — but it 1497.] SEBASTIAN CABOT. 3 is certain that they were the real discoverers of the continent of America. On the 24th of June/l497, about five in the morning, they fell in with that land " which no man before that time had attempted." The land they called Prima Vista, or first seen, generally regarded as part of the coast of Labrador, Shortly after they reached an island, which, as being descried upon the day of St. John the Baptist, they called St. John's Island. Thus England had the glory of the first discovery of North America, and acquired such right of preoccupa- tion as this circumstance was supposed to confer. The enterprise, but timidly encouraged by Henry, was now more vigorously pursued. A new patent was granted, and Sebastian Cabot undertook a second voyage, in destination and result differing little from the first, save that he is supposed to have followed the coast as far southward as Virginia. He is reputed to have made a third, but the accounts respecting it are not clear ; Robertson and other writers mention but one voyage, and the details given by Hakluyt are confused. Mr. Bancroft considers that " the main fact is indisputable," that Cabot entered Hudson's Bay, and, still bent on the great object ever present to the adventurers of that age, the discovery of a North- west passage to " Cathai," which is in the East, the China of which Marco Polo had given such glowing accounts, and the " bringing of the spiceries from India into Europe." Finding the sea still open, he continued his course until he had advanced so far toward the North Pole, that even in the month of July he found monstrous heaps of ice floating in the sea, when a for- tunate mutiny of his sailors, forcing him to return, in all probability saved the intrepid adventurer from destruction. This third voyage from England of Sebastian Cabot is supposed to have taken place after he had entered into the service of Spain, as pilot major to Charles V., under whose auspices he made a vovage into South America. The discovery of a passage to the Indies still continued to be the favourite object of his hopes. He suggested to the com- pany of merchants adventurers the disastrous enterprise in which Hugh "S^^il- loughby and Chancelour perished, which, though it failed in its object, led to the discovery of Archangel. This great navigator was more fortunate than most of the early pioneers of American enterprise. He lived to escape the perils of many voyages, and he died full of years and honours. " Wearing old," he says, " I give myself to rest from my travels, because there are now many young and lustie pilots and mariners of good experience, by whose forwardnesse I doe rejoice in the fruit of my labours." Although he founded no colonies in the countries he discovered, he may thus be said to have formed a school of intrepid explorers, and by his example and instructions to have given a great impulse in England to that spirit of maritime adventure which has since become the national characteristic. During the long reign of Henry VIII. this spirit continued to gain ground among the English, whose expeditions now extended from the sunny shores of the Mediterranean to the icy seas of the North. The monarch him- self, though too much absorbed by his own selfish passions, his controversy with the see of Rome, and the struggle between Charles V. and Francis I., to B 2 4 THE KORTH-EAST PASSAGE. [1554. take a lively interest in the progress of discovery, was not altogether neg- lectful of the bold adventurers, whose courage and success had already began to pronipt the jealousy of Spain. To one expedition to the North-west, at least, he lent his " good countenance," as well as some slight assistance. This was the voyage of Hore and his conij)anions, related by Hakluyt, from the statements of a sole survivor of miseries, so extreme, that many perished with hunger ; and others, if his story be true, were reduced to the horrors of cannibalism. All attempts at settlement were as yet abortive, but the fisheries of Newfoundland, long frequented by the French mariners, were also prosecuted by the English with activity and success, so much as to lead to parliamentary regulations for their encouragement. But the discovery of the passage to India still continued to be the object that agitated the hardiest and most sanguine spirits. Sebastian Cabot, unde- terred by his own fruitless attemjDts, had, as before observed, proposed a course by the North-east, and a company of adventurers being formed, he was ap- pointed governor, and framed a set of instructions derived from his own experience, the command of the expedition being given to Sir Hugh Wil- loughby. " At the first setting forth of these North-eastern discoverers," as Hakluyt well observes, " they Avere almost altogether destitute of clear lights and inducements, or if they had an inkling at all, it was misty as they found the northern seas, and so obscure and ambiguous, that it was meet rather to deter than to give them encouragement. Into what dangers and difficulties they plunged themselves,". says the old chronicler, "' animus meminisse horret,' I tremble to relate. For first they were to expose themselves unto the rigour of the stern and uncouth northern seas, and to make trial of the swelling waves and boisterous winds which there commonly do surge and blow." The " drifts of snow and mountains of ice, even in the summer, the hideous overfalls, un- certaine currents, darke mistes and fogs, and other fearful inconveniences," which the English adventurers had to encounter, he contrasts with " the milde, lightsome, and temperate Atlantick Ocean, over which the Spaniards and Portuguese have made so many pleasant, prosperous, and golden voyages, to the satisfaction oi t\\Q\v fame-lhirsiy and (jold-iliirsii/ minds, with that reputa- tion and wealth Avhich made all misadventures seem tolerable unto them." Willoughby and Chancelour were divided by storms, and after doubling the " di-eadful and mistie North Cape," the terrors of a polar winter surprised them, but with very different issue. The former sought shelter in an obscure harbour of Laj)land, to die a fearful and a lingering death. In the following spring his retreat was discovered, the corpses of the frozen sailors lay about the ship, Willoughby was found dead in his cabin, his journal detailing the hor- rible sufferings to which they had been reduced. Chancelour, more fortunate, entered the White Sea, and found a secure shelter in the harbour of Archangel. Here the astonished Muscovites received their first foreign visitors with great hospitality, and Chancelour, on learning the vastness of the empire he had discovered, repaired to Moscow, and presented to the czar, John Vasolowitz, a letter with which each ship had been furnished by Edward VI. The czar 1534.] DISCOVERY OF NORTH CAROLINA. 5 dismissed Chancelour with great respect, and by an invitation to trade v/ith his subjects, opened to the English a new and promising career of commerce. The French, as avcU as the Enghsh, had entered at an early period into the pursuit of the northern fisheries. Even in 1504, the boats of the hardy I^orman and Breton mariners were in the habit of visiting the Great Bank, and in Charlevoix's time, it was in the memory of the oldest mariners that Denys, an inhabitant of Honfleur, had even traced a map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Francis I., emulous of the additional splendour of renown and wealth which the discoveries of the Spaniards bestowed on the kingdom of his rival, Charles V., and desirous perhaps of giving the same encourage- ment to maritime adventure that he had bestowed on literature and art, engaged Juan Verezzani, a Florentine, to explore, on his behalf, new regions in the unknown AVest. With a single vessel, the Dolphin, this mariner left Madeira, and was the first to fall in with the middle continent of North America. The description of his discoveries given to the sovereign who had sent him forth, and the earliest ever penned, has all the freshness and vivid colouring of a first impression. After " as sharp and terrible a tempest as ever sailors suffered, whereof with the Divine help and merciful assistance of Almighty God, and the good- ness of our ship, accompanied with the good-hap of her fortrmate name, (the Dolphin,) we were delivered, and with a prosperous wind followed our course west and by north, and in other twenty-five days we made above 400 leagues more, when we discovered a new land, never before seen of any, either ancient or modern." This was the low, level coast of North Carolina, along which, illumined at night by great fires, they sailed fifty leagues in search of a harbour ; — at length they cast anchor and sent a boat on shore. The wondering natives at first fled to the woods, yet still would stand and look back, beholding the ship and sailors " with great admiration," and at the friendly signs of the latter, came down to the shore, " marvelling greatly at their apparel, shape, and whiteness." Beyond the sandy coast, intersected " with rivers and arms of the sea," they saw " the open country rising in height with many fair fields and plains, full of mightie great woods," some dense and others more open, replenished with different trees, " as plea- sant and delectable to behold as it is possible to imagine. And your Majesty may not think," says the Florentine, " that these are like the woods of Hercynia, or the wild deserts of Tartary, and the northern coasts, full of fruitless trees ; but they are full of palm trees, bay trees, and high cypress trees, and many other sorts unknown in Europe, which yield most sweet savours far from the shore." The land he represents as " not void of drugs or spicery, and" (with the idea ever uppermost at that time in the minds of dis- coverers) " of other riches of gold, seeing that the colour of the land doth so much argue it." He dwells upon the luxury of the vegetation, the wild vines which clustered upon the ground or trailed in rich festoons from tree to tree, the tangled roses, violets, and lilies, and sweet and odoriferous flowers, difierent from those of Europe. He speaks of the wild deer in the woods, 6 FIRST DISCOVERY OF NEW YORK BAY. [1534. and of the birds that haunt the pools and lagoons of the coast. But, after his rude tossing on the stormy Atlantic, he is beyond measure transported ' with the calmness of the sea, the gentleness of the waves, the summer beauty of the climate, the pure and wholesome and temperate air, and the serenity and purity of the blue sky, which, " if covered for a while with clouds brought by the southern wind, they are soon dissolved, and all is clear and fair again." Desirous of taking home some of the natives, Verezzani endeavoured to carry off a young woman, " very beautiful and of tall stature," but she suc- ceeded in making her escape. This was an ill return for the kindness of the unsuspecting Indians, who had saved from destruction a young sailor, nearly drowned, and who had given himself up for lost, even when rescued by the savaares. Sailincr alonsrthe coast to the northward, the Italian entered the noble Bay of New York, — nearly a century before Henry Hudson. He describes it as " a delightful place among certain little steep hills, from amidst which there ran down into the sea an exceeding great stream of water, M^hich within the mouth was very deep, and from the sea to the mouth, with the tide, which we found to rise eight feet, any great ship laden may pass up." He did not, however, ascend the river, his exploring boats being driven back by a sudden squall to the ships. Still sailing to the north, he next notices an island in form of a triangle " about the bigness of the Island of the Rhodes," and comes to an anchor in " a passing good haven," supposed to be that of Newport. There the Indians appeared to him the " goodliest people and of the fairest conditions that he had found in his voyage." At sight of his gallant vessel tinder full sail, the natural enthusiasm of wonder was awakened in their minds, they uttered loud cries of admiration, and fearlessly came off to the ship — prudently, however, leaving their females behind them in the canoes, a precaution which no persuasion cou.ld induce them to renounce. After Verezzani had remained some days among them, he still continued to exploi'e the northern coast of New England as far as Nova Scotia, whence he re- turned to France. All accounts admit that this was not his only voyage of discovery. According to Hakluyt, he was thrice on the American coast, and gave a map of it to Henry VIII. His fate, however, is uncertain ; some suppose that he perished at sea, or that he was killed in an encounter with savages, while others believe that he escaped from all his perils, and found an honourable retirement in his native country. The discovery of America by Columbus\, in the vain quest of a shorter route to the Indies, occurred almost at the same time that Vasco de Gama, by rounding the Cape of Good Hope, had ascertained the true passage to those glowing climes, to which the attention of the Portuguese was soon afterwards almost exclusively directed. Yet one expedition they sent out to the shores of North America, commanded by Gaspar Cortereal, who in 1501 ranged the coast for several hundred miles, and carried off a considerable number of the natives to be sold as slaves, but, like his predecessors, attempted no perma- nent settlement. 1534] VOYAGES OF JACQUES C ARTIER. 7 The voyage of Vcrczzani was unattentled by any settlement, Francis, occupied at home in his struggle Avith Charles V., Avas little disposed to engage in fresh attempts, but at the instance of Chabot, Admiral of France, Jacques Cartier, an experienced mariner of St. Malo, a small but enterprising- fishing town on the coast of Brittany, was appointed to the command of a second expedition. Furnished with two small but well-appointed ships of 60 tons burden, on the 20th of April, 15o4, he reached Newfoundland, which he nearly circumnavigated ; then crossing the Gulf of St. Lawrence, discovered the Bale des Chaleurs, so called from the intensity of the su.mmer heat, equalled only in the Canadian climate by the excessive rigour of the winter's cold. Then stretching to the N. W. to find a passage, he landed on the point of Gasp^, where, in the presence of many of the natives, he erected upon the entrance of the said haven " a faire high cross of the height of thirty feet, in the midst whereof," he says, "we hanged up a shield with three Fleur de Luces on it, and on the top, carved in anticke letters, this posic — Vive le Roy de France." Being, however, unprepared for wintering, he resolved to return, and after a swift jD^ssage, reached in September the harbour of St. Malo. This first -voyage of Cartier, although no settlement was effected by him, seemed to open a new career of discovery, which the court of France was now more disposed to encourage. The spirit of enterprise gained ground among all ranks ; and some even of the young nobility enrolled themselves among the adventurers. The next expedition was consecrated by the solem.nities of the Catholic Church. On Whit-Sunday, the 16th of May, 1535, the whole body confessed, and received the sacrament and the episcopal benediction in the cathedral of St. Malo. Three well-furnished ships were ready ; the Great Hermina, of 120 tons, of which Cartier was appointed commander, the Little Hermina, of 60 tons, and the Hermerillon, of but 40. They departed " with a good gale," and, proceeding to the west, they reached, as Hakluyt calls it, " the goodly great gulfe, full of islands, passages, and entrances, with every wind," which, from their opening it on the day of St. Lawrence, they named after that saint, and entered the " great river of Hochelaga, never before explored," which has since received the same appellation of St. Lawrence. Cartier anchored awhile in a tributary stream, which still retains his name. Many devices were attempted by Donnacona, a chief of the country, prompted by jealousy of the other tribes, to prevent him from ascending the river to Hochelaga, now Montreal, and at that time a principal Indian settlement. But Cartier, penetrating his motives, continued his voyage up the river ; and passing through Lake St. Peter's, although struggling with the " fierceness and swiftness " of the downward flow, at length attained the desired Hochelaga. His arrival created a feeling of enthusiasm among the simple Indians, and his landing was a pageant which it is beautiful to realize. " As they stepped on shore, they were met by a thousand persons, men, women, and children, who ' afterwards entertained them, as a father would his child ; ' " their boats, on 8 C ARTIER AND THE NATIVES OF MONTREAL. [1535. returning to the vessels, were loaded with millet, bread, fruit, and other pro- visions. The next day, Cartier, " very gorgeously apparelled," attended by five gentlemen and twenty sailors, and having obtained three guides, ascended the mountain which overhung the Indian settlement. The Avay from the shore was broad and well beaten ; and after he had proceeded some distance, he was met by one of" the chiefest lordes of the citie," arrayed in barbaric splen- . dour, in skins and plunies,who invited him to repose a while around a good fire that had been kindled, and entertained him with a discourse " in sign of mirth and amitic." In return for his good will, the French commander made him a present of hatchets and knives, and a cross which he instructed him to kiss. As Cartier advanced higher and higher, his eye reposed with delight upon the wide-spread expanse that gradually opened; he. admired the scattered groups of oak trees, and the smiling enclosures of bright green Indian corn, the noblest of cereal productions. When, at length, he gained the summit of the mountain, transported Math the extent and magnificence of the prospect, he bestowed on it, in his enthusiasm, the name of Mont Royal. From this com- manding elevation he beheld the broad stream of the St. Lawrence, dotted with islands, and gay with Indian barks : a vast and level region of primeval forest occupied both shores, unbroken but by a fcAv Indian settlements ; above this great plain, at intervals, arose groups of bold and insulated mountains, extending far toward the southern horizon. It was a ?cene fitted for the seat of empire ; and proudly must the heart of its first discoverer have swelled as he gazed upon it, and indulged in visions of its future grcattiess. At his feet, and joined to the spurs of the mountain, was the pretty Indian town of Hochelaga, enclosing in its three courses of ramparts, the fifty dwellings of the Indians, each fifty paces long by fifteen wide, neatly built of wood covered with fine bark, and having on the top store places for their corn. This beaten to powder, and made into cakes baked on hot stones, together with pottage, stores of piilse, dried fish, and fruits, especially cu- cumbers and melons, formed the simple but abundant food of the inhabit- ants. They slept on fine bark covered with skins. As Cartier descended into the open space in the midst of the town, the chief came forth to meet him, borne on the shoulders often Indians. Seating himself with the French- man on a fine deer skin, he took from his own head the wreath whicli served as his distinctive badge, and placed it upon that of Cartier. The Indians, who invested their visitors with supernatural attribiites, brought forward their sick in order that they might be healed. " With the simplicity of these poor people," says Charlevoix, " the Captain Avas greatly moved : he armed himself with a lively faith, and recited, as devoiitly as he was able, the begin- ning of the Gospel of St. John. He then made the sign of the cross over the sick, distributed to them chaplets and Agnus Dei, and made them xmderstand of how great virtue these were, for the cure of all sorts of infirmities. This done, he engaged in prayer, beseeching earnestly the Lord to leave no longer these poor idolaters in darkness, and recited with a loud voice the passion of Jesus Christ. The Indians listened with vague feelings of awe and devotion 153G.] C ARTIER' S RETURN TO FRANCE. 9 to these pious ceremonies, whicli were terminated by a burst of music, wliich set them beside themselves with wonderment and joy." On leaving the friendly Hochelaga, Cartier returned to his old station at the river now called after his name. A tradition existed in the time of Char- levoix, that one of his vessels was wrecked upon a sunken ledge, opposite its mouth, hence called " Jacques Cartier's rock." Here he passed the long and dreary Canadian Avinter, " in ice two flithoms thick, and snow four feet higher than his ship's sides ;" and losing many of his people, of all ranks, by the ravages of the scurvy. On the approach of summer he gladly prepared to return to France ; set up a cross in sign of French occupation ; and, partly by force and partly by persuasion, having brought off Donnacona and some others with him, he in July, 1536, regained the well-known harbour of St. Malo. The noble river which Cartier was thus the first to explore, is unique in its peculiarities, and perhaps unequalled by any other in the world. The mag- nificent lakes, or rather inland seas, of which it is the outlet, which maintain the even and unvarying flow of its majestic current, are assumed, upon solid grounds, to contain half the fresh water on this planet. The quantity dis- charged hourly by this amazing flood, is estimated at 1,672,704,000 cubic feet. Its basin is divided into three parts, the higher being occupied by Lake Superior, three hundred miles in length, and receiving more than fifty rivers. Through the falls of St. Mary, the whole of its waters pour into the Lakes of Michigan and Huron, of scarcely inferior dimensions. The almost unfathom- able depth of these lakes is a highly interesting phenomenon in physical geo- graphy. Though the upper level of the two last is 618 feet above the At- lantic, their bottoms are nearly 300 feet below it. By the straits of Detroit, these upper lakes pour down into the basin of Lake Erie, which is 230 miles in length. This immense body of water rolls incessantly, in its resistless might, over the sublime clifls of Niagara, and then for several miles of swift descent, through the profound and narrow chasm which it has excavated in the course of ages, roars one continuous and terrific rapid, one whirl of foam and terror, forming a scene altogether unequalled in sublimity upon our globe. By this channel it descends to the level of Lake Ontario, the last and lowest of these inland seas, 200 miles long by 70 broad. The river, as it flows out of this lake, varies from two to ten miles wide, and is divided into numerous channels of every width, as it passes through the " Thousand Isles." These are of every size and form, and for the most part in a state of primeval nature, forming a scene of soft and romantic beauty, of dreamy, fairy strangeness — of fantastic intricacy, in striking contrast to the terrific grandeur of Niagara. Hurrying on, with its burden of timber rafts, over the tremendous rapids of the Long Sault and La Chine, (which interrup- tion is now surmounted by a ship canal,) it is increased by the inflvix of the romantic Ottawa, and flows past the city of Montreal, thegrowing emporium of Canada, receiving, as it proceeds on its course, the waters of Lakes George and Champlain, to expand at length, in all its glory, beneath the crested crags of c 10 EXPEDITION OF LORD ROBERYAL. [1540. Quebec. From this city, the great timber depot, it is 550 miles to the sea, navigable for ships of the line of the first class, while vessels of 600 tons ascend to Montreal, which is upwards of 730 miles above the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The whole of this stupendous basin (which, when Cartier first entered it, was the haunt of the roaming savage) is fast filling up, and becoming the seat of a mighty nation. But three centuries have elapsed since it was discovered, yet how much of romantic incident, of momentous change, and of astonishing progress, has filled up the short but eventful period ! Upon these lakes, then skimmed only by the wandering canoe, hostile fleets have been built, and have contended in deadly conflict. On one of its shores feeble colonies have sprung up into an independent nation, rivalling in power the proudest states of the old world. Populous cities adorn the banks of these great inland waters, and splendid steam-boats connect their remotest extremities. Canals have been cut to overcome the occasional obstacles presented by nature, and a chain cf interr.al water communication, extending from the Atlantic many hunuieds of miles into the heart of this mighty continent, serves as a highway for the countless emigrants Avho are continually pouring into it from all the nations of the civilized world. The next attempt at a settlement was made by Francis de la Roche, lord of Roberval, a noble/nan of much provincial rejDutation, and called sometimes by Francis I. the " petit roi du Vimeu." A simple commission was not suf- ficient for a person of so much consideration ; and thus the king, by letters patent, invested him with the cheap and high-sounding titles of " Seigneur of Norimbega, viceroy and lieutenant-general of Canada, Plochelaga, Sa- guenay, Newfoundland, Belleisle, Labrador, the great bay, and Baccalaos, (or Newfoundland,) with power and authority equal to his own." With him were associated many persons of quality; but the mariner of St. Malo was indispensable to the success of the enterprise, and Cartier was thus made captain-general and commander of the ships. According to Charle- voix, however, either from the delay incurred by Roberval's extensive pre- parations, or from some misunderstanding, the force of the enterprise was divided, which led to a fruitless result. Cartier, setting sail alone, returned to Canada, but added little to his former discoveries, and, being discouraged, in the following year returned, entering the harbour of St. John's, New- foundland, at the same moment that Roberval arrived there from France. A want of concert had existed between them from the beginning, and Cartier, unwilling to return to Canada with Roberval, slipped out of the harbour, and continued his homeward course. Roberval repaired to the St. Lawrence, built one fort on a commanding mountain above the Isle of Orleans, and ano- ther at its base, establishing strict discipline among his motley company of exiles, many of Avhom, to make up the number, had been ransacked from the prisons at home, and had brought their vices Avith them. The result answered but little to the pretensions and cost of the adventure, and its disappointed author returned to his more solid, if less high sounding, dignities at home. Yet all agree, according to Charlevoix, that he was tempted a second time to 1512.] PONCE DE LEON'S VOYAGE TO FLORIDA. 11 re-establish himself in his viceregal possessions, accompanied by his brother, one of the bravest men in France, and by a numerous company of adven- turers. They sailed in 1549, and were never heard of more. We must now turn to the progress of Southern discovery. Of all coun- tries that inflamed the ardent imagination of the Spaniards who followed in the track of Columbus, tempting their "fame-thirsty and gold-thirsty minds" with visions of immortal discoveries and boundless wealth, Florida was long the chief; and in no point were these lofty anticipations so signally falsified. Credulity and avarice, like mocking tempters, lured on -succes- sive adventurers to the fatal shore, from which they never returned, or returned but to expire in the anguish of disappointed hope. The expedi- tions of Ponce de Leon, Narvaez, and Soto, of which but a brief abridgment ■can be given here, are among the wildest and the most mournful in the history of American discovery. Juan Ponce de Leon was a veteran Spanish warrior, who had fought against the ]\Ioors of Granada, and afterwards against the Indians in Hispaniola, under the governor Nicholas de Ovando. Restless for conquest and advance- ment, he sought permission to subdue the neighbouring island of Porto Rico, where, after many a struggle with the natives, he at length established him- self, and amassed considerable wealth. Being, however, superseded in this government, he listened wath eagerness, says Irving, to the stories of " some old Indians, who gave him tidings of a country which promised not merely to satisfy the cravings of his ambition, but to realize the fondest dreams of the poet. They assured him that, far to the north, there existed a land abounding in gold and in all manner of delights ; but, above all, possessing a river of such wonderful virtue, that whosoever bathed in it would be restored to youth. Ponce de Leon was advanced in life, and the ordinary term of exist- ence seemed insufficient for his mighty plans. Could he but plunge into this marvellous fountain or gifted river, and come out with his battered, war-M^orn body restored to the strength and freshness and suppleness of youth, and his head still retaining the wisdom and knowledge of age, what enterprises might he not accomplish in the additional course of vigorous years insured to him ! " " The wonders and novelties breaking upon the world in that age of discovery almost realized the illusions of fable." Ponce de Leon fitted out three ships, and on the 3rd March, 1512, sailed from Porto Rico with his band of credulous adventurers. Touching at the Bahamas, among which he long sought in vain for the life-giving fountain, he, on the 2nd of April, came to anchor off the coast of Florida. The land seemed beautiful as it had been described to him, the ground was bright with flowers, from which circum- stance, and from having discovered it on Palm-Sunday, (Pascua Florida,) he gave it the name which it retains to the present day. He landed and took possession of it in the name of the Castilian sovereigns, followed the coast for some distance, made various abortive attempts to ex- plore the interior, and returned to Porto Rico. He had sought in vain for the renewal of his youth, but he had found a new territory, and he now 12 EXPEDITION AND DEATH OF NARVAEZ. [1526. returned to Spain to reap the reward of his discovery. The king created him Adelantado of Florida, and intrusted him, moreover, with the command of an expedition against the piratical Caribs that harassed the Spanish settle- ments. Here he was so unsuccessful that he retired in vexation to Porto Eico, where he remained for some years, and gave up all thoughts of further adventure. But the exploits of Cortez aroused at length the slumbering spirit of Juan Ponce ; he had learned, moreover, that the supposed island of Florida was but part of a vast continent, which imagination painted gorgeous and wealthy as Mexico ; and, old as he was, he thirsted to explore and subdue it. This desire was destined to be fatal to him ; for scarcely had he landed before he was wounded in an encounter with the Indians, and returned to Cuba to close his career of illusion, and to die in bitterness of soul. The Spaniards continued to extend their discoveries and conquests around the Gulf of INIexico. Grijalva had explored Yucatan, and brought thence those reports of the boundless wealth of Mexico which excited the enterprise of Cortez. Vasquez d'Ayllon had made a voyage to the coast of Carolina for the seizure of slaves, but no one had renewed the attempt to conquer Florida. In 1528, Pamphilo de Narvaez, who had been sent to arrest Cortez in the midst of his career of Mexican conquest, and had been easily defeated by him, desirous of emulating his wonderful exploits, obtained permission to invade the country that was to prove as flital to himself as to its discoverer. With three hundred men, he landed at a spot not far from the bay of Appalachee ; instead of a wealthy and long-established empire, such as he had expected to find, he fell in with a collection of miserable wigwams, in the midst of swamps and morasses, which, almost impassable to strangers, afforded to the fierce hostile Indians at once the facility of attack and the certainty of retreat. His fol- lowers, during six months spent in misery, were wasted away by sickness or cut off" by ambush; with a handful of men he reached the coast; despair compelled them to venture to sea in such wretched barks as could be hastily constructed. Narvaez, with the greater number, foundered in a storm ; others were saved only to perish of famine ; few only succeeded, after many years of wanderings and hardships, in reaching Mexico. The marvellous accounts of Cabeca de Vaca, one of these survivors, were destined to lure on other and more gallant adventurers. He persisted so solemnly in his statement about the wealth of the countries he had seen, that we are almost tempted to think he might really in the course of his wanderings have penetrated into that very gold country of California, which is now in the nineteenth century re- viving the same spirit that burned in the breasts of the early adventurers. Ferdinand de Soto was the son of a squire of Xeres. He went into the Spanish settlements when Peter Arias of Avila was governor of the West In'dies ; " and there," says the chronicler from whom these details are taken, " he was without anything else of his own save his sword and target ; and for his good qualities and valour Arias made him captain of a troop of horse- men, and by his command he went with Fernando Pizarro to the conquest of Peru." Here he was at the taking of Atabalipa, as well as at the assault of 1538.] DEPARTURE OF DE SOTO FOR FLORIDA. 1-3 the city of Cusco. Loaded with, the wealth he had acquired, he repaired to Spain, appeared at court with great magnificence, obtained the daughter of Pedro iVrias in marriage, and ^yvlh appointed by Charles V. Governor of Cuba and Adelantado of Florida. Vague stories of the extraordinary wealth of that country were already current, when the reports of Cabeca de Vaca, who had just returned and pronounced it to be the richest in the world, influenced not only the mind of Soto himself, but also of the whole court. Many persons of distinction hastened to join him; and already imaginary offices and titles were distributed among them. The Adelantado departed from Seville to embark at San Lucar, with all his company. It was like the gathering to some gay tournament or festival. " The Portuguese showed themselves in very brilliant armour," and the Castilians " very gallant with silke upon silke ; " all felt as though they were about to enter upon the possession of a rich and conquered country. This spectacle of such " braveries " liked not Soto, who had shared the perils and hardships of Pizarro. He commanded that they should muster in more soldier-like style, and from the numerous aspirants selected only a company of six hundred of the most promising, with whom he proceeded to embark. The voyage was as favourable as the minds of the adventurers were full of credulity and hope. On reaching Cuba, Soto sent a caravel and two brigan- tines to explore the havens of Florida, and from thence they brought two In- dians, as well to serve them for guides and interpreters, as because they said by signs there Avas much gold in Florida. At this news, the governor and all his company hastened their departure, believing that they were going to "the richest country that unto that day had been discovered." On Sunday, the 18th May, 1539, Soto departed with his fleet of nine ves- sels, and a flilr wind carried them to the coast of Florida, where they went on shore, two leagues from a town of an Indian lord called Veita. They landed their 213 horses, and with all their force began to march along the swampy coast. Never were such splendid expectations so suddenly and sadly undeceived ! The Florida Indians appear from the first to have resisted with unusual fierceness ; yet Soto, who had triumphed in Peru, confident of the issue, sent back the ships to Cuba for provisions. But difficulties thickened around them at every step. Their guides escaped ; a party sent to obtain others advanced through morasses impracticable for the horsemen, and seized some women, upon which thcV were charged by twenty Indians, who forced them to return discomfited. They soon discovered that they had no con- temptible foes to contend with ; that " before a crossbowman can make one shot, an Indian will discharge three or four arrows, and he seldom misseth what he shooteth at ; and an arrow, where it findeth no armour, pierceth as deeply as a crosse-bow." And when they had at length obtained another guide, they found still more serious obstacles in the pestilential swamps, marshes, rivers, and pathless and tangled forests that overspread the level coast. Provisions failing them, they were often reduced to the half-grown stalks of Indian corn, or beet-root sodden with water and salt; privations 14 WANDERINGS OF BE SOTO AND HIS MEN. [1541. embittered by the insane extravagance of their previous expectations. Their perils increased as they continued to advance ; their guide fled, and was only recovered by being hunted down with bloodhounds. The hostility of the Indians was as indomitable as their subtlety was acute. Carried with chains and iron collars around their necks to fetch maize, they would often turn upon their Spanish guide and slay him, or file away their fetters and effect their escape to the woods. After travelling many days through a wilderness, the Indians told them they could not advance for the water ; and here they first fell in with traces of Narvaez's ill-fated expedition. The whole company, in despair, now coun- selled the Governor to go back to the port of Spirito Santo, and to abandon Florida, lest he should perish as Narvaez had done ; warning him that if he continued to advance among trackless morasses, his retreat would certainly be cut off. But the proud spirit of Soto would not acknowledge the failure of such magnificent hopes ; nor was he as yet undeceived. He declared that he would not return till he had seen with his own eyes the truth of the re- port of the Indians. Thus passed a summer and two winters of lingering misery, Soto sternly and inflexibly refusing either to give up his enterprise or allow his followers to settle. They adhered to him with devotion prompted alternately by hope and by despair. Their thirst for gold tormented them as does the mirage in the desert the traveller perishing with thirst, and like the phantom waters, it eluded all their research. Their wanderings may with difficulty be traced. After their first winter they advanced into the Cherokee country and Georgia, then descended to the southward to Mavilla, or Mobile. They desired to occupy the town ; the Indians fiercely resisted ; the town was burned in the sanguinary conflict, and though the Spaniards were the victors, their bag- gage was consumed in the flames. The ships had now arrived with succours ; blxt Soto, infatuated by wounded hope and pride, refused to avail himself of this last chance of escape. Obstinately nourishing his illusions, he advanced into the Checkasaw country, and there wintered. A hundred of his band had already perished by war or sickness. After another terrible encounter with the Indians, who set on flre the village, burning some of the Spaniards, with the remainder of their clothing, and their horses, he obstinately led his half-naked followers still farther into the heart of the western wilds. At length, after travelling seven days through a desert of marshes and thick woods, the people weak for want of food, and their horses miserably reduced, they, in April, 1541, approached the banks of the mighty Mississippi, rolling through a solitude never before visited by the foot of the white man. The scenery around them was wild and strange. Here immense festoons of Sj^anish moss trail from the boughs of the dark cypress ; the bear houses himself in the hollow of its trunk, while the alligator is seen basking in the mOrass, or floating past on some tree that has been undermined by the current. The lofty cotton-wood, the fan-like palmetto, the impenetrable cane-brake, are matted together, forming a tangled maze of the rankest verdure, which breeds whole 1541.] HE DISCOVERS THE MISSISSIPPI. 15 legions of noxioiis reptiles and bloodthirsty mosquitos. The Cacique of the country artfully sent a deputation to Soto, to inform him that they had lono- ago been informed by their forefathers that a white people should subdue them, and promising he would come and pay his obeisances to the Spaniard. Soto encamped a short distance from the river, obtained a supply of maize, and began to prepare barges for its passage. It spread out before them with its wild expanse of turbid waters, of great depth and of powerful current, bringing down continually trunks of trees, torn from the tangled forests that overhung its banks. " So broad was it," (almost half a league,) " that," says the chronicler, " if any one stood still on the other side, it could not be dis- cerned whether he were a man or no." The next day they were astonished by a splendid and romantic spectacle. A fleet of two hundred canoes bore down upon them, their bows and arrows painted, and with great plumes of white and many-coloured feathers, having shields to defend the rowers on both sides, and the Indian warriors standing from head to stern, with their bows and arrows in their hands. The canoe which carried the Cacique had a tilt over the stern, and so also had the barks of the principal Indians. From under the tilt where the chief sat, he directed and commanded the others ; all joined together, and came within a stone's cast of the shore. From thence the Cacique said to the Governor, who walked along the river's side with those that waited on him, " that he was come thither to visit, honour, and ohej him, because he knew he was the greatest and mightiest lord upon the earth, therefore he would see what he would command him to do." Soto yielded him thanks, and requested him to come on shore, that they might the better communicate together. Returning no answer to that point, the Cacique sent him three canoes, full of fish and loaves, made of the substance of prunes, like imto bricks. And after Soto had received all, he thanked him, and prayed him again to come on shore. The Spaniards had been trained to mistrust, and, believing that the Cacique's purpose was " to see if with dissimulation he might do some hurt — since, when they saw that the Governor and his men were in readiness, they began to go from the shore — with a great cry the crossbowmen, which were prepared, shot at them, and slew five or six of them. The Indians retired with great order, none leaving his oar, though the next to him were slain; and shielding themselves, they retired farther up the river." The Spaniards were filled with admiration at their canoes, " which were very pleasant to behold, for they were veiy great and well made, and had their tilts, plumes, paveses, and flags ; and with the multitude of people in them, they seemed like a /aire armie of gallies." Thirty days of toil were consumed in construction of four barges, and Soto prepared to pass the river. Three of the barges, each bearing four horses with their riders, some cross- bowmen and rowers, led by Guzman, one of the most resolute of the officers, determined to make sure the passage, or die. But the Indians offered no opposition. The swiftness of the stream obliged the bargemen to ascend a quarter of a league higher up the banks, whence falling down with the cur- 16 DE SOTO CONTINUES HIS WANDERINGS. [15-12. rent, they landed just opposite the camp. As soon as those that passed first had landed, the barges returned, and within two hours after sun-rise, the Governor, with his whole company, stood on the western bank of the Mississippi. Soto now advanced into the great unexplored wilderness of the west, among j)athless morasses full of hostile Indians, who had watched his move- ments, and began to harass his march. The barges, which were compelled to keep close to the banks of the river on account of the current, were attacked as soon as the horsemen were out of sight. The progress of the Spaniards through the swamps and forest was slow and disheartening. Sometimes they would pass the Avhole day in the morasses up to their knees, and were too happy to find dry ground at evening, " lest they should wander ujd and down as forlorn men all night in the water." At length they came to the territory of a powerful Cacique, who supplied their wants, and treated them with the reverence due to superior beings. Two blind men were brought forward, and the Cacique, "seeing that" the Governor "was The Child ot the Sun, and a great lord," besought him to restore their sight ; which re- quest was earnestly seconded by the sufferers themselves. Soto replied, that, "in the high heavens was He who had power to give them health, and that this Lord made the heavens and the earth, and man, and suffered upon the cross to save mankind, and rose, and ascended into heaven to help all that call upon him." He then commanded the Cacique to erect a lofty cross, to wor- ship it, and to call upon Him alone v/ho had suffered for them. As he ad- vanced, the Indians were still friendly; one of the Caciques gave Soto two of his sisters as his wives, and the half-naked Spaniards were now well clad in garments and mantles of skins and furs presented by the natives. Soto had now lost 250 men and 150 horses, nearly half of his entire force, and he de- sired to send to Cuba for reinforcements, still believing that the country de- scribed hy Cabeca de Vaca was yet undiscovered. At Auteamque, supposed to be on the "Washita River, they passed the winter. Here they lost their interpreter Ortiz, which reduced them to the greatest embarrassment. The winter had not yet ceased, when Soto, impatient to advance, left Auteamque ; sometimes delayed by the snoAv for days, and up to the stirrup Avhen trying to advance through the swamps. To reach the sea was now the absorbing idea, but where it lay no one kncAV. Soto eagerly inquired for it ; the Cacique could give him no intelligence. Mistrusting his report, the SjJaniard sent out an exploring party, who, after wandering eight days in morasses and cane brakes, returned only to confirm the intelligence of the Indians. The spirit of Soto began to give way, — his men were falling around him, — chagrin and disappointment threw him into a wasting fever, which rapidly consumed his remaining strength. The liostility of the Indians added to the perils of his situation. Before he took to his bed, he summoned the Cacique of Quigalte to come to him and do him reverence as to the Child of the Sun ; but the Indian replied, " If he would dry up the river, he would believe him, — that if the Spaniards came in peace, he would receive them ac- cordingly ; and if in war, he would not shrink back one foot." This answer 1543.] HIS DEATH AND BURIAL. 17 provoked a party to punisli the independence of the Cacique, and a horrid massacre of the Indians was the funeral obsequy of the expiring Soto. Yet there is something touching in the account of his last hours : he was now, he said, about to give an account to God of his past life ; and desired his followers to pray for him, thanking them with his last breath for the singular vii'tue, love, and loyalty they had displayed towards him. Devotedly, indeed, had his fellow adventurers followed him for a long period of misery and discourage- ment ; their loyalty had been put to the severest test ; and their sorrow at the loss of so brave a com^mander was secretly relieved by the hope that Luys de Moscoso, whom he appointed his successor, would give over the disheart- ening enterprise and return to Cuba. Thus, on the 21st' of May, 1542, died " the valorous, virtuous, and valiant Captain Don Ferdinand de Soto," (as the Portuguese Companion calls him,) " whom fortune advanced as it useth to do others, that he might have the higher fall." Luys de Moscoso determined to conceal his death from the natives, for Soto had made them believe that the Christians were immortal, and that he had a supernatural knowledge of all that passed among them. The corpse was at first interred within the town, but as the Indians suspiciously regarded the spot where it lay, it was secretly exhumed, wrapped in mantles full of sand, and at midnight sunk in the middle of the river. " The discoverer of the Missis- sippi," finely says Mr. Bancroft, " slept beneath its waters : he had crossed a large portion of the continent in search of gold, and found nothing so remark- able as his burial-place." To reach New Spain was now the general desire, but the Spaniards knew not whether to embark on the river or to trace its banks. They were ignorant of its course, they might be hurried over cataracts or be led into a wrong direction, and there were more resources on shore. There, too, they might yet realize some of the golden visions which had long tormented them. They resolved therefore to go by land, but their resolution only added to the sum of their sufferings ; the Indian guides misled them ; tortured or torn by dogs, their fidelity to their Caciques was unshaken. After a long and weary wandering as far as the skirts of the prairies, the Spaniards regained the Mississippi. Dissensions and sickness added to their distress ; the fatal report of Cabeca de Vaca still haunted the minds of the more adventurous, but the majority determined to build brigantines and to proceed by water, though fearing with reason lest it should happen to them as to Narvaez, who foundered at sea with his wretched barks. A Genoese who understood ship-building was providentially among them ; " without whom," says the eye-witness, "they had never come out of that country." With the perse- verance of men whose life was on a cast, they toiled till they had completed seven crazy brigantines, with which (harassed by the Indians on the way) they descended the Mississippi to the Gulf, and creeping cautiously around the coast, the forlorn remnant of Soto's gallant company, after losing one o^ their vessels in a storm, at length arrived in the river of Panuco, and from thence repaired to Mexico. 18 SETTLEMENT OF HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. [1563. Three centuries have elapsed since these events took place, and mighty changes have taken place in the valley of the Mississippi ! The red races which then wandered at will over its tangled forests and boundless prairies have gradually receded, while the white have advanced, pushing the outposts of their settlements even to the confines of the Rocky Mountains, soon to be joined to those of the gold regions of California. This vast country is rapidly filling \x\), and forming one compact and stupendous confederation. There is just now a mingling of the past and present : the red men still linger upon the soil, and traces of their manners, and customs, and superstitions still sur- vive, side by side with the evidences of an advancing civilization. After tli the fatal shore of Roanoke, nothing remained, beyond their ruined habitations, and a cross inscribed with the word " Croatan," to tell the fate of those whom he had left behind. This inscription suggested that the lost colonists had perhaps taken refuge with the Indians, of which a tradition afterwards existed, but though research was more than once made by suc- ceeding, voyagers, at the instigation of Raleigh, no trace of them Avas ever afterwards discovered. White and his discouraged companions were com- pelled to abandon the idea of a settlement. A fatality seemed to hang over Virginia, the colonization of which had commenced under such glowing auspices. Raleigh had now, during several years, sent out various expeditions, at a fruitless expense of forty thousand pounds, and a sad sacrifice of human life. It is not surprising that, with diminished resources, he should be ready to assign his rights of property and patent, with large favourable concessions, to Sir Thomas Smith and a coriipany of merchants in London, as he was now engaged in other schemes, especially that of penetrating into the heart of Guiana, where he fondly dreamed of repairing his shattered fortunes by taking possession of inexhaustible wealth flowing from the richest mines in the New World. His schemes were abor- tive and ruinous to his own interests, posterity was to reap the advantage, and to repay him for his sacrifices with an inheritance of lasting glory. The time was not yet ripe for a permanent state in Virginia which should embalm the memory of its founder and call its chief city after his name. The London companv attempted no settlement of importance, but confined itself to a secure 34 THE ENGLISH FIR8T VISIT NEW ENGLAND. [1603. and limited traffic, and thus, after a period of a hundred and six years from the time that Cabot discovered North America, and twenty from the time that Raleigh planted the first colony, there was not a single Englishman settled there at the demise of Queen Elizabeth, in the year one thousand six hundred and three. Yet, in 1602, the last year of that reign, the voyage made by Bartholomew Gosnold, who set out with a small bark to make a more direct course to the settlements .in Virginia than that by the Canaries and the West Indies, was destined to have an important influence on the fate of that unfor- tunate colony. After sailing seven weeks, he reached the coast of Massa- chusetts Bay, and keeping to the south in search of a harbour, landed on the promontory of Cape Cod, so called from the quantity of that fish taken there, and the first spot in New England ever trodden by English foot. Bounding the coast, and doubling " Point Care," or Sandy Point, the mariners reached Nantucket, and passing the promontory of Gay Head, which they called Dovei* Cliff, they entered the stately sound of " Buzzards Bay," which they called Go'snold's Hope. On the westernmost of the islands that studded it they determined to settle. They bestowed on it the name of Elizabeth ; and finding a small lake of fresh water, in the centre of which was a rocky islet, they fixed upon it as the site of a fort and storehouse, built with the stones from the neighbouring beach, and of which traces, now no longer discover- able, were seen by Belknap, in 1797. They were delighted with the noble vegetation, the luxuriance of the scented shrubs, the abundance of the wild grapes and strawberries ; and, in the first impulse of their satisfaction, deter- mined to remain there. But the smallness of their number, surrounded as they were with the Indians, the want of provisions, and the recollection of what had befallen the hapless settlers in Virginia, with the dissensions that sprung np, induced them, shortly after, to return to England. They arrived in less than four months from the time of their departure, without having suffered from any sickness ; and spread on all sides most favourable reports of the soil and climate of the new-discovered lands, while the new course they had held was shorter by one third than any by which the shores of America had been previously attained. A concurrence of circumstances so fortunate was not slow in re\iving the dormant spirit of emigration. The accession of James I. was speedily fol- lowed by peace between England and Spain, the ardent spirits who had en- gaged in the struggle thirsted for a new scene of enterprise, and desired employ- ment for their hands and scope for their vices, while " sundry people mthin the realme distressed" were compelled to seek in the plantations of the New World for that subsistence denied them upon their native soil. Men of mer- cantile enterprise and geographical science became interested in the reports of Gosnold, and the merchants of Bristol were easily induced to equip two ves- sels to follow up the discoveries so happily commenced. The most active and efficacious promoter of this scheme was Bichard Hakluyt, prebendary of AVestminster, to whom England is more indebted for its American posses- 160G.] JA3IES I. FRAMES A CODE OF LAWS. 35 sions than to any man of that age," and a man, as Mr. Bancroft observes, " whose fame should be vindicated and asserted in the land he helped to colonize." Formed under a kinsman of the same name, eminent for his naval and commercial knowledge, he imbibed a similar taste, and applied early to the study of geography and navigation. In order to excite his countrymen to naval enterprise, he published, in 1589, his valuable Collection of Voyages and Travels made by Englishmen, and translated into English some of the best accounts of the progress of the Sj^aniards and Portuguese. Consulted with respect to many of the attempts towards discovery or colonization, he corre- sponded with those who conducted them, directed their researches to proper objects, and published the history of their exploits. By the zealous endeavours of a person equally respected by men of rank and men of business, many of both orders formed an association to establish colonies in America, and peti- tioned the king for the sanction of his authority to warrant the execution of their plans. The " Speedwell " and " Discoverer," thus sent forth to authenticate the report^ of Gosnold, confirmed them entirely, and, together with succeeding adventurers, visited the coast of Maine. Thus, in 1606, had the whole line of the American coast, with trifling excej)tions, been traced from the shores of Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico. The bold and hardy pioneers of discovery had done" their noble work, the first explorers, " the forlorn hope " of civil- ization, had made their graves in the new-found world, and the time was at hand when a new impulse was to be given to the spirit of colonization, and states were to be built up that should take a lasting possession of that great continent, the refuge of the persecuted and the asylum of the distressed, the stronghold of liberty for all succeeding generations. The English monarch, who had already turned his attention to improving the wilder parts of Scotland by the introduction of civilized colonies, listened readily to proposals which flattered his imaginary skill in the science of government ; he granted an ample charter to the company, and set himself to the congenial work of framing a code of laws for their especial regulation. His own prerogative was of course paramount. In these the regulations were cumbrous and unsuitable ; the superintendence of the colonial proceedings devolved upon a council in England, exclusively nominated by the monarch ; the local administration was confided to a council in the colony itself, whose appointment and continuance in office equally depended on the royal plea- sure. The emigrants themselves possessed not a shadow of self-government, and with the general reservation of their rights as Englishmen, were placed under a system equally impolitic and arbitrary. Individual enterprise was also paralysed, by a regulation that for five years at least the industry and commerce of the colony were to be conducted in a joint stock. The same conformity in religion enforced at home in order to check the growing spirit of Puritanism and religious liberty, was strictly enjoined in the colony. Com- mercial regulations, on the other hand, were encouraging ; no duty was to be imposed upon imports necessary for the support of the colonists for a period F 2 86 EMIGRANTS FOUND JAMESTOWN. [1606. of seven years, they were free to trade with other nations, and the duties levied on foreign commodities were to be employed for their own benefit for twenty- one years, after which period they reverted to the king. The tenure of land was also of the most favourable character. The extensive territory now discovered and claimed by the English was granted to two companies. " That portion of North America which stretches from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, was divided into two districts nearly equal ; the one called the first or South colony of Vir- ginia, the other the second or North colony. Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Summers, Richard Hakluyt, and their associates in London, were empowered to settle any part of the former, with a right of property for fifty miles along the coast from the place of their first habitation, and reaching a hundred miles into the interior. The latter district was allotted to a company formed of sundry knights, gentlemen, and merchants of the West of England. The preparations of the company Avere not answerable to the greatness of the territory conceded. A single vessel of a hundred tons, and two barks luider the command of Captain Newport, were all that their means enabled them to fit out ; the number of emigrants was but one hundred and five, of whom but a small proportion were practical mechanics ; and the remainder, among whom were a son of the Duke of Northumberland and other men of family, but little fitted for the foundation of a colony. Many were " of tender education and no experience of martial accidents, expecting feather-beds and down pillows, taverns and alehouses, gold and silver and dissolute liberty, persons inflated with the importance of ofilcial situations multiplied in ridi- culous disproportion to an infant colony, projecting, verbal, and idle con- templators," as they are called by Smith, who, from his practical sense and the natural ascendency given by genius and experience, soon became the object of jealousy and proscription to the rest. The voyage was a scene of contention, which there was no authority to subdue, since the king, with that refinement of sagacity that he so loved to affect, had ordered that the box con- taining the names and instructions of the council should not be opened till after their arrival in Virginia. Four months were consumed by Newport's choice of the passage by way of the Canaries. On reaching the dangerous coast of Virginia, a fortunate gale, before which they were obliged to scud under bare poles, drove them to the northward of the old settlement, into the mouth of the spacious and magnificent bay of the Chesapeake : its southern and northern headlands were respectively called Cape Henry and Cape Charles, after the sons of the king, and Point Comfort was so called from the sheltered anchorage it afiforded for their ships. This noble inlet, with its safe roadsteads and expanding shores, excited their admiration, and sailing up and exploring James River for a distance of fifty miles, they determined that here, and not at Roanoke, it behoved them to lay the foundation of their infant settlement, to which they gave the name of James Town — the oldest toA\Ti founded by the English in the New "World, as were Annapolis and St. Augustine, by the French and Spaniards. 1G07.] EARLY ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITE. 37 When the memhers of the council were ascertained, they proceeded to choose Wingfield president, and displayed at once their incapacity and jea- lousy by meanly excluding Smith, who was one of those named, upon the pretext of sedition. His eminent qualities and practical activity had galled the envious and disturbed the slothful. No man possessed in a more re- markable degree the energy required in the founder of a colony, or had become more inured to a life of peril and adventure. From his very childhood he had a roving and romantic fancy, and, at thir- teen, sold satchel and books, and all that he had, to raise money to go to sea. At this juncture his father died, and he was left to the care of guardians more intent on improving his estate than him. By them he was bound to a merchant at Lynn, but not being sent, as he desired, to sea, he found means to go to France in the train of a son of Lord Willoughby. Hence, after be- coming initiated into warlike exercises, he repaired to Scotland in the hope of advancement, but returned disappointed to his native village of Willoughby. Here, finding no one of the same wild humour as himself, he retired, with Quixotic eccentricity, into a solitary glade surrounded with thick woods, built himself a pavilion of boughs, and occupied himself with a Marcus Aurelius, and Machiavel on the Art of War, and with the exercises of his horse and lance. Withdrawn from this solitude, his restless genius hurried him on the conti- nent. After a strange variety of adventures, he embarked at Marseilles for Italy, a storm arose, the trembling pilgrims cursed him for a Huguenot, and threw him overboard, like Jonah, to allay the tempest. He swam to a wild island, whence he was taken oiF by a French rover, who treated him with kindred gallantry of spirit : they fell in with and captured a rich Venetian ship, and Smith, set on shore with his share of the prize, found himself in a position to indulge his wandering humour. After visiting Italy, he went to Vienna, and entered himself as a volunteer against the Turks. His skill and bravery soon led to his promotion. At the siege of a strong town, a Turkish officer issued a challenge to single combat, and Smith was the fortunate cham- pion to whom it fell by lot to vindicate the honour of the Christian chivalry. He slew his opponent, as well as two others who desired to avenge his death, the Duke of Transylvania settled on him a pension, and gave him letters of nobility, with a shield bearing three Turks' heads for his arms, which were confirmed afterwards in the Herald's College in England. At the fatal battle of Rottenton, he was left for dead, and only recovered to be sold as a slave. A certain pasha bought him as a present to a favourite mistress of Tartar origin — young and handsome, he excited the interest and attachment of his possessor, who sent him to her brother to be treated kindly, till " time should make her mistress of herself." The brother misused him with such cruelty that Smith, in a fit of passion, beat out his brains. He fled into Russia, and after a variety of adventures, found again at Leipsic his former patron, the Duke of Transylvania, who treated him with much honour and made him a considerable present. Though anxious to return home, the ruling passion led him into fresh ad- 38 THE COLONISTS FEAR STARVATION, [1C07. ventures. After visiting Germany, France, and Spain, lie passed over into Africa, where he had hoped to be engaged in service, visited the court of Morocco, and on his return by way of France to England, in a French galley, shared in the perils erf a most desperate engagement with two Spanish men of war. Finding liis native country in a state of tranquillity, and opening no prospect for his adventurous and erratic genius, he willingly embarked with Gosnold in the scheme for settliiiG: colonies in Virginia. A soldier of fortune in an age of licence. Smith was singularly free from the vices with which that profession was stained. He was neither actuated by sordid avarice nor disgraced by selfish debauchery. " He hated baseness, sloth, pride, and indignity more than any danger. He would suffer want rather than borrow, and starve sooner than not pay. He loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and covetousness more than death. Distinguished for his courage, he chose rather to lead than send his soldiers into danger, and upon all hazardous and fatiguing expeditions always shared everything with his companions, and never desired them to do or undergo anything that he was not ready to do or undergo himself." Unlike most of the adven- turers of that age, his courage never degenerated into cruelty towards the Indians ; it was rather by dauntless bearing, clever and often humorous ex- pedient, and moral influence, that he overawed or beguiled them into sub- mission. While his love of discovery found scope in exploring the unknown boundaries of the Chesapeake, his management of the domestic interests o\ the colony was full of practical good sense. His energy gave to it life and subsistency, and his loss was its ruin and destruction. " In short," says his biographer, " he was a soldier of the true old English stamp, who fought not for gain and empty praise, but for his country's honour arid the pubHc good ; and, with the most stern and invincible resolution, there was seldom seen a milder or more tender heart." The absurdity of the plea for ruining Smith was too transparent, and at the instance of Hunt, the excellent chaplain to the expedition, he was soon restored to his office, and proceeded in the midst of every discouragement to labour for the good of the colony. Foremost in enterprise, in company with New- port, he ascended James Eiver, visited Powhatan, the chief of the country, who received them with a display of barbaric pomp. The savages from the first regarded the settlers with suspicion and dislike, and watched their op- portunity to attack them. After the return of Newport with the ships, the situation of the colonists became every day more perilous, and their sufferings more severe. The long voyage had made serious inroads on their stock of provisions, and they were soon reduced to extremity. " Had we been," says Smith, with the humorous buoyancy that never abandoned him in the midst of difficulties, " as free from all sins as from gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonized for saints. But our president never would have been admitted, for engrossing to his private use oatmeal, sack, oil, aquavUa, beef, eggs, or what not, but the kettle— Z/ja/ indeed he allowed equally to be distributed, and that was half a pint of wheat and as much barley, boiled Avith 1G07.] POCAHONTAS SAVES SMITH'S LIFE. 39 water, for a man a day, and tliis, having fried twenty-six weeks in the ship's hold, contained as many worms as grains ; — our drink was water ; our lodgings, castles in the ayre." Even these illusions were soon bitterly dispelled. The major part, unaccustomed to labour, and compelled to work under the burning heat in cutting and planting palisades for the fort, soon sunk under their toils and privations, — the hostile Indians hung like a cloud over their spirits, dis- content and dissension added to the cup of their sufferings, and fever, bred from the rankness of the soil and heat of the climate, fatally assisted by mental depression, made such ravages, that before the autumn one half of the colony had perished. The selfish Wingfield, who had attempted to escape to the West Indies, had been deposed ; his successor, Eatcliffe, was incompetent to rally the sinking colony, and those qualities of Smith that had formerly ren- dered him the object of general envy, now marked him out for the post of re- sponsibility and peril. He nobly answered to the summons, and after com- pleting the fortifications of James Town, marched in quest of the treacherous and hostile Indians. Some tribes he gained by caresses and presents, others he openly attacked, and, by persuasion or force, compelled them at once to de- sist from hostilities and also to furnish a supply of provisions. Enabled thus to leave the settlers in James Town in a state of comparative security and plenty, he turned his attention to the exploration of the Chickahominy, in pursuance of an order from the council to seek a communication v/ith the Southern sea. On this expedition he was surprised by the savages, his men killed, and in endeavouring to pass a swamp, he sunk to the neck and was com- pelled to surrender. In this extremity, his presence of mind did not desert him; he astonished the Indians with a pocket compass, and so dazzled them with accounts of its mysterious powers, that he was conducted by them with mingled triumph and fear from tribe to tribe, as a remarkable being whose character and designs they were unable to penetrate, in spite of all the incant- ations of their seers. At length he was conducted to Powhatan. The politic chief, seated in the midst of his women, received him with a display of bar- baric ceremony'; the queen brought him water to wash his hands, and another person a bunch of feathers to dry them, and whilst he was feasted they proceeded to deliberate upon his fate. Their fears dictated the policy of his destruction, he was suddenly dragged forward, his head jslaced upon a large stone, and the club already uplifted to dash out his brains, when Pocahontas, " the king's most deare and well-beloved daughter, a child of twelve or thirteen years of age," after unavailing and passionate entreaties for the life of the white man, so noble a being to her youthful imagination, ran forward and clung to him with her arms, and laying her head upon his own, disarmed the savage fury of his executioners. The life of the wondrous stranger was pre- served, his open and generous character v/on not only the heart of the young Pocahontas, but that of her brother Nantaquaus, " the manliest, comeliest, boldest spirit ever seen in a savage." By the promise of " life, liberty, land, and women," they now sought to engage Smith in an attack upon the co- lonists, but his address and influence turned them from the project, and he was 40 SMITH EXPLORES CHESAPEAKE BAT. [1607. at length dismissed with promises of support and amity. Like a tutelary genius the loving Indian girl, after saving the life of their chief, " revived the dead spirits " of the colonists by her attention to their wants, bringing every day with her attendants baskets of provisions, so that, the enmity of the savages disarmed, and a supply of food obtained, " all men's fear was now abandoned.'* For Smith, on his return from the captivity Avhich brought with it such beneficial results, had found the colony reduced to the brink of destruction, and about to be abandoned by the miserable handful of forty men who remained out of those who had landed. This desperate expedient was prevented by his energetic remonstrance, and at length Newport made his appearance with a supply of necessaries, and another company of adventurers. Its composition was as unfortunate as that of the preceding — to the dissolute and helpless crew that formed the majority, was added a leaven of the old disease, the plague of " guilded refiners with their golden promises ; no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold, such a bruit of gold that one mad fellow desired to be buried in the sands, lest they should make gold of his bones." All this arose from the accidental discovery of some shining mineral substance, which credulous imagination converted into auriferous sand ; and while the cultivation of the land was neglected, Newport returned to England wath a cargo of the visionary treasure. Smith now undertook, in an open barge of three tons' burden, the explor- ation of the immense Bay of the Chesapeake, the dim receding shores of which seemed to open a temjjting and noble field of discovery. The event was more answerable to his anticipations, than to the very limited means at his command. During three months he visited all the countries on the eastern and western shores, ascended many of the great tributaries that swell that mag- nificent basin, trading with friendly tribes, fighting with those hostile, observ- ing the nature and productions of their territories, and leaving behind him by the exercise of ready tact and of dauntless intrepidity, unstained by a single act of crvielty, a high impression of the valour and nobleness of the English character. After sailing in two successive cruises above three thousand miles, in contending with hardship and peril and the discourage- ment of his companions, whose complaints he humorously silenced by a reference to the expedition of Lane, and the " dogges porridge " to which he had been reduced, he succeeded in bringing back to James Town an account of the provinces bordering on the Chesapeake, with a map that long served as the basis of subsequent delineations. On his return from this important expedition, in the autumn of 1608, Smith w^as elected president of the council ; and by his provident acti^'ity, although but thirty acres of ground were cleared and cultivated, no distress was felt. Meanwhile, Newport returned with seventy new settlers, but of the same un- suitable character. It was no easy task for the new president to enforce among so mixed a company the steady industry necessary to the very existence of their struggling colony ; although foremost in every labour, his example inspired emulation, and his firmness overawed the dissolute and contentious. 1G09.] THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COLONY. 41 At this juncture a change took place in the constitution of the company. At the solicitation of Cecil and other parties in power, the king made over to the council the powers he had formerly exercised, while the jurisdiction of that in Virginia was abolished. Empowered thus to establish what laws they judged best for the state of the colony, and to nominate a governor to carry them into execution, the council in London obtained the absolute control of the lives and fortunes of the colonists. The grant of such extensive and direct powers attracted many personages of eminence, and eventually intro- duced a firmer administration. The first deed of the new council was to apjioint Lord DelaAvare, whose virtues adorned his rank, as Governor and Captain-general of the colony. Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Summers were authorized to administer its affairs until his arrival. Under such aus- pices, an expedition of unusual magnitude might have been expected ; nine vessels, under the command of Newport, containing more than five hundred emigrants, were soon on their way out. The prosperity of Virginia seemed placed at length beyond the reach of danger. An unforeseen accident inter- rupted their sanguine expectations ; a violent storm arose ; the vessel on board of which were Gates, Summers, and Newport, was separated from the rest, and after a narrow escape from foundering, was stranded on the coast of the Bermudas, where, however, all were preserved. The rest of the ships, with one exception, succeeded in reaching James Town in safety. "While these events were proceeding, Smith had been engaged in main- taining order and security among the little band of colonists. The sudden arrival of so considerable a reinforcement disconcerted all his arrangements. The new immigrants were " unruly gallants, packed off to escape ill destinies at home," men of broken fortunes and unsteady habits ; the actual govern- ment was void, the fate of the new governor uncertain, the provisional authority of Smith doubtful and contested, and everything tended to the speedy dissolution of their little society. Union alone could insure their de- fence against the Indians, whose jealousy of their encroachments was steadily gaining ground, but every day their dissensions increased. Powhatan, checked at times by the ascendency of Smith, at others formed plans for cutting them all off. In these distresses and perils Pocahontas still proved herself the guardian angel of the unruly colonists ; and, " under God," as Smith declared in a letter to the queen of James I., " the instrument for preserving them from death, famine, and utter confusion. When her father," he observes, " with policy sought to surprise me, having but eighteen men with me, the dark night could not affright her from coming through the irksome woods, and with watery eyes gave me intelligence, with her best advice, to escape his fury, which, had he known, he had surely slain her." While disunion thus exposed the settlers to Indian treachery, the want of concerted industry, and the rapid consumption of their stores, soon threatened them with all the horrors of famine. Although his authority had been superseded. Smith still continued, from a feeling of public spirit, to wrestle with the factious colonists, and to hold the helm until the arrival of his siiccessor. But at this critical 42 THE ARRIVAL OF LORD DELAWARE. [1611. period, when all so rapidly tended to the wildest anarchy, an accidental ex- plosion of gunpowder, which inflicted a dangerous and tormenting wound, compelled him to return to England, to seek for that surgical aid which Vir- ginia was unable to afford. It is difficult to picture the sufferings that ensued after his departure ; so rapid was the catastrophe, that in less than six months of inconceivable misery, remembered long after as the " starving time," of five hundred persons whom he had left in Virginia, all but sixty were cut off by vice, disease, and famine. In a few days longer the whole of them must have perished, had not an unexpected succour arrived in their utter- most extremity. This Avas the unlooked-for appearance of Gates and Summers from the Bermudas. They had not lost a single person on their shipwreck; they had happily succeeded in saving their provisions and stores ; and while the colonists of Virginia had suffered the pinchings of want, the spontaneous bou.nties of nature had richly supported them for many months. Anxious to rejoin their companions, they constructed two crazy vessels, and were for- tunate enough to reach Virginia in safety. They were horror-struck at the appearance of the few surviving colonists, who, finding that their stores would last but for sixteen days longer, resolved to abandon the hated shore which had witnessed their prolonged miseries, and even to consume the town on their departure ; an act of insane folly which was happily prevented by Gates. On the 7th of June, at noon, they embarked in four pinnaces, and fell down the river with the tide. Next morning, before they had reached the sea, they were startled with the sudden appearance of the long boat of Lord Delaware, who had just arrived at the mouth of the river with ships and re- inforcements. By persuasion and authority he prevailed upon the melancholy band to return, half reluctanctly, to the scene of their sufferings, in the hope of better times. Twice was Virginia thus saved from destruction by the energy and joru- dence of a single individual. The first act of Lord Delaware was to pub- lish his commission, and to consecrate his functions by the solemnities of re- ligion. It was an affecting scene — that assemblage in the rude log-built chapel. The hearts of the colonists were full, the arrival of the governor seemed to them like a special deliverance of Divine Providence. They took courage to grapple with the difficulties of their situation, and soon found them to give way before their determined energy. The mingled firmness and gentleness of the new governor imposed upon the factious, and won over the dissolute and refractory. A regular system was established, and every one cheerfully sub- mitted to his appointed share in the labours of the day, which were regvilarly preceded by public worship. The colony now began to put forth some pro- mise of permanent establishment ; but scarcely had Lord Delaware brought about this gratifying result, than a complication of disorders compelled him to return to England, leaving Lord Percy as his deputy. During his short stay, he had not onl;^ reduced the colonists to some degree of order, but had repressed the encroachments of the Indians, by the erection of new forts. 1611.] ■ POCAHONTAS MARRIES JOHN ROLPH 43 and by attacldng some of their villages. Sir George Somers was sent for provisions to the fertile Bermudas, where he died. Captain Argall, who ac- companied him in another vessel, succeeded in obtaining a supply of corn on the shores of the Potomac. The discouragement among the colonists occasioned by the departure of Lord Delaware, was happily relieved by the speedy arrival of Sir Thomas Dale with three ships, some cattle, and three hundred settlers. For the dis- orders arising from discontent and mutiny which had brought the colony to the brink of ruin, a stringent remedy had been provided in a code of martial law, founded on that of the armies in the Low Countries, by which Dale was empowered to execute summary justice upon any disturbers of the public peace, or contentious opponents of his measures. This was, however, ad- ministered so wisely by him as to fortify without exasperating the spirits of the infant colony, which certainly required a stern and watchful nurse. Lord Delaware, meanwhile, had not forgotten Virginia ; and his influence was used in seconding the urgent request of Dale for seasonable reinforce- ments. The next, accordingly, sent out turned the trembling scale and estab- lished the nascent prosperity of the colony. Sir Thomas Gates soon arrived with six ships and three hundred emigrants, thus swelling the number of the settlers to a band of seven hundred men. He brought also a quantity of cattle, and a stock of military stores. The unlooked-for arrival of this as- sistance was welcomed with transports of affectionate gratitude to the mother country. The colony now began to extend its boundaries, and the Indians were effect- ually overawed. A new settlement, defended by a palisade, called, after the king's son, Henrico, was built at some distance up James Eiver ; and another at a spot taken (on account of their aggressions upon the colonists) from the Appomatocks Indians, at the junction of the river of that name with the James. A circumstance shortly afterwards occurred, which greatly tended, for a while, to allay the mutual animosities of the aborigines and settlers. During a voyage up the Potomac, Captain Argall had artfully brought off Pocahontas, and re- fused to give her up unless in exchange for some runaways, who had taken refuge with her father, PoM'hatan. While the latter was preparing for hos- tilities, one of the settlers, a young man named John Rolph, struck with the beauty and gentleness of the Indian maiden, resolved to demand her of her father in marriage. Such an union was as contrary to the prejudices of his countrymen, as it was desired by the Indians themselves, as being the surest method of cementing a lasting and equal alliance with the new-comers. The governor, however, encouraged it from motives of policy, — Powhatan was rejoiced, — the maiden herself was soon successfully wooed and won over to the faith of her husband, and the baptism of the gentle Pocahontas was shortly followed by her nuptials. This auspicious example, it was hoped by the Indians, would have been more generally imitated than it proved to be by the English, who have ever shown themselves slower than other nations in allying themselves with the natives of their colonies. The Indians could not G 2 44 DEATH OF POCAHONTAS IN ENGLAND. [1G17. but perceive that their alliance was rejected, that they were despised as an inferior race, and doomed to be ultimately expelled, by force or fraud, from the hunting-grounds of their ancestors. Nor was it long before they formed a deep-laid scheme to cut off the unwelcome intruders. For a while, how- ever, all appeared fair and promising, and the powerful tribe of the Chicka- hominies sought the alliance of the English. The fate of the simple Indian maiden, " the first Christian ever of that nation, the first Virginian that ever spake English," and from whom have sprung some influential families, cannot be a matter of indifference. Shortly after her marriage she accompanied her husband to England, where she was much caressed for her gentle, modest nature, and her great services to the colony. Here she fell in again with the gallant Smith, whom from report she sup- posed to have been long dead, and who has left us an interesting account of his interview with her, and of the circumstances of her untimely death. — " Hearing shee was at Brenford, with divers of my friends I went to see her. After a modest salutation, without any word, she turned about, obscured her face, as not seeming well contented ; and in that humour her husband with divers others, we all left her two or three houres, repenting myselfe to have writ she could speake English ; but not long after, she began to talke, and remembered mee well what courtesies she had done, saying, ' You did pro- mise Powhatan what was yours should bee his, and he the like to you; you called him father, being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason so must I doe you;' which though I would have excused, I durst not allow of that title because she was a king's daughter ; with a well-set countenance she said, ' Were you not afraid to come into my father's countrie and cause feare in him and all his people (but mee), and feare you here that I should call you father ? I tell you then I will, and you shall call mee child, and so I will bee for ever and ever your countrieman. They did tell us alwais you Avere dead, and I knew no other till I came to Plimoth, yet Powhatan did command "Vitamatomakkin to seeke you and know the truth, because your .countriemen will lie much.' " The treasurer, councell, and companie having well furnished Captaine Samuel Argall, the Lady Pocahontas, alias Rebecca, with her husband and others, in the good ship called the George, it pleased God, at Gravesend, to take this young lady to his mercie, where shee made not more sorrow for her unexpected death, than joy to the beholders to hear and see her make so re- ligious and godly an end." Among the changes that had recently taken place in the condition of the colony, two circumstances require especial notice, for their important influence upon its growth and improvement. The first was the establishment of a right of private property in the settlers, who by this stimulus soon came to take a greater interest in the improvement of their own lands, thus carrying on at the same time the general prosperity of the colony. The second was the sending over from England of a considerable number of respectable j'oung females, who were eagerly welcomed by the settlers, and thus arrested the 1617.] CULTIVATION OF TOBACCO IX VIRGINIA. 45 degeneracy of every community from which women are banished, and added the sanctities and blessings of home to the recently acquired rights of indi- vidual property. The visionary research for gold had by this time quite died out, and in- dustry was now turned into that profitable channel from which it has never since deviated. The discovery of tobacco by Sir Walter Raleigh's settlers has been already noticed. Since that time the taste for it, in spite of the odium and ridicule it encountered, having greatly increased in England, there arose a corresponding demand, and as it was found to yield an immediate and handsome return, it formed the almost exclusive object of cultivation, and greatly enriched the colony. The enclosures around the wood dwellings of the settlers, and even the open streets of James Town, were sown with it, until the cultivation of the necessaries of life was neglected, and the settlers were compelled to rely almost entirely upon the Indians for their supply. Many edicts were issued both at home and abroad against the prevailing mania for the narcotic weed, but its insidiously grateful properties effected a per- manent victory over all the anathemas and " counterblasts " launched forth against it. In tracing the political history of the United States, we shall find two agencies, which, though often combined and acting one upon the other, are still in their own nature distinctly independent. The first is, the natural tend- ency of men cut off from their parent stock, and planted in a new country settled by their labours, to assert the natural right of self-government, and to frame, with an independence of all foreign control, such laws and institutions as are suggested by local circumstances. The other is, the modifying influ- ence exercised over them by their connexion with the country from which they spring, whose laws, whose manners and prejudices, whose internal state, or foreign policy, must aflfect directly or indirectly the condition of her depend- ent colonies. We shall find, as we advance towards the memorable period of American independence, that the first of these agencies, even when apj^arently depressed, has been steadily gaining ground, until, no longer in need of the fostering assistance of the parent state, nor able longer to endure the restric- tions imposed by her upon their giant growth, the colonies at length throw oif the yoke, and assume the dignity of indei^endent nations. It is interesting, then, to mark the first germ of self-government implanted in Virginia. The disorders of the colonists had led to the establishment of martial law, so wisely administered by Dale as to occasion no complaint, but the abuses to which such a system was liable were not long in developing themselves. Dale had returned to England, leaving George Yeardley as deputy governor, but before long, through the influence of Lord Hich, one of the principal stockholders, Captain Argall was appointed in the room of Yeardley. Argall was active, enterprising, and unscrupulous. In an expe- dition to the Penobscot he had destroyed the French settlement of St. Sauveur and Port Royal, on the ground of the claim of England to the whole territory. 46 THE ESTABLISHMENT 01 THE SLA VE TRADE, [1619. His tyranny and rapacity, armed by the possession of absolute power, soon became so intolerable to the colonists that they loudly demanded his recall, and the company answered promptly to the appeal by reappointing Yeardley, who, in order to meet the growing desire among the colonists for the pos- session of political rights, which was beginning to be felt at home, was in- structed for the first time to appoint a local assembly, composed of repre- sentatives of the different plantations. This moreover was distinctly confirmed by Sir Francis Wyatt, who was sent out to supersede Yeardley. In order, says Robertson, to render the rights of the planters more certain, the com- pany issued a Charter, or Ordinance, which gave a legal and permanent form to the government of the colony. The effects of this measure were soon felt in the reformation of numerous abuses, and in increased confidence on the part of the colonists. The post of treasurer had been conferred on Sir Ed^\dn Sandys, whose integrity and energy were of the highest value. Though the colony still held it<3 ground, it was far from being in a flourishing state, and was far from profitable to tho company. Sandys soon sent out twelve hundred additional emigrants, together with ninety young women. The planters rapidly extended their boundaries ; besides tobacco, various other staples of industry, among which cotton deserves especial mention, were introduced, though with little eventual success. An impulse was given to production by the arrival, for the first time, of a cargo of negroes brought by a Dutch vessel for sale — the fatal germ of that system of slavery, which has become so incorporated with the very existence of the country, that its abolition, however desirable, is attended with infinite difficulty. One of the first results of the discovery of the African coasts by the Portuguese, was tha establishment by them of this trade, and their example was imitated by the Spanish, whose cities abounded in negro slaves. Sir John Hawkins hao been already alluded to as having first in- volved England in the disgrace of this inhuman traffic. On one of his semi- piratical expeditions h^ had burnt an Indian tqwn and carried off a large number of the inhabitants as slaves. The practice was found to be so pro- fitable that the moial sense of the community, then every where but feebly developed, was tasily reconciled to its adoption, and, spite of the occasional remonstrances of the Catholic clergy, the system continued to gain ground. While in^.uotry thus extended its triumphs, a provision for religion and education was not forgotten. The Episcopal Church of England was firmly rcjted in the land, which was divided into parishes, each served by a clergynan, to whom a glebe and salary were appointed. Stringent enactments wen levelled against the growing spirit of Puritanism. A considerable estate wa^ also set apart for the endowment of a college for the education of colonists Lnd Indians. But a short time before, and the abortive cfibrts to plant Virginia had become a theme for satire on the English stage — its success was now the subject of general enthusiasm. The colony had at length fairly taken root, and in the possession of political rights and comfortable homes, with a bound- 1622.] CONSPIRACY OF THE INDIANS. . 47 less field of enterprise before them, the colonists at length began to rest from their troubles, and little anticipated the fearful visitation impending over them. The deep dissatisfaction of the Indians at the growing encroachments which they were powerless to resist by open force, and in which they instinctively saw the first steps of that onward march of civilization, before which their race was to melt away, suggested the policy of an insidious conspiracy. Pow- hatan, the ally of the English, was dead, and was succeeded by Opechaiicanough, who matured, in impenetrable darkness, a scheme for cutting off" every white man from the colony, which he veiled by the profession of zealous amity. The English, despising the Indians, and lulled into security by a long interval of peace with them, were taken entirely by surprise. On the 22nd of March, the Indians, loaded with the sports of the chace and other provisions for their allies, entered their dwellings, and were received without suspicion; — at a given signal, the wild yell of the savage burst forth ; men, women, and chil- dren were involved in a common massacre, and their bodies mangled with ferocious satisfaGtiooi. Tw© hundred and forty-seven souls were thus suddenly murdered; and the whole colony might have been cut off, but for a con- verted Indian, residing in the house of his English master, "who," it is added, " used him as a son." Being solicited by the agent of Opechancanough to itiurder his ben-efactor, he instantly informed him of the treacherous pro- posal ; the alarm was carried to James Town, which, thus forewarned, was enabled to provide against the treacherous attack of the Indians, who timidly fled before the aspect of determined resistance. Their scheme had failed — the greater part of the colonists still survived. But the efiect of the panic was most disastrous. The scattered settlements were abandoned, as exposed, without adequate defence, to the sudden attack of a ruthless and invisible enemy, who eluded pursuit by plunging into the dejDths of the forest. To fear succeeded the thirst for revenge; and a warfare of extermination was long regarded by the settlers as a sacred duty, and even enforced by successive enactments. The misfortunes of the colonists excited a general sympathy in England, and prompt supplies were immediately sent out for their relief. The harassing warfare that ensued was attended with much misery and interruption of industrious pursuits; and by the confusion it occasioned, tended still further to inflame the disputes among the proprietaries. The affairs of the company had been unsuccessful, and the progress of the colony proportionably slow. The colonists, by the terms of the charter, were little better than indented servants to the company, who, notwithstanding the concessions which had been extorted from them, stiU retained the supreme direction of aflairs. Their policy was narrow, timid, and fluctuating ; and its unfortunate result led to dissensions, in which poli- tical, even more than commercial, questions soon became the subject of eager dispute. In England the ministerial faction eagerly endeavoured to fortify itself by gaining adherents among the Virginia company, but the great majority were determined to assert the rights and liberties of the subject at home, as well as of the colonists abroad. A freedom of discussion on political 4S JAMES I. ASSUMES THE GOVERNMENT. [1625. matters in general Avas thus generated, which was regarded by tne lovers of arbitrary power as being of highly dangerous tendency. The king, who had taken the alarm, was appealed to as arbiter by the minority, and, furnished with a pretext in the ill success and presumed mismanagemejit of the com- pany's affairs, determined upon a summary and arbitrary method of reforming them after his own standard. Without legal right, by the exercise of his pre- rogative alone, he ordered the records of the company in London to be taken possession of, and appointed a commission to sit in judgment upon its pro- ceedings, while another body was sent to Virginia to inquire into the condi- tion and management of the colony. The first inquiry brought, it was confessed, much mismanagement to light, upon which the king, by an order in council, declared his own intention to assume in future the appointment of the officers of the colony, and the supreme direction of its affairs. The di- rectors were invited to accede to this arrangement, on pain of the forfeiture of their charter. Paralysed by the suddenness of this attack uj)on their privi- leges, they begged that they might be allowed some time for consideration. An answer in three days' time was peremptorily insisted on. Thus menaced, they determined to stand upon their rights, and to surrender them only to force. Upon their decided refusal, a writ of quo warranto was issued by James against the company, in order that the validity of its charter might be tried in the court of King's Bench. The parliament having assembled, the court made a last appeal, but obtained from that body but little sympathy for their exclusive privileges. At length the commissioners returned from Vir- ginia with accumulated evidences of misgovernment, and an earnest recom- mendation to the monarch to recur to the original constitution of 1606, and to abrogate the democratic element which had occasioned so much dissension and misrule. This afforded additional ground for a decision, which, as usual in that age, says llobertson, was " perfectly consonant to the wishes of the monarch. The charter was forfeited, the company was dissolved, and all the rights and privileges conferred on it returned to the king, from Avhom they flowed." The colonists, upon learning the intentions of the king, sent over a petition that no change might take place in their acquired franchises, whatever form of government might be substituted for that of the late company. Their agent died on the passage, but James, satisfied at the moment with the victory he had obtained, and meditating the eventual establishment of a code of laws of his own especial devising, made for the present little or no change in the established form of government. Sir Francis Wyatt was continued in office, with the order to conform to the precedent of the last five years, thus tacitly recognising th6 authority of the representative assemblies which had been convened for that period. The monarch died before he could fulfil his de- clared intentions of remodelling the state of Virginia after the fashion of that pedantic kingcraft in which he so greatly prided himself. 1598.] FRANCE AND THE FUR TRADE. CHAPTER III. SETTLEMENT OF NEW FRANCE. — THE JESUITS AT MOUNT DESERT ISLAND. — DISCOVERIES OP CHAMPLAIN. — FOUNDATION OF QUEBEC. — DESTRUCTION OF PORT ROTAL. ^T lengtli, France, after fifty years of intestine troubles, having through the valour, activity, and clemency of Henry IV. recovered her tranquillity, and, under this most able of her monarchs, being in a condition to imdertake any enterprise, the taste for colonial adventure revived, and a Breton gentleman, the Marquis de la Roche, obtained the same commission and privileges as had been conferred on Roberval. But his expedition was a total failure. On reaching Isle Sable, one of the dreariest and most barren of the Atlantic islands, he put on shore a band of forty criminals, whom he had obtained as sailors, by licence, from the prisons of France, and who soon found them- selves less at their ease than in the dungeons from which they had been de- livered, and were finally permitted to return home. The growing importance of the fur trade, next led the Sieur de Pontgrave, one of the principal merchants of St. JNIalo, in concert with M. Chauvin, to obtain a patent, and set on foot some more successful voyages. In 1613, De Chatte, governor of Dieppe, formed a company, composed not only of Rouen merchants, but of many persons of condition, and his preparations were advancing, when Samuel de Champlain, of Saintonge, an officer in the navy, brave, skilful, and experienced, returned from the East Indies, where he had spent more than two years. He was so- licited to direct the expedition, to which with the king's permission he con- sented. But in the mean time De Monts had obtained, in concert with a con- federacy of the most eminent and wealthy merchants of France, an exclusive monopoly of the fur trade, and the sovereignty of Acadia and its dependencies, from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of latitude. This unfortunate ad- venturer, according to Charlevoix, was a man of great judgment, integrity, and patriotism, zealous for his country, and of capacity to conduct any enterprise by which its interests might be advanced; but his views were never well carried out, and his exclusive privileges awakened the envy of many, whose persevering hostility brought him to the brink of ruin. Another and a more fatal source of discord was not wanting. De Monts was himself a Calvinist, at a time when the cruel and sanguinary struggles between Catholic and Protestant had hardly ceased, yet he engaged to establish the Catholic religion among the aboriginal inhabitants and settlers. Even with the most upright intentions on his part, such a condition was certain to involve re- ligious disputes, and thus to disunite and weaken an infant community. 50 THE FIRST FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN A3IERICA. [ICOG. De INlonts first landed on the Isle of St. Croix, but the severity of the winter drove him to explore the coast in search of a more favourable settle- ment. He went to the Kennebec, and as far south as CajDC Cod, biit finding obstacles, returned to Isle St. Croix, where being joined by Pontgrave, they repaired to Port Royal. Nature has formed few scenes more beautiful than this land-locked harbour, where one of the leaders of the expedition, Poutrincourt, charmed with the site, sought permission of De Monts to establish himself with his family. This settlement is the oldest in North America. " Here," says Mr. Bancroft, " the first French settlement on the American continent had been made two years before James River was discovered, and three years before a cabin had been raised in Canada." The stone on which the colonists rudely engraved the date of their settlement was discovered in 1827 ; on the upper part are en- graved the square and compass of the free-mason, and in the centre, in large and deeply cut Arabic characters, the date 1606.' On his return to France, De Monts found his privileges assailed by the fishermen, who were successful in their appeal against him. Determined not to abandon his colony, he made a new treaty with Poutrincourt, who, leaving his settlement at Port Royal, had followed him into France, and they sailed again from Rochelle in INIay, 1606. Their voyage was protracted, and in the mean while the handful of colonists left behind at Port Royal were reduced to despair, and after long endurance, Pontgrave reluctantly embarked for France in search of succour, leaving but two men at the mercy of the savages to watch over the infant settlement. Scarcely, however, had they set out on their return, when they fell in with a bark, which gave them the welcome news that Poutrincourt had arrived at Canceaux. Thither they repaired, and here Pontgrave set himself to the work of fortification. "Wise, experienced, and personally indefatigable, he had the secret of preventing discontent, by keeping his people always well employed. He was ably seconded by Lescarbot, an advocate from Paris, the author of a work on French Florida, and a man as capable of founding a colony as he was of writing a history. He animated the weaker settlers, spurred on the active, and sparing himself in nothing, made himself beloved by all. But De Monts was still unfortunate — the remonstrances of the merchants had deprived him of his exclusive patent. In 1608, another expedition was made to the St. Lawrence. It was on the third of July, that Champlain, who had command of the expedition, and whose views, unlike those of the mer- chant adventurers, which had regard only to profitable trafiic, embraced the ultimate establishment and defence of a noble colony, first erected on Cape Diamond, the scattered huts which formed the nucleus of the future city of Quebec, the crown and defence of Canada under both its French and English masters. The Jesuits had already followed in the wake of the new discoverers, and explored the rivers and coasts of Maine. Another colony was attempted under the auspices of Mary de Medici. De Soussaye was invested with the 1G13.] THE JESUITS AT 3I0VNT DESERT ISLAND. 51 command of this expedition. Sailing from Honfleur, he touched at Port Royal, but the Jesuits, eager for the conversion of the heathen, were desirous of a sphere on which they could labour in uncontrolled independence, and thus they proceeded to explore the rocky coast of Maine. Here, near the mouth of the Penobscot, on the wild shores of Mount Desert Isle, they de- termined to establish themselves. Landing on the northern bank, De Soussaj'-e hastily threw up intrenchments around his settlements, to which they gave the name of Saint Sauveur. Soon, by the labour of his little band of five and twenty, assisted by the ship's crew, all working with com- bined energy, some rude habitations were erected ; a cross was reared in their midst, and the matin and evening chants arose in this dreary sea-beat solitude. The missionaries now ardently engaged in the work of imparting the consola- tions of religion to the natives, and the marvels of healing seemed wrought by their faith. The Pere Biart being indefatigable in this labour of love, his earnest, disinterested piety won upon the rude but impressible savages. The sway of France, as well as her religion, were about to be permanently estab- lished upon the coasts of Maine. But these results were prevented by an imforeseen adventure, disastrous to the new colonists, and destructive of all their pious anticipations. Scarcely had they reposed from the fatigues of the long voyage, and entered upon the course in which they Avere engaged with their whole souls, than there ap- peared in the offing a fleet of English fishing boats from Virginia, under the convoy of a ship of war. Samuel Argall, its commander, a man of coarse character, animated by national jealousy, perhaps by religious hate, and, though the nations were at peace, founding his proceedings upon the asser- tions of the exclusive right of the English to the soil, at once determined to destroy the infant settlement. When this ill-omened fleet hove in sight, De Soussaye, seeing that it bore the English flag, prepared to defend the j^lace, as did La Motte de Vilin the ship under his command. But they were both ■ destitute of artillery, while Argall had fourteen guns ; and the English Cap- tain, after cannonading the feeble ramparts, poured in a destructive fire of musquetry, which compelled De Soussaye to yield. The cross, which had been placed to call together the worshippers till a chapel could be built, was hastily hurled down, and under the plea that all things are lawful in war with an enemy, Argall privately possessed himself of the commission of De Soussaye. The next day he demanded it from him ; De Soussaye, ignorant of the theft, replied, that it was in his trunk ; and when it was not found, Argall, affecting to regard him as a pirate, treated him with indignity, and gave up the ship and settlement to pillage. Argall now offered to transport his prisoners to Virginia, and to allow them the free exercise of their religion. La Motte de Vilin, who was treated kindly by the English captain, with Pere Biart, prepared to go thither. A vessel had indeed been offered to convey them back to France, but it was found to be too small— the commandant, with some of the others, determined, however, to sail in it for Port Royal. They started on this forlorn cruise, and while h2 52 DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMP LAIN. [1G13. coastirag the island, had the joy of seeing on the shore their pilot, Lametz, ■u'ho, upon the attack by Argall, had made his escape into the woods. They had not long taken him on board before they fell in with a French ship, bound for St. Malo, in which they returned home from their disastrous ex- pedition. When Argall reached Virginia with his cajatives, the governor sentenced them to death, refusing to ratify the promises made to them, on the ground of their being unfurnished with a commission. Argall, rather than witness their execution, was compelled to reveal his perfidy. The prisoners were spared, but the governor, resenting the encroachments of the French, now despatched Argall to destroy all their settlements, to the latitude of forty-five degrees, within which limits the English asserted their exclusive right of colonization. The destructive edict was fulfilled to the letter, the fortifications of Isle St. Croix and the settlements at Port Royal were demolished, and thus in a few hours was consumed all that the French possessed in a colony where they had invested a hundred thousand crowns, without taking precaution against a surprise by their enemies. Poutrincourt, who had lost more than any, re- turned from the scene of his misfortunes to France, 'distinguished himself in the service of his country, and died on the field of honour. On their return to Quebec in 1609, Champlain and Pontgrave found that their settlement had advanced almost better than they had dared to hope. Content reigned among the colonists, they had planted Indian corn and reaped an abundant harvest, but Champlain's attempt to naturalize the vine had totally failed. Champlain was among the first to follow the fatal and cruel policy of taking part in quarrels between the Indian tribes, and of engaging them in those of Europeans. The Algonquins had solicited his assistance against the Iroquois. Sailing up the St. Lawrence in his shallop, accompanied by bis allies, the French commander was the first to penetrate into the unbroken solitude of the river Sorel. After advancing fifteen leagues, the rapids of Chambly, at the point where now the fort is situated, opposed an insuperable obstacle to the pro- gress of his vessel. Of this the Indians had not forewarned him, yet, neither repelled by their deceit, nor by the perils of advancing into a hostile territory, he sent back the shallop to Quebec, and proceeded. At night they encamped on the margin of the stream, their canoes were ranged close along the shore, and they were protected from surprise on the land side by a fortification of fallen trees. It was not long before the Frenchman, emerging from the river, burst into that magnificent lake, of which he was the first discoverer, and which has ever since borne his name. He admired its wide expanse, its beautiful and varied shores, and the snow-covered mountains far to the west, among which are the head-waters of the noble Hudson. Reaching the extremity of Lake Champlain, he descended the rapids below its outlet, penetrating across that narrow intervening neck of land which separates it from the smaller but more romantic Lake George, to which he gave the name of Saint Sacrament. One envies the feelings with which Champlain must have first explored scenes 1G09.] FLOURISHING CONDITION OF QUEBEC. 53 of such exquisite beauty, but scenes destined to become ere long the theatre of many a sanguinary struggle between the French and English, of many an act of cruelty by their Indian allies. These he was now for the first time to witness, for very shortly after the Iroquois and Algonquins had met, and his fire-arms had decided the battle, the Indians began to torture their prison- ers with their accustomed cruelty, and Champlain, unable to bear the sight of the torn and palpitating captives, was comjDelled to beg that he might shorten their sufierings with his musket. This remarkable man afterwards carried his explorations far into the in- terior, ascended the Ottawa river, mingled in the internal wars of the Indians, obtained a great ascendency over them, and opened the j^ath for the Jesuit missionaries, who pushed their operations into the remotest West. Under his auspices the infant foundation of Quebec, threatened by religious dissen- sions and the hostility of the Indians, was preserved from dissolution, and the extensive territory of New France acquired for his native country. He left his bones in the land which he thus colonized and explored. CHAPTER IV. VOYAGES AND DISCOVERY OF HENRY HUDSON. SETTLEMENT OF NETV NETHERLANDS. While the English and French subjects were extending their possessions in the New World, another settlement was about to be effected there by the citizens of Holland. The natives of that extraordinary country, of which the *• new catched miles," as Andrew Marvel calls them, are only protected from the inroads of the sea and the overflow of the Rhine by stupendous embank- ments, whose cities were built upon millions of jsiles sunk into the morasses, were, by the very natui'e of their position, as much in the ocean as on terra firma, nursed into maritime hardihood, and driven for subsistence into com- mercial and manufacturing enterprise. Rising more elastic from their me- morable struggle for their religion and liberties with the power of Spain, their commerce had taken an immense development, their ships covered the seas, and their settlements were extended far as the limits of human dis- covery. The progress of the English in North America had already excited their emulation, and an enterprise had been projected, but abandoned lest it should involve them in fresh hostilities with the Spaniards. It was in 1609 that Henry Hudson, after two daring but unsuccessful attempts, at the expense of a body of London merchants, to seek for the North-west passage to India, 54 HENRY HUDSON IN NEW YORK BAY. [1G09. crossed over to Holland and offered his experience to the newly-created Dutch East India Company. His services were accepted, and on the 4th of April, in a small vessel, the Halve Mane, or Crescent, he departed for the third time on his perilous enterprise. Having reached the Northern Sea, and finding his progress impeded by masses of ice, he turned to the westward, coasted the shores of Acadie, entered the mouth of the river Penobscot, ran down as far as the Chesapeake, already colonized by the English, and finally came to an anchor within Sandy Hook at the entrance of New York Bay, which had never, so far as is known, been visited by Europeans since the time of Verezzani. As he approached the shores he was delighted with the delicious fragrance and verdure. Groups of the Indians, clothed in deer-skins, poured down and eagerly welcomed the new comers, and brought forth to propitiate them great store of Indian corn and tobacco. On the Long Island shores the natives were, however, more hostile, and attacked the boats, killing one of the crew with an arrow, and wounding two others. Hudson now advanced with greater precaution through the Narrows, explored the shores of the bay, and trafficked with the natives on Staten Island. Manhattan Island, now entirely overspread with the magnificent commercial capital of America, was then " wild and rough ; " a thick forest covered those parts where vegetation could take root ', the beach was broken and rugged, and the interior full of desolate sandy hillocks and swampy ponds. Hudson now entered the noble river which bears his name, carefully sounding as he advanced. Never had such a scene before saluted his eyes ; and he described the land as being " the most beau- tiful in the world." We may, indeed, figure his astonishment and delight, as from the deck of his little vessel he traced the magnificent course of the river through the rocky " Palisades," and the broad expanse of the " Tappan Sea," till he reached the majestic solitudes of " the Highlands." The lofty mountains, dropping their feet into the still waters of the river, were clothed from base to summit with a gorgeous mantle of unbroken foliage, through which the denizens of the forest roamed at will; the deer might have been seen glancing timidly from his covert at the passing apparition of a white sail ; the plaintive and fitful cry of the water-fowl, or the melancholy note of the whip-poor-will, were the only sounds that disturbed the otherwise unbroken and almost oppressive stillness. Traces of the presence of man were none save the lonely wigwam and the bark canoe. Gliding past promontory after promontory, and reach after reach, Hudson emerged into the more open part of the river, and came to an anchor off" the spot where now stands the city which commemorates his name and voyage, and where he was most hospitably received by the natives. He went on shore and visited their comfortable bark wigwams, and was abundantly supplied with Indian corn and the sjioils of the chace, a fat dog skinned with shells was a special delicacy prepared on the occasion, and seeing him about to return to his ships, and fearing lest mistrust of them might be the cause, they broke their bows and arrows, and threw them before his eyes into the fire. With child-like confidence they came off 1610-20.] FOUNDATION OF NEW AMSTERDA3I. 55 to the vessel, and examined every article with curiosity and delight altoge- ther as childish. Hudson did not advance above this spot with his ship, but ascended as far as Albany in his shallop ; and, after being delayed for four days by adverse wi;/ids, descended the river, and, sailing direct homewards, had a fortunate passage back to Dartmouth, whence he forwarded an account of his discovery to his Dutch employers. They refused, however, to prosecute the abortive search for the North-west passage any further, and Hudson was de- spatched by a London company on his last and fatal voyage. Again reaching the Northern Sea, he sailed through the straits to which he has left his name, and found himself embayed in a vast gulf, through which he vainly sought for the long-desired outlet. After a winter of horrible privation he set out with a mutinous crew on his return ; they put him with his only son and a few sailors into an open boat, which they cut adrift, and left them to perish of cold and famine, or to be helplessly crushed by masses of floating ice. Hudson was never heard of more. So miserable was the fate of one of the most intrepid and persevering explorers of America. The Dutch East India Company claimed a right to the new lands disco- vered by their agent ; and vessels were immediately despatched to open a trade with the natives. A few fortified huts were erected for this purpose on the Island of Manhattan, the nucleus of the future city of New York. Argall, returning to Virginia from his attack of the French settlements, looked in upon the little group of traders, and claimed the right of possession for England. Too weak to dispute his claim, they affected submission, but only till his ves- sels "svere out of sight. The States-general had meanwhile granted a four years' monopoly to any other enterprising traders, and an Amsterdam com- pany sent out five ships. One of these adventurers, Adrian Blok, extended the sphere of discovery by way of the East Kiver, ran through the formidable " Hellegat," or Hell Gate, traced the shores of Long Island and the coasts of Connecticut as far as Cape Cod. A fort was erected on Manhattan Island, and another at Albany, merely, however, as centres of trafiic with the In- dians, and not with the view of permanent colonization. After a further duration of three years, during which they opened friendly relations with different tribes of Indians, the trading monopoly passed into the hands of the Dutch West India Company, who were endowed with the exclusive pri- vilege of trafficking and colonizing on the coasts of Africa and America. This corporation was divided into different chambers, established in different cities — that at Amsterdam being invested with the charge of the colony now called New Netherlands, the boundaries of which extended somewhat vaguely from the Connecticut River to the Delaware. The Island of Manhattan was now purchased of the Indians, and the fort, with its little group of surrounding cottages, was named after the parent city. New Amsterdam. The traders ex- tended their explorations, and carried on a profitable traffic with the Indians. They opened friendly relations with the Protestant pilgrims in New England, who, not unforgetful of the succour afforded them in Holland, as yet cor- dially welcomed the new comers. 56 GROWTH OF THE NEW NETHERLANDS. [1G20-48. To encourage a permanent occupation of the country, was granted in 1629, to every one who should phant a colony of fifty souls, the separate privilege to possess, under the title of " Patroon," absolute property, accompanied with almost feudal privileges, in the lands thus occupied. Adventurei;s were not slow in availing themselves of so tempting an offer, and large portions of territory were soon appropriated. The banks of the Delaware were thus settled by De Vries ; and his infant establishment, soon destroyed by the Indians, was shortly after re-established, protected by Fort Nassau. The fort of Good Hope was erected on the shore of Connecticut, the river of which name was first discovered and its neighbourhood occupied by a body of Dutch emigrants. The claims and privileges of the " Patroons " were soon found to clash with those of the Company, and disputes arose seriously retarding the pro- gress of the colony, which was threatened besides with more serious cause for apprehension. A new scheme for colonization was formed by Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sv»^eden, and a band of emigrants appeared in the Delaware, elbowing their unwilling neighbours. The governor protested, but in vain, and the Swedish colony continued to increase. The old claim of the English was also revived, and a body of settlers from Plymouth summarily established themselves in the vicinity of the Connecticut. To protestations the governor. Van Twiller, this time added force, but the English were too strong for the body sent to dislodge them, and continued to maintain their ground. Mean- while, here as every where else, serious dissensions had arisen Avith the Indian tribes. Kieft, the successor of Van Twiller, upon a trifling provocation, had fallen upon the Algonquins and massacred a considerable number. A bloody and exterminating war broke out, the detached settlers were cut off, the villages burnt, and all the ferocity of Indian warfare was let loose upon the unhappy colonists. "Wearied out, at length, both parties entered into a solemn treaty of peace. Kieft, the object of general execration, met with a retribtitive fate, being wrecked soon after on returning to his native country. Such were the troubles, jealousies, and dissensions, among which the infant colony of New Netherlands gradually continued to gain ground and prosper. It is interesting to look back to this early period, of which so many picturesque traces remain in local usages and nomenclature. The names of the first " Patroons " are those of the old aristocracy of the merchant city. In New Jersey any one coming from Holland would be struck with curious resem- blances to the waggons and signs of that country. The " Bowery " of New York still recalls the name of the original Dutch farming grounds, and the direction of the streets indicate, it is believed, the old cattle paths through this half rural, half commercial, settlement, which gradually encroached on the forest, and began to assume a respectable appearance, M-ith its church and houses built after the quaint fashion of those of the mother country ; and of which the traces are so rapidly disappearing in the march of modern improve- ment. The little " schuyts," or skiffs, similar to /those now seen on the canals of Holland, might then have been seen gliding up and down the Hudson, to the different landings, of which so many still retain their original appellations ; IGOO.] THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 57 and those scattered and snug farm-houses, with their rural riches and profound quietude, nestling under the wild covert of the half-cleared forest, of which the pen of Washington Irving, in his " Sketch Book," has left us so delicious a picture. CHAPTER V. THE PILGRIM FATHERS. — ROBINSON AND HIS CHURCH IN ENGLAND AND AT LETDEN. — NEGOCIA- TIONS. — VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER. — HARDSHIPS AND MORTALITY. — SETTLEMENT AT PLYMOUTH. The doctrine of a Providence, watching over the destinies and mysteriously directing the movements of the human race, was never more strikingly exem- plified than in the colonization of New England. In following its eventful history, we are forcibly struck with the ripeness of the times and seasons, and with the wonderful concurrence of circumstances : and of all the chapters of Ameiican history, this is incomparably the most interesting and momentous, as being intimately connected with principles and feelings the loftiest that can actuate the human soul. . That mighty impulse given by the Eeformation to the enfranchisement of the mind, so long bowed down under the paralysing influence of the Roman Church, was quickly felt throughout Europe, but not by any means in equal measure. In some instances the reaction against her was complete and the separation from her communion total. In the little republic of Geneva, for example, John Calvin — the Bible his sole guide, established a form of faith and a system of church government of the simplest and austerest kind, which soon became the model for imitation to the Protestants of Holland, France, and Scotland. In England, on the contrary, various causes contributed to prevent so sudden and extreme a change. The mass of the people were still attached to the old system. Henry VIII. repudiated the supremacy of the Pope only to establish his own ; and as he was at heart a believer in the Ca- tholic dogmas, the form taken by the English Church was but a modification of that, to whose revenues and authority it had succeeded, — a compromise be- tween Rome and Geneva. Any avowed deviation from his standard was punished by this brutal and arbitrary monarch Avith the torture aiad the fag- got. This severity might for a time suppress, though it could not destroy, that growing desire for a more sweeping reformation, which in the reign of his successor, Edward VI., and under the influence of the Lord Protector, openly displayed itself under the name of Puritanism. During this reign there was a constant struggle between the hierarchy and the Puritans; but their 58 OPPRESSION OF PURITANS UNDER JAMES L [1G03. dissensions were interrupted by the succession of Mary, and tlie temporary triumph of Catholicism, which involved them in one common persecution On this occasion many of the Puritans took refuge on the continent, where the; became still more deeply imbued with the spirit of the Calvinistic institutes. The same spirit of free inquiry that had enfranchised them from ecclesiasti- cal bigotry, naturally prompted a growing spirit of resistance to civil tyranny, which, however, the necessity of uniting against the Spanish power tended, for awhile, to keep in abeyance. When the accession of Elizabeth re-established the ascendency of Protestantism they returned to England, where their doc- trines continued to gain ground, although the queen herself, who disliked their spirit and tendency, opposed them with the whole weight of her authority; and Archbishop "VVhitgift, determined to enforce a strict compli- ance v/ith the standard of the Church, commenced a cruel persecution against the Nonconformist party. The pretensions and severity of the Episcopalians, who nov/ contended for the doctrines, unknown to the early Reformers, of apostolical succession and the right divine of kings, increased with the acces- sion of James I., who, although bred up in the Presbyterian iliith, was no sooner seated on the throne of England, than he found the established form of church government suit better with his love of arbitrary power than the restless spirit of Puritanism. This he regarded with dislike, and not without reason, as calculated to undermine the fabric of arbitrary power, especially as the parliament, now struggling against the exercise of kingly prerogative, favoured the cause of the Puritans, as much as the Episcopal hierarchy, subservient to the pleasure of the monarch, endeavoured to crush them by fines, deprivations, and imprisonment. The party thus proscribed and persecuted was itself divided. The more moderate desired rather to infuse their own spirit of rigid reformation and austerity of manners into the Established Church, than to deny her au- thority or renounce her communion. But there were many who, repudiating alike Episcoi^al and Presbyterian government, contended for the absolute independence of every separate congregation of believers, and their right to frame for themselves, unrestricted by human authority, such a form of church government and discipline as they could derive from the study of Scripture. This section of the i^arty who called themselves Independents, but had obtained the appellation, at once distinctive and contemptuous, of Brown- ists, from the name of one of their leaders, a man whose intemperate zeal was speedily succeeded by his ignominious recantation, still continued to exist, in the North of England, the object of a watchful and incessant persecution. Many of them had fled for refuge to the States of Holland, and established a Congregational church in the city of Amsterdam. Of these separatists, another body had been gradually formed on the joining borders of Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, principally by the influence of certain Puritan ministers of the neighbourhood, and especially of William Brewster, who, from the position which he occupied in the little church which he had organized, was distinguished by the title of " Elder 1G07.] ROBINSON IS MADE PASTOR OF THE PURITANS. 59 Brewster." He was a man of respectable family and considerable attainments, and had been one of the under secretaries of state, in the office of Secretary Da- vison, whom he accompanied on a mission into Holland, and upon whose fall from power, in 1587, he retired from public life, as it is now believed, to Scrooby, a small village about a mile and a half to the south of Bawtry, in Yorkshire. Here he, as sub-tenant, occupied a large mansion-house, " a manor of the Bishop of York's," which had afforded a refuge for several weeks to the broken-hearted and penitent "Wolsey, after his disgrace, and where he had distinguished himself by many works of piety and mercy. In this old mansion, now razed to the ground, the members of the church, for the most part agriculturists from the surrounding districts, with a few per- sonages of the rank of gentry, were hospitably entertained by Brewster, and met for the celebration of their simple, but solemn, services. Among them was William Bradford, from a family of the yeomanry, long settled at Austerfield, a village in the same neighbourhood — a man without the education of Brewster, but of good natural talents, who was afterwards chosen governor of the infant State of New Plymouth, and whose Diary of its settlement, Biography of Brewster, and other writings, form the most interesting as well as authentic materials for its history. The pastor chosen to preside over the church vras John Eobinson, a Puritan divine, who had been educated at Cambridge, where he is supposed to have formed the acquaintance of Brewster. He had held a benefice in the neighbourhood of Norwich, but his views upon the neces- sity of a separation from the Church becoming more decided, he endea- voured to obtain adherents in that city, which, however, he afterwards left upon an invitation to preside over the church of Scrooby. Eobinson was a man of high and beautiful character, imbued with an indAvelling spirit of Christian charity. Baillie, an opponent, calls him the " most learned, polished, and modest spirit that ever his sect enjoyed." " 'Tis true," says WinsloAV, "he was more rigid in his course and way at first than toward his latter end : for his study was peace and union, so far as it might agree with faith and a good conscience, and for schisms and divisions, there was nothing in the world more hateful to him." His liberality was seen in his willingness to receive to com- munion the members of churches differing from his own, if, as he believed, true followers of Christ ; a concession repudiated by the stricter followers of his sect. He was a true father to his people, he loved them as his own soul, in their temporal, as M^ell as spiritual, affairs he took the deepest interest, and he was regarded by them with a feeling of veneration that gathered strength with years. Harassed at home by every species of malicious annoyance, the members of the church thus formed by Brewster, and presided over by Eobinson, resolved to follow the example of the other refugees of their persuasion, and to emigrate to Holland. " It must not be understood," says Hunter, to whose recent researches we are indebted for the above details, " that all the persons who afterwards sailed in the Mayflower had been members of the church while it was in England ; many of them must have joined it during its resi- I 2 60 R OBINSON A ND HIS PEOPLE LEA VE ENGL A ND. [1 G07, 8. dence at Amsterdam and Leyden, as ^\c know authentically that Winslow did, and also Captain Miles Standish, afterwards so conspicuous in the history of the colony. There was indeed, during the whole of the twelve years that the church was in Holland, a constant stream of disaffected persons from England setting towards that country, where the principle of toleration was recognised, and religious peculiarities of opinion and practice might be in- dulged in peace." " It must have been in the autumn or early winter of 1607," continues Hunt- er, " that the church at Scrooby began to put into execution the intention, ■vrhich must have been forming months before, of leaving their native country, and settling in a land of which they knew little more than that there they should find the toleration denied them at home. Bradford says much in his general way of writing, of the oppression to which they were subjected, both ministers and people ; and there cannot be a doubt that attempts would be made to put down the church, and those attempts, whatever they were, Avould be construed into acts of ecclesiastical oppression by those who deemed the maintenance of such a church an act of religious duty. And controversy, as it Avas in those days con- ducted, was likely to set neighbour against neighbour, and to roughen the whole surface of society. Much of what Bradford speaks may have been but this kind of collision, or at most acts of the neighbouring justices of the peace in en- forcing what was then the law. Bradford speaks of the excitement of the neighbourhood when they saw so many persons of all ranks and conditions parting with their possessions, and going simultaneously to another country, of whose very language they were ignorant. Some carried with them por- tions of their household goods ; and it is mentioned that some of them carried with them looms which they had used at home. They Avere not, however, allowed to go without some opposition. The principal party of them, in which were Brewster and Bradford, intended to embark at Boston, and they made a secret bargain with a Dutch captain of a vessel, to receive them on board in that port as privately as might be. The captain acted perfidiously. He gave secret information to the magistrates of Boston, and when they were embarked, and, as they thought, just upon the point of sailing, they were surprised by finding officers of the port come on board, who removed them from the vessel and carried them to 2:)rison in the town, not without circumstances of con- tumely. Some were sent back to their homes ; others, among whom apj^ears to have been Brewster, were kept for many months in confinement at Boston. Not consecutively upon this, but correlatively as it seems, is another fact, showing the difficulties which they met with in their emigration. The party to whom this story belongs had agreed with the master of another Dutch vessel, then lying in the port of Hull, to take them on board at an unfre- quented place on the northern coast of Lincolnshire. This man deceived them ; for having taken about half of them on board, on some real or pretended alarm, he sailed away, leaving the rest, who were chiefly women and chil- dren, on the shore in the deepest affliction. Let it be added, to the honour of England, that the colonists cannot lay the evil conduct of these two 1C09.] THE PILGRIMS IN AMSTERDAM AND LEYDEN. 61 mariners at our doors. It would, of course, with impediments such as these, be some time before the emigration could be fully effected. Some, it seems, were disheartened, and remained in England ; but the greater part persevered in the design, and met together at Amsterdam, where they remained in great peace and unity among themselves for about a twelvemonth." At length the disputes and controversies that arose among the English Nonconformists in Amsterdam induced Robinson, who was a lover of peace, after a year's stay at Amsterdam, to remove with his congregation to Leyden. Here the little church over which he presided remained for several years, in such a state of perfect harmony among themselves, and charity to those around them, as to call forth the public eulogium of the magistrates of the city. Brewster, who had expended his fortune in assisting his brethren, maintained himself by teaching languages, and by setting up a press, while Bradford, with some others, engaged in the manufacture of silk. Enjoying thus a safe asylum, and respected by the citizens of the country they had chosen as a refuge, the little band of exiles for conscience' sake were, notwithstanding, ill at ease. Their first impulse had been merely to escape from persecution, but as time rolled on, they began to long for some lasting abiding place in- the new-found world, of which such interesting ac- counts were continually reaching them, where they could carry out their cherished idea of a Christian commonwealth, and, to use the language of Brad- ford, " lay a foundation for the gospel of Christ in these remote parts — even but as stepping-stones to others for the performance of so great a work." This desire was strengthened by various inconveniences they felt or dreaded. They feared, with English patriotism, lest their successors should be absorbed among a people whose language and usages were strange, and lest their youth should be led from the strict profession of their tenets, or be corrupted by the licence of manners prevailing around them. Faith — the great principle of their lives — led them to go forth under Divine guidance with the full confidence of a successful issue. " We verily believe," said Robinson and Brewster, in a letter to Sir Edward Sandys, "that the Lord is with us, to whom and whose service we have given ourselves in many trials; and that he will graciously prosper our endeavours, according to the simplicity of our hearts. Second, we are well weaned from the delicate milk of our mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land. Third, the people are, for the body of them, industrious and frugal, we think we may safely say, as any company of people in the world. Fourth, we are knit together as a body in the most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord ; of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the whole. Fifth, and lastly, it is not with us as with other men, whom small things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish ourselves at home again. We know our enter- tainment in England and Holland. We shall much prejudice both our acts and means by removal ; where if we should be driven to return, Ave should not hope to recover our present helps and comforts, neither indeed look ever 62 ABRANGEMENTS FOR GOING TO VIRGINIA. [1G20. to attain the like in any other place during our lives, which are now drawing towards their period." Their resolution solemnly taken, the scene of their emigration was next to be determined. It is in proof of the great esteem they had acquired that the Dutch, in learning their intention, " desired that they would go with them, and made them large offers." This, however, love to the country which had cast them forth from her bosom forbade. Debating for some time between Guiana and Virginia, they at length decided on the latter colony. As it had, however, been settled by Episcopalians, and the public profession of adher- ence to the Church of England was required and enforced by penalties, they sent over agents to England, to endeavour to make terms with the Virginia Company, and to insure for themselves liberty of conscience in case of their removal to their colony. The Company, desirous of attaching to the soil so valuable a body of emigrants, whose steadiness and character they ap- preciated, endeavoured to obtain, through their influence with the heads of Church and State, an assurance of toleration. But the spirit of bigotry was more rampant than ever at home ; and fresh edicts were launched against the Puritans even while the negociation was pending. Influence so far prevailed as to extort from the king a promise that he Avould connive at and not molest them, if they remained in studious obscurity, but to grant them toleration by his public authority under his seal he positively refused. The agents were obliged to return unsuccessful to Leyden ; and with Brewster now proceeded to England, to obtain as favourable a patent as they could, though unaccom- panied by liberty of conscience. This was readily granted by the Virginia Com- pany, although the patent taken out was never of any practical use. The next difficulty was to procure means, which could only be done by entering into an arrangement with a company of London merchants, whose terms were exceedingly unfavourable to the emigrants. The whole proj)erty acquired in the colony was to belong to a joint-stock for seven years ; and the services of each emigrant were only to be held equivalent to every ten pounds furnished by the capitalists. Upon these hard terms they now prepared to set out on their long-desired pilgrimage. It was decided, upon the general request, that Hobinson should remain with such of the congregation as were deemed unfit for pioneers, or were unable to find room in the vessels. A small ship, the Speedwell, had been purchased in Holland, and was now ready to convey the emigrants to Southampton. Those appointed to go accordingly left Leyden, accompanied by their brethren to Delft Haven, where they were joined by members of the church at Amster- dam. The night was spent in mutual encouragement and Christian converse ; and next day, July 22, the wind being fair, they got ready to go on board. Since Paul took his final leave of the elders of the church upon the sacred strand of Miletus, when they wept " lest they should see his face no more," scarcely had a more solemn or affecting scene taken place than this parting of the apostolic Eobinson with his flock. He fell upon his knees with them, and while the tears poured down his cheeks, commended them, with fervent prayer. 1620.] THE MA YFLOWER 8ETS SAIL FROM PL Y3I0 UTH. 63 to God. The choking sensations which accompany the parting of lover and friend, of child and parent, were tranquillized by the soothing and exalting efficacy of faith; and thus they arose comforted and went on board, — the sails were loosened to the wind, and among the hoarse cries of the sailors, and the rough heaving of the vessel, the parting exiles strained their eyes to catch the last glimpse of those whom but few of them were destined to see again on earth. A fair breeze soon carried them to Southampton, where they remained a few days, and were joined by the larger vessel, the Mayflower. Here they received a letter from E-obinson, which was read to the assembled company. Its tone and tenor were admirably calculated to suggest and enforce that brotherly concord which was the only guarantee of their success. — " Loving and Christian friends, — I do heartily, and in the Lord, salute you all as being they with whom I am present in my best affection, and most earnest longings after you, though I be constrained for a while to be bodily absent from you ; I say constrained, God knowing how willingly and much rather than other- wise I would have borne my part with you in this first brunt, were I not by strong necessity held back for the present. Make account of me in the mean while as of a man divided in myself with great pain, and (natural bonds set aside) having my better part with you. * * * * * * * * " As, first, you are many of you strangers, as to the persons, so to the infirmities one of another, and so stand in need of more watchfulness this way, lest when such things fall out in men and women as you suspected not, you be inordinately affected with them ; which doth require at your hands much wisdom and charity for the covering and preventing of incident of- fences that way. And lastly, your intended course of civil community will minister continual occasion of offence, and will be as a fuel for that fire, except you diligently quench it with brotherly forbearance. * * * * " Let every man repress in himself, and the whole body in each person, as so many rebels against the public good, all private respects of men's selves, not sorting with the general conveniency. And as men are careful not to have a new house shaken with any violence before it be well settled and the parts firmly knit, so be you, I beseech you, brethren, much more careful that the house of God, which you are and are to be, be not shaken with unneces- sary novelties or other oppositions at the first settling thereof." After distributing their company into the two ships, they set sail from South- ampton, but had scarcely got out into the open channel before the smaller ves- sels became so leaky that the master refused to advance ; — a few hours more would have sunk her. They put into Dartmouth, where a week's delay took place, and when they had proceeded about a hundred leagues from the Land's End, it was feared that the crazy SjDcedwell was unseaworthy, and must return home with such of the emigrants as were willing. Crowding the larger bark with the remainder, after " a second sad leave-taking," the ships parted company, and the Mayflower proceeded on her solitary Toyage, to encounter the full fury of the equinoctial gales. For days to- 64 THE VOYAGE OF THE 3IAYFL0WER. [1G20. gether they were forced to scud before the wind without a rag of sail, in danger of foundering, the heavy seas straining her upper works, and so loosen- ing and warping the main beam amidships, that but for " a great iron screw that one of the passengers had brought from Holland," by means of which they contrived to fix and strengthen it, the captain and officers had serious thoughts of putting about and returning. Struggling with these tempestuous seas, after a long passage of two months from Southampton, at day-break, on the ninth of November, they came in sight of the coast of New England, off the far famed headland of Cape Cod. The object of the pilgrims had been to settle near the Hudson River, and they now ran down to the southward, but getting among dangerous shoals, bore up again for Cape Cod, and came to an anchor within its harbour. After their rude tossing, the sight of the wooded land and the sweet breezes that Came off the shore were reviving, while the vast store of fish and fowl, with the number of whales playing round the ship, proved that they had lighted upon a spot fertile in resources. Eager to land, they resolved nevertheless, in consequence of some signs of dissension, to frame themselves into a body, and to appoint a governor. John Carver, Bradford, also Elder Brewster, and Captain Miles Standish, were the leading personages among the company : the choice unanimously fell upon "the first. The document signed by them is worthy of citation as the first voluntary compact of popular liberty and equal rights. " In the name of God. Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord. King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the faith, etc. " Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and the advancement of the Christian faith, and the honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body-politic, for our better order and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony ; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder sub- scribed our names. Cape Cod, 11th November, in the reign of our sovereign lord. King James, of England, France, and Ireland, 18, and of Scotland, 54. Anno Domini 1620." This agreement was. signed by all the men, who with their wives and families made up the number of one hundred and one. ThiTS, by the impossibility of obtaining toleration in Virginia, and by losing their way to the Hudson, circumstances apparently accidental, but really providential, the emigrants were led to the New England shores. Arrived at the desired term of their long voyage, the pilgrims found that their sufferings were but about to commence. They had reached a wild, inhospitable coast. 1620.] THE PILGRIM FATHERS REACH NEW ENGLAND. 65 with its severe frosts and cutting winds, as the winter was beginning to set in, and of the very first of those who went on shore, many, having to wade through the freezing water, '' caught the original of their deaths." The shallop was unshipped and found to require repairs, and the progress was so slow that it was determined to send out an exploring party of sixteen men, armed with musket, sword, and corslet, under the conduct of Standish, who, after a vain research, came home weary and exhausted. The shallop at length finished, the party again set out. Sufiering severely from the advancing season, and wading hills and valleys covered with snow, they returned without making any discovery beyond deserted wigwams, a little buried corn, and some graves. The winter was now arrived, and it was absolutely necessary to fix upon some spot for a settlement. Again the shallop was sent off" with Carver, Bradford, Standish, and seven others, the hardiest that could be found, and for five weeks the party buffeted with the severity of the season, — the spray of the sea freez- ing on them, and making their coats like cast-iron, while to all these priva- tions and sufferings were added the jealous hostility of the ambushed Indians. " About five o'clock in the morning," says their Journal, " we began to be stirring. After prayer, we prepared ourselves for breakfast, and for a jour- ney, it being now the twilight in the morning." The savage war-ivlioop of iheir enemies, that day for the first time heard, yelled around them, and their arrows Acav through the ?.ir. Standish and his followers stood to their arms, felie others defended the shallop, and discharged their fire-arms, which put ihe savages to flight. " By the special providence of God," says the journal, •n a vivid account of their battle, " none of us were hit or hurt. So, after we had given God thanks for our deliverance, we took our shallop, and went on our journey, and called this place Tlte First Encounter^ In hopes of reaching a harbour known to one of their number who had been on these coasts before, they sailed on with a fair wind, but in a storm of rain and snow, the gale increased, the sea rose and broke the hinges of the rudder, and two men were obliged to sveer the shallop with a couple of oars. The waves, now wollen by the gale, threatened every moment to swamp the boat, their pilot cried out that he saw the harbour, and bade them be of good cheer. Straining Dn with all their canvass to get in, their mast split into three pieces, and ihe boat was nearly lost, but righting, was driven by the flood tide into the harbour. Here, however, fresh perils assailed them ; the pilot, mistaking the place, had well nigh run them among breakers, but recovering themselves in time, as the night set in, they gained the lee of a sandy island, which securely sheltered their little shallop, and upon this desolate spot they kept their watch all night in the rain. In the morning of Saturday they explored the island, which they found to be uninhabited, and here, pressed as they were by their own necessities, and those of their anxious comrades on board the Mayflower, " on the sabbath day they rested." On Monday, the band of pioneers first set foot upon the rock of Plymouth, which name was given in grateful memory of their Christian friends in 66 FOUNDATION OF PLYMOUTH. [1620,21. the same town in England. After exploring the neighbourhood, and de- ciding upon its fitness for a settlement, they returned with the good news to the rest of their people, cooped up on board the Mayflower, " which did much comfort their hearts." The anchor was joyfully weighed ; the vessel ar- rived on Saturday, and the next day was the last of their sabbaths spent at sea. Their first work was to erect habitations to shelter them from the weather. A bold hill commanding a look-out over the bay, offered a vantage ground for their fort, which was garnished with a few small pieces of ordnance ; at its foot two rows of huts were laid out and staked — the habitations of nineteen families. The winter had now set in, and although milder than usual, tl>eir labours at felling trees and constructing their rude habitations were carried on in the midst of constant storms of rain and sleet ; already had the seeds of mortal disease been implanted ; by privations and exposure to the rigour of the season, by wading through the icy water from the ship to the land, the strong man be- came weak as a child, and the delicate frame of woman sunk under the double pressure of mental anxiety and physical exhaustion. During this first Avinter they faded gradually aWay ; and one of the first entries was the following : — " January 29, dies Rose, the wife of Captain Standish." Bradford's wife had perished by drowning. But not to follow the melancholy chronicle of bereave- ments, suffice it to say, that during these three dreary months one half their number were cut off". That winter they had to form seven times more graves for the dead than habitations for the living. They were buried on the bank not far from the landing — a spot still religiously venerated; and lest the Indians should take courage to attack the survivors from their weakened state, the soil which covered the graves of their beloved relatives was carefully beaten down and planted with a crop of corn. ■ The spot upon which Providence had thus cast them, contrary to their original design, proved to be beyond the limits of the patent assigned to the company of whom they had purchased it. It is singular, not only that former attempts to colonize the neighbourhood should have failed, but also that a de- structive malady should, not long before, have nearly destroyed all its abori- ginal Indian inhabitants. During the winter they were not free ii-om alarm ; and a sort of military defensive organization was adopted, under the di- rection of Captain Standish. But when the spring came round with its soft airs, and hope, tinged with melancholy, began to animate the survivors, and the sickness ceased from among them, an Indian, one morning, walked boldly into the camp and saluted them in their own tongue — " Welcome English- men." He was one of the Sagamores of the "Wampanoags, and told them of the great plague, and that the land was free for them to occupy. He was received by them with kindness, and soon returned, bringing with him an Indian named Squanto, who having been carried off to England in a pi- ratical expedition, had fallen into the hands of a merchant of Cornhill, whose kindness to him was destined to be repaid with grateful interest to the Plymouth settlers. Brought back to New England by Mr. Dormer, he was by him made instrumental in healing the animosity kindled in the breasts 1G21.] FIRST MEETING-HOUSE IN NEW ENGLAND. 67 of the Indians by these slave-hunting rovers, and he now acted as interpreter and guide — showed them how to plant their corn, and caught fish for them when starving. Having accompanied the governor to Cape Cod, to trade with the Indians and obtain corn, he was taken ill and died, bequeathing his trifling possessions as memorials to his English friends, and " desiring the governor to pray that he might go to the Englishman's God in heaven." Through the mediation of these Indians a treaty of mutual amity and succour had been entered into with Massasoit, Sachem of the neighbouring tribe of Wampa- noags ; and thus one source of uneasiness was happily set at rest. On the approach of spring. Carver was chosen again as governor, but lived only a fortnight after his re-election. He had lost his son soon after their arrival, and his indefatigable labours during the sickly winter had under- mined his strength, and his wife died shortly afterwards. Bradford was ap- pointed as his successor. The Mayflower returned to England. In the summer arose their Timber Eort, mounted with ordnance, and carefully guarded, serving also as the first rude Meeting-House of New England. *' This place," says Cheever, " called at first Fort Hill, afterwards changed its name to that of the Burying Hill, for it began to be used as the place of burial soon after the first year of the Pilgrims' settlement. In building the fort, they so constructed it as to make it serve also for the house of public worship, where they could calmly praise God, without fear of any sudden incursion from the savages. The foundations of the fort are still distinctly marked, but the last mention of it in the town records is in 1679, at the close of King Philip's war, when the defences were no longer needed. On this hill are the graves of several of the Mayflower Pilgrims, Governor Bradford's among others, and that of John Howland and his wife Elizabeth. The grave of Thomas Clarke, the mate of the Mayflower, is here. This is the place also of the grave of the last ruling elder of the first church in Plymouth, Mr. Thomas Faunce. He died not till the year 1745, in the 99th year of his age, and, of course, was long the living repository of the authentic unwritten tra- ditions concerning the first generation of the Pilgrims. The great age to which those lived who survived the dreadful trials of the first few yeai-s, is remarkable. John Alden, who came in the Mayflower, died at the age of 89, in 1687, and one of his direct descendants, John Alden of Middleborough, died at the age; of 102, in the year 1821. The wife of the Governor Bradford died at the age of 80. Elder Brewster, John Howland and his wife Eliza- beth, Elder Cushman and his wife Mary, were all from 80 to 90 years of age when they died. Thomas Clarke, the supposed mate of the Mayflower, was 98. The grave-stones over these Pilgrims, if you find them on Burying Hill, are not so old as their deaths ; they are said to have been brought over from England, and in some cases were not put up till long after the graves of the whole generation were made." It may be supposed that Kobinson, with those who had remained in Hol- land under his charge, awaited with the deepest anxiety intelligence of the fate of their brethren. The news of their sufferings, and the grievous mor- K 2 68 ROBINSON WRITES TO THE PILGRIMS. [1631. tality amongst them, at length arrived, and awakened feelings which found their expression in letters such as the following : — " To the Church of God at Plymouth, in New England. Much beloved brethren : Neither the distance of place, nor distinction of body, can at all either dissolve or weaken that bond of true Christian affection, in which the Lord by his Spirit hath tied us together. My continual prayers are to the Lord for you ; my most earnest desire is unto you, from which I will flo longer keep, if God will, than means can be procured to bring with me the wives and children of divers of you, and the rest of your brethren, whom I could not leave behind me without great injury both to you and them, and offence to God, and all men. The death of so many of our dear friends and brethren, oh how grievous hath it been to you to bear, and to us to take knowledge of! which if it could be mended with lamenting, could not sufficiently be be- wailed : but we must go unto them, and they shall not return unto us ; and how many, even of us, God hath taken away here, and in England, since your departure, you may elsewhere take knowledge. But the same God has tempered judgment with mercy, as otherwise, so in sparing the rest, espe- cially those by whose godly and wise government you may be, and I know are, so much helped. In a battle it is not looked for but that divers should die ; it is thought well for a side if it get the victory, though with the loss of divers, if not too many or too great. God, I hope, hath given you the victory, after many difficulties, for yourselves and others ; though I doubt not but many do and will remain for you and us all to strive with. Brethren, I hope I need not exhort you to obedience unto those whom God hath set over you in church and commonwealth, and to the Lord in them. It is a Chris- tian's honour to give honour according to men's places ; and his liberty, to serve God in faith, and his brethren in love, orderly and with a willing and free heart. God forbid I should need exhort you to peace which is the bond of perfection, and by which all good is tied together, and without which it is scattered. Have peace with God first, by faith in his promises, good conscience kept in all things, and oft renewed by repentance ; and so one with another for His sake which is, though three, one ; and for Christ's sake, who is one, and as you are called by one Spirit to one hope. And the God of peace and grace and all good men be with you, in all the fruits thereof plenteously upon your heads, now and for ever. All your brethren here remember you with great love, a general token whereof they have sent you. Yours ever in the Lord, John Robinson. Leyden, Holland, June 30th, Anno 1621." Such documents as these are in the highest sense historical, since they dis- play, as nothing else can, the spirit and the motives which animated the Pil- grims. The " hope deferred " of joining his flock was very grievous to Ro- binson, prevented as he was from doing so by misunderstandings with the London merchants, who refused to send him over. Meanwhile, the care of the little church at Plymouth devolved on Elder Brewster, who, possessing a good education as well as profound piety, fulfilled the duties of a Chi is- tian overseer in a spirit truly apostolical, although he could never be per- 1G23.] DEATH OF ROBINSON IN HOLLAND. 69 suacled to assume the office of pastor, and would never receive any emolu- ment for Ills services ; but, in the language of Governor Bradford, " was willing to take his part and bear his burden with the rest, living many times without bread or corn many months together, having many times nothing but fish, and often wanting that also ; and drank nothing but water for many years together, yea, until within five or six years of his death. And yet he lived, by the blessing of God, in health until very old age ; and besides that, would labour with his hands in the fields as long as he was able." Of such a stamp were the venerable founders of New England. Robinson himself, the patriarch of the Plymouth church, was not destined to enter into the promised land. He died in Holland ; and it was some years before his family and the rest of the con- gregation found means to join the " forefathers " of the expedition. The suffering and mortality of the first winter being over, the survivors took heart and began to extend the sphere of their discoveries. A party explored the shores of Massachusetts Bay and the peninsula upon which the city of Boston was soon afterwards founded. With the autumn came fresh trials. Another vessel, the Fortune, was sent out by the merchants, having on board Cushman, with a new patent, obtained through the good offices of Sir Ferdi- nando Gorges. The ship had brought over new mouths, and no provisions ; the result was a famine of several months' duration ; all had to be put on half allowance ; the corn was all eaten, and the colonists were reduced to the scan- tiest rations — chiefly of fish, or to such precarious supplies as were occasionally obtained from passing vessels at an exorbitant cost. No cattle had been yet imported; their agricultural instruments were scanty and rude, and they were almost destitute of boats and tackle to enable them to profit by the shoals of fish which abounded on the coasts. Mortality and distress had prevented them from subduing the soil^— men, toiling at the rude labours of a first set- tlement, " often staggered for want of food." Hitherto everything had been shared in common among them ; but here, as it happened in Virginia, the possession of private property was found to be a necessary stimulus to industry, for even in the best organized communities are to be found the idle and im- provident. In the second year of their settlement an agreement was accord- ingly entered into, that each family should labour for itself, — the result of which proved to be, that instead of being obliged to seek for supplies of corn from the Indians, the settlers had now a surplus to dispose of. Apprehensions of attack from the Indians were not wanting, but the deci- sion and energy of the governor prevented any from being made. The powerful Narragansetts, enemies of the Wampanoags, had sent to Plymouth a bundle of arrows tied up with the skin of a rattlesnake, in token of defiance — Bradford returned the envelope stuffed with powder and shot. The hint thus given repressed hostility ; but, to prevent a surprise, the settlement was prudently surrounded with a palisade of timbers having three gates. But evils which their own peacefulness of demeanour towards the abori- gines, or decision when threatened by their hostilities, had warded off, were brought about ere long through the criminal recklessness of a new body of 70 FAILURE IN INTRODUCING EPISCOPACY. [1G23. colonists sent out by Weston, to found a separate plantation for his own advan- tage. These were men of dissolute character, who, after intruding upon the Plymouth settlers, and eating or stealing half their provisions, had attempted a settlement at Wissagussett in Massachusetts Bay. Having soon exhausted their own stock, they began to plunder the Indians, who formed a conspiracy to cut them off. The plot was revealed by the dying Sachem Massasoit. Here the colonists had to deplore the same hasty spirit of revenge which had, in almost every instance, sown the seeds of lasting hatred and hostility in the Indian breast. Captain Stan dish, brave but inconsiderate, surprised Wituwamot, the chief of this conspiracy, and put him to death on the spot, together with se- veral of his Indians. When Robinson heard of this deplorable occurrence, he wrote back to the church, " Oh how happy a thing had it been, had you con- verted some, before you had killed any ! " This ill compacted settlement shortly afterwards fell to pieces. Among various others now attempted along the line of coast, was one which merits notice as a curious contrast to that of the Plymouth Pilgrims. This was founded by a Captain Wollaston, and named after himself. It fell soon after under the management of a London lawyer, one Morton, who changed its name from Mount Wollaston to Merry Mount, set up a May- pole, as if to satirize the strictness of the Puritans, broached ale and wine, and held a drunken carousal, sold or squandered all the provisions and stock, and wound up his absurd and mischievous proceedings by the criminal folly, if not malicious wickedness, of selling fire-arms to the Indians. This 'Devil's holiday' soon, however, came to an end: the frightened settlers re- quested the interference of the brethren at Plymouth, by whom, accordingly, mad Morton was apprehended and held in durance, until they could meet with an opportunity of shipj^ing him off to England. Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in concert with an enterprising partner named Mason, had obtained a grant of territory from Naumkeag, now Salem, to the Kennebec, and thence to Canada. Portsmouth and Dover were now founded, but long remained mere fishing stations. His son, Robert Gorges, received also a grant in Massachusetts Bay, and the appointment of Lieutenant- General of New England. He sailed with a considerable number of people to take possession, and attempted a settlement at Wissagussett. The settlers were now threatened with an evil, against which they had vainly endeavoured to provide. With Gorges, came out an Episcopal minister, named Morrell, empowered by the Archbishop of Canterbury to exercise ecclesiastical super- intendence — he appears, however, to have attempted no interference with the established system. Soon after came a minister Avho had received Epis- copal ordination, sent out by the company to supply the pastoral office vacant by the absence of Robinson ; but his office was unwelcome, and being shortly expelled for practising against the colony, he, together with his adherents, formed a settlement at Nantasket. The colonists were thus left to follow their own persuasions, though not Avithout occasional dissensions among them- selves. Gorijes remained little more tluui a year in Xcav England. Thus 1621.] THE GOVERNMENT OF BRADFORD. 71 practically the form of self-government, both civil and ecclesiastical, adopt- ed by the Pilgrim Fathers, remained unchallenged and undisturbed. The same simple principle existed in both. The form was a strict democracy, a little body of settlers forming at once a church and a state, electing their own officers in both, and exercising a share in the government. They were accustomed to assemble for this purpose at what were called " Town Meetings," to confer with the governor upon matters of general concern, in a free, friendly, and confidential manner. Bradford, who succeeded to Carver in the office of governor, deserves the most honourable mention among the fathers of the infant colony. " He was in an eminent degree," says Cheever, " the moving and guiding genius of the enterprise. His conduct towards the Indians was marked with such wisdom, energy, and kindness, that he soon gained a powerful influence over them. With the people of the colony, not merely his first fellow-pilgrims, but all that came successively afterwards, he had equal authority and power; without the necessity of assuming it. The most heedless among them seemed to fear and respect him. He set them all at work, and would have none idle in the com- munity, being resolved that if any would not work neither should they eat. " His administration of affairs, as connected with the merchant adventurers, was a model of firmness, patience, forbearance, energy, and enterprise. With a few others, as we have seen, he took the whole trade of the colony into his hands, with the assumed responsibility of paying off" all their debts, and the benevolent determination to bring over the rest of their brethren from Leyden. His activity in the prosecution of this great work was indeflitigable. Mean- while, no other business, either of the piety or civil policy of the colony, was neglected. He made such arrangements, in conjunction with his brethren, to redeem their labour from the hopelessness of its conditions in the adventuring copartnership under which they were bound for the seven years' contract with the merchants, as inspired them all speedily with new life and courage. Under the pressure of the famine, his example was as a star of hope, for he never yielded to despondency; and while, with Brewster, he threw them upon God for support and provision, he set in motion every possible instru- mentality for procuring supplies. He went in person with parties among the Indians for corn, and took part himself in every labour. " In the spiritual prosperity of the colony. Governor Bradford took an in- cessant and most anxious interest, possessing in himself, in no small degree, the wisdom and temper of his beloved pastor, Robinson. Under him and Brewster, the Plymouth church maintained their superiority in the liberality and independence of their views above all the other colonies. The answer which the governor made to their slanderers in England, in regard to their church policy and customs, breathed the very spirit of Scriptural wisdom and freedom, so remarkable in the parting discourse of Bobinson to the Pilgrims. *■ Whereas you would tie us up to the French discipline in every circumstance, you derogate from the liberty we have in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul would have none to follow him in anything, but wherein he follows Christ ; 72 LIFE OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. [1633. much less ought any Christian or church in the world to do it. The French may err, we may err, other churches may err, and doubtless do, in many circumstances. That honour, therefore, belongs only to the infallible word of God, and pure Testament of Christ, to be jjropounded and followed as the only rule and pattern for direction herein to all churches and Christians. And it is too great arrogancy for any man or church to think that he, or they, have so sounded the word of God unto the bottom, as precisely to set down the church's discipline without error in substance or circumstance, that no other, without blame, may digress, or differ, in anything from the same. And it is not difficult to show that the Reformed Churches differ in many circum- stances among themselves.' " Bradford presided over the affiiirs of the colony by their own free choice, and even affectionate solicitation, for nearly thirty-seven years together, with admirable temper and wisdom. In the year 1633, we find a record in Go- vernor Winthrop's Journal, as follows : ' Mr. Edward Winslow chosen Governor of Plymouth, Mr. Bradford having been Governor about ten years, and 1101V hij importiinity got off.'' He pleaded so hard to be let off for that year, that they yielded Avithout fining him. Such were the fathers of the New England States. They shared each other's burdens too completely to seek or desire superiority in any other way. They sought not for office, had no parties, wished for no power but that of doing good. It was not till pros- perity had relaxed their vigilance, and men of worldly minds had been added to their company, that parties began to exist among them. Their church covenant was of great solemnity and power with them, ' of the violation whereof,' said Robinson, ' we make great consequence, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the whole by each, and that mutual.'" The first settlement of New England, through the midst of distress and discouragement, has now been briefly traced. It is a memorable enterprise in the history of the world, both for the motives that led to it, as well as its momentous and far-reaching consequences. It marks' the period when the mind first threw off the trammels of civil and ecclesiastical despotism, and sought to found in the New World a Christian democracy uj)on the basis of the '* everlasting word." Other settlements of America arose out of commercial or patriotic enterprise ; this had its origin in religious enthusiasm. Those who founded it walked with God, and in every event beheld his guiding pro- vidence. Thus led forth by his hand, life or death were equally welcome. In the perils of the deep — amidst sufferings on shore — in failing health — in bitter privation — in an untimely fate upon a distant shore — their faith sus- tained them. Their trials and distresses were soothed by referring all things to the will of God. In the bright sky over their heads — the blue expanse of waters — the lovely freshness and wildness of the virgin forest, they beheld the traces of his presence and the tokens of his goodness. Their humble fare was sweetened by honest labour, undertaken in cheerful submission to the Divine will. The spirit of the New Testament, the spirit of brotherly love. 1C33.] PRIMITIVE BUILDINGS IN PLYMOUTH. 73 was the sole cement of their simple institutions. Theirs was the only true de- mocracy, to love one another as themselves ; theirs the only true government, when the ambition of the greatest is to be the servant of all. That in some respects they were not above the spirit of their age, the age of sectarian prejudice, sharpened by bitter persecution, was unavoidable. But their deep religious feeling, their stern integrity, their guileless simplicity, their passion for freedom and abhorrence of oppression, their obedience to law, their steady courage and hardy enterprise, their laborious, frugal, and self-denying habits, were the noble qualities which, rooted by them in the land, and transmitted to their descendants, formed the solid and immovable foundations of the American State. These moral and intellectual character- istics are also the salt wherewith the great republic has been preserved from that corruption, which its unprecedented progress in material prosperity might otherwise, but too probably, have engendered. The affectionate interest with which every memorial of the Pilgrim Fathers is regarded throughout the United States, will probably justify the insertion of the visit of a recent traveller to the scene of their first settlement. " We admired," says Sir C. Lyell, " the fine avenues of drooping elms in the streets of Plymouth as we entered, and went to a small, old-fashioned inn, called the Pilgrim House, where I hired a carriage, in which the landlord drove us at once to see the bay and visit Plymouth beach. " The wind was bitterly cold, and we learnt that, on the evening before, the sea had been frozen over, near the shore ; yet it was two months later, when, on the 22nd of December, 1620, now called Forefathers' Day, the Pil- grims, consisting of 101 souls, landed here from the Mayflower. No wonder that half of them perished from the severity of the first winter. They who escaped seem, as if in compensation, to have been rewarded with unusual longevity. We saw in the grave-yard the tombs of not a few Avhose ages ranged from seventy-nine to ninety-nine years. The names inscribed on their monuments are very characteristic of Puritan times, with a somewhat grotesque mixture of other very familiar ones, as Jerusha, Sally, Adoniram, Consider, Seth, Experience, Dorcas, Polly, Eunice, Eliphalet, Mercy, «S:c. The New Englanders laugh at the people of the "' Old Colony " for remaining in a pri- mitive state, and are hoping that the railroad from Boston, now nearly com- plete, may soon teach them how to go a-head. But they who visit the to"^vn for the sake of old associations, will not complain of the antique style of many of the buildings, and the low rooms, with panelled walls, and huge wooden beams projecting from the ceilings, such as I never saw elsewhere in America. Some houses, built of brick brought from Holland, notwithstanding the abund- ance of brick-earth in the neighbourhood, were pointed out to us in Leyden Street, so called from the last town in Europe where the pilgrims sojourned after they had been driven out of their native country by religious persecution. In some private houses we were interested in many venerated heir-looms, kept as relics of the first settlers, and among others an antique chair of carved wood. 74 RELICS PRESERVED IN PLYMOUTH. [1633. which came over in the Mayflower, and still retains the marks of the staples which fixed it to the floor of the cabin. This, together with a seal of Governor Winslow, was shown me by an elderly lady, Mrs. Hanwood, daughter of a Winslow and a White, and who received them from her grandmother. In a public building, called Pilgrim Hall, we saw other memorials of the same kind, as, for example, a chest or cabinet, which had belonged to Peregrine "White, the first child born in the colony, and which came to him from his mother, and had been preserved to the fifth generation in the same family, when it was presented by them to the Museum. By the side of it was a pewter dish, also given by the White family. In the same collection they have a chair brought over in the Mayflower, and the helmet of King Philip, the Indian chief, with whom the first settlers had made a desperate fight. " A huge fragment of granite, a boulder which lay sunk in the beach, has also been traditionally declared to have been the first spot which the feet of the Pilgrims first trod when they landed here ; and part of this same rock still remains on the wharf, while another portion has been removed to the centre of the town, and enclosed within an iron railing, on which the names of forty- two of the Pilgrim Fathers have been inscribed. They who cannot sympathize warmly with the New Englanders for cherishing these precious relics, are not to be envied, and it is a praiseworthy custom to celebrate an annual festival, not only here, but in places several thousand miles distant. Often in New Orleans, and other remote parts of the Union, we hear of settlers from the North meeting on the 22nd of December, to commemorate the birth- day of New England ; and when they speak fondly of their native hills and val- leys, and recall their early recollections, they are drawing closer the ties which bind together a variety of independent States into one great con- federation. " Colonel Perkins, of Boston, well known for his munificence, especially for founding the Asylum for the Blind, informed me in 1846, that there was but one link wanting in the chain of personal communication between him and Pe- regrine White, the first white child born in Massachusetts, a few days after the Pilgrims landed. White lived to an advanced age, and Avas known to a man of the name of Cobb, whom Colonel Perkins visited in 1807, with some friends who yet survive. Cobb died in 1808, the year after Colonel Perkins saw him. He was then blind, but his memory fresh for everything which had happened in his manhood. He had served as a soldier at the taking of Louisbourg, in Cape Breton, in 1745, and remembered when there were many Indians near Ply- mouth. The inhabitants occasionally fired a cannon near the town to frighten them, and to this cannon the Indians gave the name of ' Old Speakum.' " When we consider the grandeur of the results which have been realized in the interval of 225 years, since the Mayflower sailed into Plymouth Har- bour, — how in that period a nation of twenty millions of souls has sprung into existence, and peopled a vast continent, and covered it with cities and churches, schools, colleges, and railroads, and filled its rivers and ports 1630.] COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 75 with steam-boats and shipping ; we regard the Pilgrim relics with that kind of veneration which trivial objects usually derive from high antiquity alone." [In the composition of this chapter the author has to acknowledge his obligations to the Rev. R. Hunter's recent valuable tract on the English Localities of the Pilgrim Fathers, as also to the excellent work of Dr. Cheever.] CHAPTER VI. COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAT. — PRELIMINARY ATTEMPTS. — EMIGRATION UNDER ■WINTHROP. — ESTABLISHMENT OF THE THEOCRACY.— RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. — ROGER WILLIAMS AND MRS, HUTCHINSON. — FOUNDATION OF CONNECTICUT. — THE PEQUOD WAR. The settlement of the Independents was soon followed by another and more extensive one of the Puritans upon the shores of Massachusetts Bay. The increasing uneasiness of their position in England, led many, even of the higher ranks of the gentry, to desire a similar refuge in the New World, to that established by the Pilgrims at Plymouth. White, a clergyman of Dor- chester, leaving a few settlers at Naumkeag, or Salem, after a first abortive attempt, repaired to England, and soon succeeded in interesting a body of gentlemen in the scheme. It should be here observed, that the first original charter of Virginia had empowered the patentees to form a second colony in the northern portion of the territory, comprised Avithin the limits of their patent ; and more than one attempt was made to this effect, but with little or no success. One of them was by the gallant Captain Smith, distinguished for his participation in the affairs of Virginia, and from him the coast first received its lasting appellation of New England. Meanwhile, the Plymouth company succeeded in obtain- ing an exclusive patent for all the northern portion of the territory bestowed upon the original Virginia company. The settlement of the Plymouth Pil- grims had anticipated any measures for colonization under the auspices of the new company. A grant Avas obtained from this Ncav England company of Plymouth, em- bracing Massachusetts Bay, and the country extending to the AvestAvard. The first settlement was effected under the conduct of John Endicott, Avho estab- lished himself at Naumkeag. On exploring the head of Massachusetts Bay, a fcAV solitary squatters Avere found to have occupied the principal points. A strong body, chiefly from the neighbourhood of Boston in Lincolnshire, soon foliOAved, and a fresh patent was obtained from Charles I., incorporating the adventurers as the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay in Ncav Eng- L 2 76 EMIGRATION TO BOSTON UNDER WINTHROP. [1630. land, the stockholders to elect annually a governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants, who were to adnainister the affairs of the colony in monthly court meetings. Four great and general courts of the whole body of freemen were to be held for the transaction of public affairs. Nothing might be en- acted contrary to the rights of Englishmen, but the supreme power resided with the company in England. It was exclusively regarded as a patent for a trading corporation, and no provision was made for securing religious toleration. Indeed the great body of the proprietor* were still attached to the Church of England ; and when Endicott, who, having visited Plymouth, de- sired to establish an Independent church, and to renounce the use of the English liturgy, became involved in a dispute with certain of the more mo- derate, a ad these were sent home to England by him as contumacious, he was indirectly reprimanded by the comj)any for this dangerous stretch of authority. A plan to transfer the charter and the company from England to the colony itself ^as next formed, which led to a very important increase in the number and dii:tinction of the emigrants. The principal of these were, Sir Richard Salton*^ tall, Isaac Johnson, (brother-in-law of the Earl of Lincoln,) Thomas Dudley, and John Winthrop. Winthrop was chosen governor, and, by his admirable conduct, fully justified the general confidence. He was indeed a noble specimen of the Puritan English gentleman — loyal, yet no less sternly bent upon the assertion of public liberty, and, by old association, attached to the Church, which he nevertheless desired to see reformed upon what he deemed the pure basis of Scripture. The emigrants included many persons of high character, wealth, and learning. Their attachment to the mother country was manifested in a protestation against certain calumnious reports which had gone forth against them, wherein they declare their undying attach- ment, both to the Church that had nursed them in her bosom, and to the laud, from which a lofty feeling of enterprise, and the desire of founding a stricter form of government among themselves, had led to their voluntary expatriation. The expedition was by far the most important that had ever left the shores of England for the wilds of America, consisting of fifteen ships conveying about a thousand emigrants, among whom were several eminent Noncon- formist ministers. Every necessary for the foundation of a permanent colony was carried out by the settlers. Winthrop himself had embarked on board the Arabella, so called after Lady Arabella Johnson, who, with her husband, were also passengers. This vessel and some of the others reached Massachusetts Bay in June and July, and found a settlement already established, under the auspices of Endicott, at Charlestown. Upon the opposite peninsula, which had been called, from its pe- culiar form, ' Trimountain,' and Avas then in a state of nature, inhabited by a single squatter, Winthrop determined to establish the seat of his government, and a town was accordingly begun, which, after the parent English birth-place of the principal emigrants, received the name of Boston. The others, as they arrived, formed a cluster of settlements at short distances around this central post, and thus the shores of Massachusetts Bay became sprinkled with infant 1630.] ESTABLISHMENT OF THE THEOCRACY. 77 towns, wliicli have retained their local name and habitation unto the pre- sent day. Although the hardships encountered by this large body of emigrants were not so severe as those which had befallen their brethren at Plymouth, they were felt the more severely on account of the superior delicacy and tender nurture to which they had been accustomed at home. The older settlers, far from rendering them assistance, flocked to them for food and succour. The winter, moreover, proved to be of unusual severity, even for this bitter climate. The weakest were winnowed by death, two hundred perished before De- cember. Among the first victims were the Lady Arabella Johnson and her husband. Many, terrified with the hardships to be encountered, lost heart and returned to England, where they spread the most injurious reports. But the hope of accomplishing that for which so many had left the luxuries and refinements of England, the desire to found on the shores of America a purer form of civil and religious government, sweetened to those that re- mained behind the temporary hardships through which they were called upon to pass. Their proceedings were eminently characteristic of the religious spirit by which they were animated. Their settlement had been consecrated by a solemn fast. They first assembled for worship under a large tree, but a church was forthwith constituted, and a pastor aj^pointed, while the first ques- tion which arose at the first court of assistants was touching the maintenance of the ministers, for whom a due provision Avas immediately set apart. At the first general court, many new freemen were admitted, among whom were several of the early planters, and the right of filling vip the vacancies that fell among the assistants, was conceded to them, but afterwards rescinded. A very extraordinary law was next enacted. " To the end that the body of commons may be preserved of good and honest men, it is ordered and agreed, that, for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of the body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches Avithin the limits of the same." The reason for this singular enactment is apparent. The Puritan emigrants had left England to establish a form of government which was afterwards vainly attempted during the revolution — a spiritual millennium, the reign of the saints upon the earth. In their eyes no one who had not been elected a member of Christ's church by saving grace, and was not thoroughly weaned from the corruptions of this present evil world, could be fitted to assume a share in the government of a Christian commonwealth, which was to be founded on the maxims, and conducted under the influence of the Bible. Hence their evident disposition to avoid an influx of the " baser sort," until their theocratic form of goA^ernment had fully taken root. The excellence of their motiA'es in shutting out from power those Avhom they deemed unfit for its participation, cannot of course be questioned. In those days toleration Avas unknown, and every religious party regarded it not only as a right, but even as a duty, to enforce conformity to its tenets by the power of the civil magistrate. 78 GREAT INFLUENCE OF THE CLERGY. [1633, 34. Under this arbitrary system, however, a large proportion of the popula- tion -were deprived of political rights, and the legislation of this self-con- stituted body was characterized by a spirit of puritanical severity A\ithin themselves, and a harsh and rigid exclusiveness towards those without, which were not long in producing the same bitter fruits of persecution by which they had themselves suffered. The clergy acquired an undue degree of influence ; minute enactments interfered with individual freedom of action, amusements which, though innocent in themselves, were su^jposed to be inconsistent with the gravity of professing Christians, were studiously dis- couraged, and devotional exercises substituted in their room. Under this austere and forbidding exterior, however, existed a spotless purity of life, the most exalted integrity, and the noblest patriotism. The faults of the Puritans arose partly out of their peculiar views, and partly from mistakes shared by them, at that day, in common with every other religious body. The evil report carried back by those who returned from the first emi- gration, operated at first as a great discouragement to others, and in the following year the number of new-comers was comparatively small. Among them, however, was the son of Winthrop the governor, and John Eliot, afterwards the great missionary to the Indians. A friendly connexion was formed with the people of Plymouth, and a trade opened with the colonists in Virginia, and the Dutch on the Hudson river, while an alliance was entered into with the neighbouring Indians. On the fourth year of the settlement, several hundred immigrants arrived, among whom were the wealthy and esti- mable Haynes, and two distinguished ecclesiastics, Cotton and Hooker. With the growing numbers and prosjjerity of the colonists, came an in- crease also in popular liberty and a growth of the democratic element. The jealous watchfulness of the great body of freemen had been excited by the levy of taxes under the sole authority of the assistants, and at the next general court they contended for the right of annually choosing the governor and offi- cers. This was conceded, and rej)resentatives appointed from the towns to confer on the affairs of the colony. Thus emboldened, the democratic spirit continued its encroachments. Men thrown upon. their oAvn resources at a distance from the control of the mother country ripen rapidly for freedom. At first the freemen, satisfied with the recognition of their claims, had re- elected their established officers ; two years later, notwithstanding a pulpit appeal from Colton, against the rash changing of those in office, they pro- ceeded to choose a new governor in the place of Winthrop. They claimed and obtained besides, the right of legislative participation, and of levying taxes, with a written constitution, while the ballot box was also introduced in substitution for a show of hands by the voters. The same circumstances that had brought about this political change, had also affected the condition of the New England churches. Nominally sub- jected to the Church at home, these communities soon became practically independent of her authority, choosing their own ministers and officers, each acting for itself, while yet the whole were bound together by a general model 1631-34.] SCRUPLES OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 79 establislied among themselves. Thus had Massachusetts already assumed its distinctive character of a government at once within itself a church and a commonwealth, in which all the members possessed equal rights, and were animated by the same earnest yet exclusive religious profession ; the profane and unregcnerate being jealously shut out from any participation in power, and also forced to conform, at least externally, to the established form of re- ligion. It was not long before this state .of things, so happily established that it ex- cited the admiration and envy of the English Puritans, was rudely disturbed by a single individual, whose remarkable character corabined an almost childish eccentricity abovit trifles, with a clearness of moral vision and a greatness of ?oul in other matters remarkably in advance of the times and circumstances in which he lived. This was Roger Williams, a youijg Puritan preacher, who, soon after his arrival in the colony, began to broach certain novelties and he- resies, which caused much perturbation among his brethren, and occasioned his removal to Plymouth, where he remained for two years.. Returning to Mas- sachusetts, it was not long before he became involved in fresh disputes and difficulties. Among other fanatical scruples, he entertained one against the cross displayed on the English standard, as being a relic of Popery — he loudly inveighed against its being any longer tolerated by a reformed church; his views gained ground, and a division of the colony took place on this important subject. One half of the militia abhorred to follow a papistical ensign, the other refused to march under a mutilated banner : Endicott, one of the assistants, in an ebullition of zeal, cut out the obnoxious emblem ; and the dispute was only settled by a compromise, that the cross should be retained in the flags of forts and ships, but erased from those of the local militia. This, together with his affirmation of the unlawfulness of attending the ministry of any clergyman of the English Church, to which Williams had conceived a peculiar aversion, and other attempts at innovations, either trifling or mischievous, so zealously propagated, seem justly enough to have incurred the censure of his brethren in the ministry, not only as calculated to disturb the harmony of their theo- cratic state, but also to attract the attention of their enemies in England. An excess of conscientiousness had led him also, while at Plymouth, to preach against the lawfulness of the patent by which the colonists derived their terri- torial claims, as being unjustly granted at the expense of those of the Indians. This, however, he satisfactorily explained away. But his most serious and un- pardonable offence was, that he boldly affirmed the sacred right of private judgment, and the unlawfulness of persecution for conscience' sake. He in- veighed against the alleged authority of the magistrate to punish offences of the first table, to compel attendance upon Divine service under penalty, or to levy contributions from the unwilling for the support of the church. Nay, he affirmed that " the magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostacy and heresy," that his jurisdiction extended solely to the tem- poral affliirs of men, and that the removal of the " yoke of soul oppression," " as it will prove an act of mercy and righteousness to the enslaved nations, so 80 ROGER WILLIAMS AMONG THE INDIANS. [1634. it is of binding force tc engage the whole and every interest and conscience to preserve the common liberty and peace."* These principles struck at the very root of the theocratic constitution established by general consent of the colonists, and a conscientious conviction of their dangerous tendency, led the court at Boston earnestly to desire the re- moval of one whom they could not but regard as unsettled in judgment, and a troubler of the public peace. It was certainly unfortunate that the scru- ples of Williams were such as had a tendency to divide and weaken the colony, struggling as it was for independent existence, under the jealous and watchful eye of the arbitrary power in England. His agitations even tended to paralyse resistance against aggressions which they tended to bring about. The newly established liberties of the Massachusetts colonists were dear to them, and the magistrates having heard of dangerous designs against them on the part of the Episcopalians, it was resolved to administer a general pledge, called the " Freeman's Oath," to the effect that the colonists would support their local constitution against all foreign interference what- soever. But against the imposition of this oath also Williams raised such a spirit of resistance, that the magistrates were obliged to give way. In short, however excellent the principles he had esj)oused, it cannot be denied that his conduct bears some tinge of factious opposition, or, to say the least, of an ill-timed and narrow-minded scrupulosity. But his piety was so genuine, and his character so noble and disinterested, that the people of Salem, who knew and loved him, re-elected him for their pastor, in spite of the cen- sure of his doctrines by the court at Boston, an act of contumacy for which they were reprimanded and punished by the withholding a certain portion of lands. Such harshness aroused Williams to retort by a spirited protest, and he engaged the Salem church to join with him in a general appeal to the other churches against the injustice of which the magistrates had been guilty — a daring proceeding, for which the council suspended their franchise, and they shrunk from their leader, who was thus left absolutely alone. Upon this he openly renounced allegiance to what he deemed a persecuting church. His opinions and conduct were condemned by the council, who pronounced against him a sentence of banishment, but on account of the dangerous feeling of sympathy it awakened, decided shortly after on sending him back to England. It was the depth of a New England -svinter, Avhen Williams fled into the wilderness, and took refuge among the Narragansett Indians, with whom he had become acquainted at Plymouth. He wandered several weeks through the snow-buried forests, before he reached their wigwams, where he was received and sheltered with the utmost kindness. In the spring he departed in quest of some spot where he could found an asylum for those who, like himself, were persecuted for conscience' sake. He first attempted a settlement at Sekonk, but afterwards, at the friendly suggestion of Winslow, the governor of Plymouth, removed to Narragansett Bay, where he received from the Indians a free grant of a considerable tract of country, and in June, 1636, fixed upon the * Bancroft — from a rare tract by Roger Williams. 1G35.] ESTABLISHMENT OF RHODE ISLAND. 81 site of a town which he called " Providence/' as being an appointed refuge from his persecutions and wanderings. Here he was joined by many of his adherents from Salem, his lands were freely distributed among them, and thus arose the new State of Rhode Island ; the most free, and simple, and untram- melled in its institutions of any ever founded on the soil of America. Scarcely had the colony subsided after the excitement of this religious dis pute, when fresh troubles arose, from the operation of the same restless prin- cijjle of private judgment applied to the investigation of the Scriptures. The providential establishment of the model State of New England, for such it was considered to be by the English Puritans, continued to attract considerable numbers of them ; and among others who came over Avere Hugh Peters, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, and Mr. Henry Vane, son of Sir Henry Vane, a privy councillor, a young man of the highest principles and acquirements ; second in love of liberty to none of that noble band who stemmed the en- croachments of arbitrary power in England, of manners strict to austerity, and animated with the highest religious fervour, but of a subtle, restless, and speculative genius, which found its favourite field for exercise in the theological questions awakened and set afloat at the Reformation. The sonnet of Milton sj)eaks of him as " young in years, but in sage counsel old," attributes to him the utmost skill in statesmanship, the most intimate knowledge of affairs " both spiritual and civil," and, as the highest and crowning encomium, calls him the " eldest son " of Eeligion, upon whose " firm hand she leans in peace." The emigration of so distinguished a personage, and of others who were prepar- ing to follow him, created no little stir among the Massachusetts freemen ; it Avas even proposed, to meet the desires of the new-comers, that an order of lieredi- tary magistracy should be established ; but as this proposition was inconsistent with the peculiar constitution of the Massachusetts theocracy, which could be constituted by church members alone, it was eventually laid aside. Vane, however, was received with the highest honours, and presently elected as chief magistrate of the colony. Not long after his arrival arose a new religious fer- mentation, in which he himself soon became a prominent actor ; and as this controversy, and the important results to which it led, cannot be better or more succinctly stated than in the language of Robertson, it may be well to quote it. " It was the custom at that time in New England, among the chief men in every congregation, to meet once a week, in order to repeat the sermons which they had heard, and to hold religious conference with respect to the doctrines contained in them. Mrs. Hutchinson, whose husband was among the most respectable members of the colony, regretting that persons of her sex were excluded from the benefit of those meetings, assembled statedly in her house a number of women, who employed themselves in pious exercises similar to those of the men. At first she satisfied herself with repeating what she could recollect of the discourses delivered by their teachers. She began afterwards to add illustrations, and at length proceeded to censure some of the clergy as unsound, and to vent opinions and fancies of her own. These were all founded on the system which is denominated Antinomian by divines, and tinged with 82 MRS. HUTCHINSON KILLED BY THE INDIANS. [1G37. the deepest enthusiasm. She taught that sanctity of life is no evidence of jus- tificatioUj or of a state of favour with God ', and that such as inculcated the necessity of manifesting the reality of our faith by obedience, preached only a covenant of works ; she contended that the SjDirit of God dwelt personally in good men, and by inward revelations and impressions they received the fullest discoveries of the Divine will. The fluency and confidence with which she delivered these notions, gained her many admirers and proselytes, not only among the vulgar, but among the principal inhabitants. The whole colony was interested and agitated. Vane, whose sagacity and acuteness seemed to forsake him whenever they were turned towards religion, espoused and de- fended her wildest tenets. Many conferences were held, days of fasting and humiliation were appointed, a general synod was called; and, after dissen- sions which threatened the dissolution of the colony, Mrs. Hutchinson's opi- nions were condemned as erroneous, and she herself banished. Several of her disciples withdrew from the province of their own accord. Vane quitted America in disgust, unlamented even by those who had lately admired him ; some of them now regarded him as a mere visionary, and others, as one of those dark, turbulent spirits doomed to embroil every society into which they enter." The fate of Mrs. Hutchinson was as unhappy as her life was restless. After her retirement to Rhode Island, where she participated in all the toils and privations of a new settlement, she continued to promulgate her doctrines with the utmost ardour. Her sons, openly arraigning the justice of her banish- ment, were seized and thrown into prison. To fly beyond the reach of perse- cution, the whole family passed over into the territory of the Dutch, at the time when Kieft, the governor, had aroused by his rashness and cruelty vindictive reprisals on the part of the Indians. The dwelling cf INIrs. Hut- chinson was set on fire, and she perished with her children amidst the flames, or was murdered by the infuriated savages. In the mean time, Massachusetts continued to put forth numerous off'-shoots from the parent stem. A permanent settlement had, in 1635, been formed in the beautiful valley of the Connecticut, which, from its rich and fertile levels, had, at an early period, become a subject of competition. The fort built by the Dutch has been already noticed : and now a large body of emigrants from Massa- chusetts prepared to push through the virgin forest to the desired spot, where the towns of Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield had already been founded. This proved to be an expedition of great hardship, from its being undertaken too late in the year. The cattle perished, provisions were exhausted, and many returned through the snows to the places whence they departed. A sta- tion for the fur trade had been for some time established at Windsor by another body of emigrants. Winthrop the younger had come out with Vane, author- ized by the proprietors to settle and take possession of the region. Next year a larger body, consisting of the members of two churches with their pastors, one of whom was the distinguished Hooker, (who is supposed by some to have desired a removal from the vicinity of Cotton, a rival preacher,) made their way through the wilderness, steering through the thick woods by compass, 1636.] PEQUOD CONSPIRACY TO KILL THE COLONISTS. 83 and driving their cattle before them through the tangled thickets. The com- missioners also sent a party by water to found a fort at the mouth of the river, "svhich, from the names of Lords Say and Sele and Lord Brooke, the propri- etaries, was called Say-brook. The rising colony was exposed to dissensions with the Dutch, and placed in jeopardy by hostilities with the neighbouring Indians, which they themselves had not originated. This war, which ended in the extermination of the Pequods, arose out of provocations and misunderstandings trivial in themselves, but which acquired a fatal importance from the secret feeling of fear and suspicion with which the Indians and the English regarded one another. The former could, not behold the progress of the new comers without deep dissatisfaction ; they found the territory over which they had long exclusively reigned, encroached upon at various points, till they might apprehend, at no distant period, a final expulsion from the hunting grounds of their forefathers. On their part, the settlers looked with uneasiness upon the savages, like a dark cloud which threatened to burst over them when unprepared, as had been the case with the massacre of the settlers in Virginia ; and conscious of the feelings with which their gradual encroachments were secretly regarded, they determined to stand upon their guard, and to punish the first symptoms of aggression vvith stern and inexorable severity. The train thus laid, a single Apark was suf- ficient to create an explosion. The Pequods were the most powerful confeder- acy in the neighbourhood of Narragansett Bay, their authority extending over twenty-six petty tribes. A band of them had murdered the captain of a Vir- ginia trading vessel, and as this incident created some alarm among the people of jMaGsachusetts, the Pequods sent to Boston, urging that the deed had been hastily committed in revenge for some provocation on the part of the captain ; they offered to give up the surviving murderers, requested the good offices of the magistrates to effect a reconciliation with their enemies the Narragansetts, and desired to q-^cti a traffic. Satisfied with the apology, the Massachusetts magistrates effected the desired mediation ; but the murderers, perhaps from inability on the part of the Pequod Sachems, were not delivered up. Some time after, one Oldham, an old settler on Block Island, was murdered by a party of Narragansett Indians, in revenge for the trade he had opened with their late enemies the Pequods.* Although Canonicus, the Narragansett Sachem, sent to make ample apology for a crime committed without his know- ledge, and, of course, without that of the Pequods, an expedition was sent to punish the Indians of Block Island, and thence the chief settlement of the Pe- quods, to demand the promised delivery of the murderers. Upon their refusal, he destroyed their villages, both there and on the Connecticut. The Pequods retaliated, and sent messengers to engage the Narragansetts in a conspiracy to cut off" every white man from the soil. Roger Williams, who had sent timely information to the magistrates of Massachusetts, was entreated to prevent, if possible, the dreaded coalition. He hastened to the Narragansetts, among whom his virtues were regarded with veneration, and was happily successful * The account given of this transaction by Hildreth is followed. M 2 84 EXPEDITIOX AGAINST THE PEQUODS. [1037. in frustrating the influence of tlie Pequod messengers, and engaging the goodwill, or at least the neutrality, of the Narragansetts. The unfortunate Pequods, thus compelled to stand alone, and forced into a war, rather by a concurrence of accidents than by any direct purpose of hos- tility, determined to carry it on with their hereditary spirit. After their usual tactics, they began to cut off the detached settlers on the Connecticut river by surjDrise, and carry off their scalj)s, and they even ventured to attack Fort Say-brook. These cruelties soon led to the organization of an expedition against them on the part of the people of Connecticut, as well as those of Mas- sachusetts. Having obtained the alliance of Uncas, Sachem of the Mohcgans, the greater part of the able-bodied men, under the command of Mason, who had been a soldier in Flanders, prepared for their departure. It was a perilous crisis ; should they fail in the enterj)rise, the infant settlement, left without defenders, would fall into the power of their vindictive enemies — their Avives and children would be ruthlessly scalped. The night was spent in solemn prayer. On the morrow the militia embarked at Hartford, and being joined by twenty men from Boston, under the command of Underbill, sailed past the Thames, and entered, unobserved, a harbour in the vicinity of the Pequod Fort. They rested on the following sabbath, and early in the week endeavoured to engage the assistance of the Narragansetts, whose Sachem, Miantonimoh, at first joined them with a large body of men, who on learning that the intention of the English was to attack the Pequod forts with so small a body, were panic- struck, and most of them retreated. The catastrophe cannot be better described than in the words of Trumbull, the historian of Connecticut. " After marching under the guidance of a revolted Pequod to the vicinity of the principal fort, they pitched their little camp between, or near, two large rocks, in Groton, since called Porter's rocks. The men were faint and weary, and though the rocks were their pillows, their rest Avas sweet. The guards and sentinels were considerably advanced in front of the army, and heard the enemy singing at the fort, who continued their rejoicings even until midnight. They had seen the vessels pass the harbour some days before, and had con- cluded that the English were afraid, and had no courage to attack them. The night was serene, and towards morning the moon shone clear. The im- portant crisis was now come, when the very existence of Connecticut, under Providence, was to be determined by the sword in a single action, and to be decided by the good conduct of less than eighty brave men. The Indians who remained were now sorely dismayed, and though at first they had led the van, and boasted of great feats, yet were now fallen back in the rear. About two hours before day the men were roused with all expedition, and, briefly commending themselves and their cause to God, advanced immediately to the fort, and sent for the Indians in the rear to come up. Uncas and Obequash at length appeared. The captain demanded of them where the fort was. They answered, on the top of the hill. He demanded of them where were the other Indians. They answered that they were much afraid. The captain sent to them not to fly, but to surround the fort at any distance they pleased, and 1G37.] DESTRUCTION OF THE PEQUOD FORT. 85 see whether Englishmen would fight. The day was nearly dawning, and no time was now to be lost. The men pressed on in two divisions. Captain Mason to the north-eastern, and Underhill to the western entrance. As the object which they had been so long seeking came into view, and while they reflected that they were to fight not only for themselves, but their parents, wives, chil- dren, and the whole colony ; the martial spirit kindled in their bosoms, and they were wonderfully animated and assisted. As Captain Mason advanced within a rod or two of the fort, a dog barked, aikd an Indian roared out, — ' Owanux ! Owanux ! ' that is. Englishmen ! Englishmen ! The troops pressed on, and as the Indians were rallying, poured in upon them, through the pali- sadoes, a general discharge of their muskets, and then wheeling off to the principal entrance, entered the fort sword in hand. Notwithstanding the sud- denness of the attack, and the blaze and thunder of the arms, the enemy made a manly and desperate resistance. Captain Mason and his party drove the Indians in the main street towards the west part of the fort, M-here some bold men, who had forced their way, met them, and made such slaughter among them, that the street was soon clear of the enemy. They secreted themselves in and behind their wigwams, and, taking advantage of every covert, main- tained an obstinate defence. The captain and his men entered the wigwams, where they were beset with many Indians, who took every advantage to shoot them, and lay hands upon them, so that it was with great difiiculty that they could defend themselves with their swords. After a severe conflict, in which many of the Indians were slain, some of the English killed, and others sorely wounded, the victory still hung in suspense. The captain, finding himself much exhausted, and out of breath, as well as his men, by the extraordinary exertions which they had made in this critical state of action, had recourse to a successful expedient. He cries out to his men, ' We must burn them ! ' He immediately, entering a wigwam, took fire and put it into the mats with which the wigwams were covered. The fire instantly kindling, spread with such violence, that all the Indian houses were soon wrapped in one general flame. As the fire increased, the English retired without the fort, and com- passed it on every side. Uncas and his Indians, with such of the Narragan- setts as yet remained, took courage from the example of the English, and formed another circle in the rear of them. The enemy were now seized Avith astonishment ; and, forced by the flames from their lurking-places into open light, became a fair mark for the English soldiers. Some climbed the pali- sadoes, and were instantly brought down by the fire of the English muskets. Others, desperately sallying forth from their burning cells, were shot, or cut to pieces with the sword. Such terror fell upon them, that they would run back from the English into the very flames. Great numbers perished in the conflagration. The greatness and violence of the fire, the reflection of the light, the flashing and the roar of the arms, the shrieks and yellings of the men, women, and children, in the fort, and the shouting of the Indians with- out, just at the dawning of the morning, exhibited a grand and awful scene. In little more than an hour, this whole work of destruction was finished. Se- 86 EXTERMINATION OF THE PEQUODS. [1G37-40. venty wigwams were burnt, and five or six hundred Indians perished, either by the sword, or in the flames. A hundred and fifty warriors had been sent on the evening before, who, that very morning, Avere to have gone forth against the EngHsh. Of these and all who belonged to the fort, seven only escaped, and seven were made prisoners. It had been previously concluded not to burn the fort, but to destroy the enemy, and take the plunder ; but the captain afterwards found it the only expedient, to obtain the victory and save his men. Thus parents and children, the sannap and squa"\v, the old man and the babe, perished in promiscuous ruin." In the midst of this frightful scene a large body of Pequod warriors arrived to join their brethren at the fort. Frantic with horror and revenge, they rushed upon the conquerors, but were easily driven back, and compelled to retreat. A portion of the victors hastily returned to prevent a surprise of their homes by the Indians, while Mason, having sent his wounded by a vessel just arrived from Boston, marched across the country to Fort Saybrook, where he was received by the commandant with a discharge of artillery. What the men of Connecticut had thus begun, was finished by the militia from Massachusetts, who shortly after arrived upon the scene of action. The Pequods wxu-e hunted from their hiding-jalaces in the swamps ; their forts de- stroyed; their fugitive chief, Sassacus, murdered by the Mohawks, among w'hom he had taken refuge ; the male prisoners sold into slavery in the West Indies ; the women and children retained as domestic drudges. Some few who escaped were incorporated into other tribes, and the very name of the once proud and powerful Pequods was blotted from the earth. This ruthless process of extermination, which was regarded by the pious settlers in the light of a providential victory over their " heathen " enemies, had the effect of striking such terror into the surrounding Indians, that the peace of the colony was not again disturbed by them for many years afterward. The religious dissensions caused by the arbitrary standard set up in Mas- sachusetts, had the beneficial effect of causing different emigrations, promoted for directly opposite ends. To obtain a more unlimited freedom, Williams had laid the foundation of Rhode Island, while the desire of enjoying a still more exclusive degree of puritanical strictness, prompted the establishment by Davenport of the colony of New Haven, in which church-membership was the condition of citizenship, and the Bible the only code of legislation. Wheel- wright, banished for his participation in the heresies of Mrs. Hutchinson, went forth and planted Exeter. Captain Underbill, involved in the same quarrel, and suspected moreover of licence rather soldier-like than edifying, was, notwithstanding his bravery, expelled, upon which he retired to Dover. Others also departed and founded separate and independent congregations, until the whole land was sprinkled with settlements, so many little oases amidst the wide-spreading forest which had so lately covered it, and which began rapidly to open before the axe of the sturdy woodman. Among these settlements was that of Howley in Massachusetts, formed by a company of Yorkshire clothiers, under the pastoral superintendence of the pious Ezekiel Rogers. 1603-23. ] COLONIZA TION OF THE STA TE OF MAINE. 87 The wild indented coast of Maine had also become sprinkled with a few settlements, the progress of which, however, was for some time extremely slow. The name of Sir Ferdinando Gorges will be held in honour as one of the most persevering of all the planters of the American continent. Having obtained a charter from the Plymouth company, he sent out more than one expedition, but to little or no purpose. One of these, commanded by Kaleigh Gilbert and George Popham, repaired to the mouth of the Kennobec, to lay the foundation of a colony, but were compelled to abandon the scheme. A second body of settlers established themselves at the mouth of the Piscatoqua, under a patent granted to Gorges and Mason, for a tract called Laconia, where they founded Portsmouth and Dover. Mason, who had been associated with Gorges in this scheme, obtained a grant of the territory of New Hampshire, a tract discovered by Martin Pring, but his affairs fell into disorder, and he soon after died. Gorges obtained a new charter for the incorporation of all his grants under the name of Maine, drew up an elaborate scheme for the govern- ment of a territory as yet little better than a wilderness, and sent out his kins- man, Thomas Gorges, with numerous subordinates, to administer it. A Scotchman, Sir William Alexander, had also obtained from James I. the ter- ritory of Acadie, already granted by Henry lY. of France to his subjects, and 'changed its name to Nova Scotia. These confused and conflicting charters and claims originated much private litigation and international hostility. The Plymouth company had endeavoured to assert their exclusive right to the fisheries off their coasts, and to levy a tax upon the numerous fishing vessels that frequented them. They even appointed one West, as " Admiral of New England," with authority to assert their claims ; but this was found to be im- possible, Virginia refused to submit, and the whole line of coast was soon studded with little fishing stations, the nurseries of hardy seamen, and the origin of a most lucrative commerce. The material and intellectual progress of the colony, in spite of all its religious dissensions, had, owing to the energetic character of the New England settlers, been steady and rapid. Trade continued to increase, vessels were built, water and wind mills were set up ; the towns and villages began to assume a settled appearance. Although intercourse between the settlements, divided by large intervals of forest, was chiefly carried on by coasting. No plantation on the shores of America had made, as it was universally conceded, so unexampled a progress within so short a period, or gave promise of such a brilliant career of future greatness. Such was the flourishing state of the New England colonies about the time of the breaking out of the English Eevolution. MARYLAND GRANTED TO LORD BALTIMORE. [1621-32. CHAPTER VII. COLONIZATION OF MARYLAND BY LORD BALTIMORE. — ITS ADVANTAGES AND PROGRESS. — DISPUTE ■WITH CLAYBORNE. — ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. While Virginia was compelled to pass through various struggles before at- taining her liberties, and Massachusetts strenuously contended against the liberty of private judgment, another colony was founded, of which representa- tive government and religious toleration were fundamental principles ; and, singularly enough, under the auspices of a member of that Churcli which had itself first set the example of persecution for conscience' sake. The Roman Catholics in England, from being the oppressors, had of late become the op- pressed, under the combined operation of public prejudice and of Episcopalian and Puritanical rancour. Sir George Calvert, a native of Yorkshire, a scholar and traveller, so popular in his native county, by far the largest in England, as to be chosen as its representative in parliament, and so great a favourite at court as to have become one of the secretaries of state, had become a convert to the proscribed faith. With honourable candour he avowed his opinions, and tendered the resignation of his office. Far, however, from losing the influence he had obtained, he was loaded with fresh favours, and soon after created an Irish peer, by the title of Lord Baltimore. He had been one of the original associates of the Virginia company, and had tried an experimental colony of his own upon the island of Newfoundland, which, after having twice visited, he at length resolved to abandon. He then turned his attention to Virginia, where he met with little encouragement to engage in a settlement, the oath of allegiance, expressly framed so as that no Catholic could con- scientiously subscribe it, being expressly and offensively tendered for his adop- tion. He thus became desirous of obtaining a settlement to which the Ca- tholics might repair unmolested, and on his return to England had little dif- ficulty in obtaining from Charles I. a grant of a considerable tract on the river Potomac, which, in compliment to the queen, Henrietta Maria, he denomin- ated Maryland. Baltimore was a man of clear and comprehensive mind, of high and generous character ; he appreciated the necessity of a popular go- vernment, as well as of its independence of the despotism of the crown ; and thus the charter which gave to him, and to his heirs, the absolute proprietor- ship in the soil, together with the power of making necessary laws, was coupled with the condition that nothing should be enacted without the advice, con- sent, and approbation of the freemen of the province, or their representatives convoked in general assembly, and nothing enacted but what was in spirit, if 1632-35.] PEACEFUL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLONY. 89 not in letter, consonant to the laws of England. It was also the first instance in which the local proprietary was exempted from the control of the crown, and from the power of parliamentary taxation. Sir George Calvert died before the patent had been arranged, which was, however, confirmed to his son, Cecil Calvert, who appointed his natural brother, Leonard Calvert, to the command of the company destined to found a colony under auspices so peculiarly fa- vourable. They embarked on board the Ark and the Dove, in number about two hundred — the great body of the settlers being Roman Catholics, many of them ranking among the gentry. After a circuitous voyage by way of the West Indies, where they spent the winter, they arrived on the shores of Virginia, where, notwithstanding the jealousy of the inhabitants at so close an infringe- ment upon their own territory and upon the commercial advantages derived from the possession of the Chesapeake, the new settlers were courteously received by the gorernor, Harvey. Shortly after Calvert entered the Poto- mac, and upon a spot, partly occupied, and about to be abandoned by the Indians, and ceded by them next year in full to the emigrants, he built the little village of St. Mary's. Every colony planted on the American soil had passed through a season of hardship and calamity ; the foundation of Maryland was the first exception. The favourable provisions of the charter, the liberal spirit of the institutions, and the readiness with which the Indians conceded to the settlers a footing on the soil, the unanimity of design, the ready sup]3ly of all their wants by the neighbouring colonists through the liberal outlay of the proprietor, all concurred to promote the peaceful establishment and rapid progress of the new colony. Its harmony was, however, disturbed, by a dispute arising out of some prior claims to an exclusive trade upon a portion of the territory included in the patent. William Clayborne, an enterprising member of the council of Vir- ginia, after surveying the dififerent branches of the Chesapeake, satisfied with the advantages of the region for opening an advantageous traffic, had ob- tained a grant from Charles L, authorizing the formation of a trading company, and had built an establishment at Kent Island, in the heart of the territory now made over to Lord Baltimore, of whose patent he had endeavoured to invalidate the legality as being opposed to his own prior claims, although no right to the territory had been assigned to him with his trading patent. His appeal was set aside, and, esteeming himself to be aggrieved by this decision, he not only en- deavoured to prevent the progress of the colony by prejudicing the Indians against it, but actually fitted out a vessel to resist or capture the boats of the new settlers. After a bloody skirmish Clayborne's men were defeated, and his trading station seized, while he himself was obliged to fly into Virginia, where the justice of his claims was universally recognised. The first colonial as- sembly of Maryland having assembled, passed an act of attainder against him, and required that he should be given up to them for trial by the government of Virginia. But the strong feeling in his favour existing in the latter colony determined Harvey, the governor, to evade this demand by sending him to England for trial, together with the witnesses against him. 90 RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN MARYLAND. [1645-49. The tendency to self-government which seems to have sprung up in the breasts of the English colonists simultaneously with the first crop raised by them from the soil, appeared in the proceedings of the first council convened in Maryland. Popular as was Lord Baltimore with the colonists, and liberal his provisions in their favour, they watched with jealousy the slightest tend- ency to encroachment on his part. In this spirit they rejected, by virtue of the power vested in them, a body of laws sent over by him for their accept- ance, and insisted on being allowed to take the initiative in legislation. With the next assembly came the establishment of representative government. The " rights and Liberties of Holy Church " were especially protected, but no provisions were made to enforce conformity to her dogmas. This was alike rej)ugnant to the spirit of the founder of the colony, and indeed impossible in the state of public opinion against the Catholics. Whether from ne- cessity or policy, or more honourable reasons, practical toleration Avas at all events established in Maryland, which thus became an asylum for those ex- posed to persecution in the other colonies as well as in the parent country. Experience further demonstrated the inestimable blessing, almost then un- known, of a free religious toleration, and it was decisively confirmed by statute ten years afterwards. Liberty of opinion was not indeed, nor could it well have been, as absolute as in our own times. A general profession of belief in Tri- nitarian Christianity was required, and so-called "blasphemy" severely pun- ished ; but with this limitation the terms of the statute forbade any interference in, or even reproachful censure of, the private opinions or modes of worship, already sufficiently numerous and eccentric, established among the citizens. ** Whereas," it states, " the enforcing of the conscience in matters of religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous consequence in' those common- wealths where it hath been practised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of this province, no persons whatsoever, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall from henceforth be in any ways troubled, molested, or dis- countenanced, for, or in respect of, his or her religion, nor in the free exercise thereof; nor any way compelled to the belief or exercise of any religion against his or her consent, so that they be not unfaithful to the lord proprietary, or molest or conspire against the civil government established." 1G30-34] ARCHBISHOP LA UD AND MASSACHUSETTS. 91 CHAPTER VIII. THE XEW . ENGLAND STATES DURING THE PARLIAMENT.— PERSECUTIONS OF THE BAPTISTS AND QUAKERS IN MASSACHUSETTS.— ELLIOT AND THE INDIANS. — GENERAL PROGRESS OF THE NORTHERN COLONIES. The effects of tlie great struggle now going on in England between Charles I. and his parliament were not unfelt even on the distant shores of New Eng- land. The settlement of the Plymouth Pilgrims had occurred with little or no notice, and the increasing interest of affairs at home had so occupied attention, that Massachusetts was allowed to grow up, and assume a distinct and independent policy, before any interference was threatened by the minis- ters. It had been the wise endeavour of the founders of the infant State to avoid, as far as possible, attracting the attention of those in power, and to veil over their great design, the founding of an independent theocracy, by the external profession of loyalty to the monarch as well as obedience to the Church. But in spite of this cautious policy, their designs had leaked out, and their proceedings had begun to attract the serious attention of the ministers of Charles. Those Episcopalians who had been expelled from Salem by the rashness and fanaticism of Endicott were loud in their complaints. The council for New England was summoned to answer for the alleged misconduct of the settlers under their charter. But not only did this body repudiate all responsibility on account of the Massachusetts freemen, but laboured still further for their inculpation. They charged them with surreptitiously procur- ing a grant of lands previously conveyed to others, for which, without the concurrence of the council, they had obtained a private charter. The accus- ation, however, which more especially attracted the jealous eye of Archbishop Laud was, that they had virtually " made themselves a free people," and " framed unto themselves new laws in matters of religion, and ecclesiastical forms, departure from which they had punished by the severest penalties." These unwarrantable encroachments the council declared itself unable to restrain or punish, and therefore referred the whole matter to the gracious in- terference of his Majesty and the privy council. No invitation could be more welcome to the bigoted Archbishop. He had received private information of the secret designs of the Massachusetts planters, he had witnessed with uneasiness the rapid stream of emigration which was caused by his arbitrary measures, and had found that many of " the best " were going over to strengthen the hands of the detested Puritans. An embargo was laid upon vessels bound to New England; the letters N 2 92 RE VOL UTION IN ENGL A ND A ND DEA TH OF LAUD. [1 G35. patent of the company were imperiously demanded, and a special commission was appointed, giving to himself and his creatures full power to introduce into the New England colonies the same atrocious system by which he was vainly labouring at home to crush the cause of civil and religious liberty. The Plymouth company having surrendered their charter to the king, a *' quo warranto " was issued against the Massachusetts colonists. The freemen were outlawed, and the resignation of their patent demanded, under the threat of his Majesty's assuming the management of the colony. An evasive remonstrance was sent over by the council, in the hope of averting the threat- ened attack upon their liberties, against which they made meanwhile every preparation for a determined resistance. The fort was ordered to be garrisoned, and other defences hastily prepared. But the distance from home, and, above all, the increasing troubles in England, which now engrossed the whole atten- tion of the ministry, prevented their carrying out the dreaded project. The acts in the great drama of the revolution now succeeded each other with a rapidity that kept all men in a state of breathless suspense and excitement. It was no longer needful to lay an embargo upon emigrants to Massachusetts, many of its citizens repairing home to take a part in the agitating but glo- rious scene. The Scotch had entered England, the Long Parliament had been called, arbitrary power had been swept away, and a complete change had taken place in the system of legislation. Strafford was impeached, condemned, and executed. Laud soon after followed him to the scaffold; the Church, whose authority he had laboixred by every species of cruel persecution to enforce, was dissolved and proscribed, and Puritanism, which it was the great object of his life to extirpate, was triumphantly established in power. Meanwhile the colony was left undisturbed to the development of her internal resources, and to the framing of a " Body of Liberties." Of these the rough draft, ha\ang been prepared by the council, was sent round and submitted, first to the local magistrates and elders, then to the freemen at large for due consideration and improvement ; and having been thus decided upon, they were at length formally adopted. After three years' trial they were to be revised, and finally established. These laws, about a hundred in number, are characteristic and curious. The supreme power was still to re- side in the hands «Tf the church members alone ; universal suffrage was not conceded, but every citizen was allowed to take a certain share in the business of any public meeting. Some degree of liberty was granted to private churches and assemblies of different Christians, but the power of veto was still vested in the supreme council, who might arbitrarily put down any proceedings which they deemxcd heterodox and dangerous, and punish or expel their authors. Strangers and refugees professing the true Christian religion were to be received and sheltered. Bond-slavery, villanage, or cap- tivity, except in the case of Imcful captives taken in war, or any who should either sell themselves or he sold by others, were to be abolished. Injurious monopolies were not to be allowed. Idolatry, Avitchcraft, and blasphemy, or wilful disturbing of the established order of the state, were punishable with 1635.] FHAMING of the "BODY OF LIBERTIES." 93 death. All torture was prohibited, unless whipping, ear-cropping, and the pillory, which were retained as wholesome and necessary punishments, might be so considered. The liberties of women, children, and servants are defined in a more, benevolent spirit, in harmony with the milder institutes of the Mosaic law so constantly referred to by the framers of the document. The infant province of New Hampshire sought and obtained annexation, on equal terms, to its more powerful neighbour Massachusetts. Shortly after- wards, in 1643, the whole of the scattered settlements resolved upon uniting in one common confederation, under the name of the " United Colonies of New England." This union was suggested after the Pequod war, by the necessity of making common cause against the Indians, as well as against the encroachments of the Dutch in Connecticut, and of the French on the coast of Maine. It consisted of the colonies of New Plymouth, New Haven, Con- necticut, and Massachusetts. The preservation of "gospel truth" being a principal object of the confederacy, all the delegates were accordingly to be church members. Two of these were to be sent by each colony, annually, or oftener if necessary. They were to choose a president, and all questions were to be decided by six votes out of the eight. They were to meet alter- nately at Boston, Hartford, New Haven, and Plymouth. Each State was to retain its local rights of legislation, and no new plantation could be received without the approval of the others. No war was to be levied by any one of the colonies without the consent of the rest, and although the expenses of a war were to be defrayed out of a common fund, yet should any colony have brought a war upon itself or the rest by its own fault, it was to make satis- faction to the adverse party, and to bear in addition the entire expense of the war. Runaway servants were to be restored, and legal judgments in one colony to be held valid in the rest. Such were the principal points of this famous compact, the idea of which was borrowed from the provinces of Hol- land, and suggested perhaps in turn the great federation of the United States of America, in which some of its provisions were retained. Enacted Avith entire independence of the control of the mother country, it nevertheless sub- sisted until its abrt)gation by the arbitrary power of the last of the Stuarts. Armed as they were with an absolute power to restrain, although certainly not private belief in, yet at least open profession of, any creed differing from tlieir established standard, it was not long before the Massachusetts fathers were called upon to fence off their orthodoxy against a crowd of troublesome intruders. The carrying out to its ultimate results the principle of free private judgment continued to breed new forms of visionary speculation, and of doc- trinal subtleties, with a perilous unloosening of the ordinary principles of morals. Such was the Antinomianism of jNIrs. Hutchinson, and such, though in a minor degree, was the doctrine of the Anabaptists, so fearfully carried out by the fanatics of INIunster. This doctrine, against which peculiar prejudices might then well be enter- tained, although it has now moderated into a mere question of the time and 94 SAMUEL GORTON BANISHED FROM PL YMO UTH. [1643. mode of baptism, now appeared for the first time in New England. The restless Williams had embraced it, and became the founder of the first Baptist church in America, and the foundations of Newport were laid by a body of these sectarians. Their views gained ground, the orthodox churches Avere troubled, and numerous complaints were made against the innovators, who had renounced all communion with their brethren, and propagated their pe- culiar dogmas with indefatigable zeal. Clark and Holmes, two of the leaders, were seized on the sabbath, as they were in the act of preaching, and forcibly carried off to attend the more orthodox services of a neighbouring church. The moment the minister began to pray, Clark put on his hat, for which insult he was allowed the alternative of fine or flagellation. Anxious, pos- sibly, to obtain sympathy as a martyr, he fearlessly chose the latter punish- ment, and thirty lashes were accordingly inflicted upon him. The activity and obstinacy of the new sectaries provoked the severest measures of preven- tion and punishment ; a sentence of expatriation was pronounced against all who should openly assert their obnoxious tenets, and many were accordingly sent forth from the colony. Samuel Gorton was a religious enthusiast of a different vein, one who enter- tained certain reflned and mystical views of the doctrines of Scripture peculiar to himself; to whom there was "no heaven but in the heart of the good man, no hell but in the conscience of the wicked;" who looked upon the doctrinal formulas and church ordinances of the orthodox Puritans as human inventions, alike unauthorized and mischievous, and regarded their assumed authority as an intolerable yoke of bondage, which he was careless and daring enough to defy or ridicule. The " soul tyranny " of the Massachusetts theocracy seems indeed, as a natural result, invariably to have stimulated to opposition and de- fiance. Gorton, expelled from Plymouth, retired to the neighbourhood of Providence, where he had become involved in further dispute with some of the inhabitants, who invited the interference of Massachusetts. He was cited to ap- pear before the magistrates of Boston, but he preferred to retire still farther from their reach, and having purchased some land of Miantonomoh, the Nar- ragansett chief and the ally of the colonists in the Pequod war, commenced an independent settlement. The rightfulness of this grant of Miantonomoh's was denied by two inferior Sachems ; their appeal was confirmed by the Boston magistrates, to whom they now made over the disputed territory. Gorton was summoned to appear before the court at Boston ; he replied with a counter-summons of defiance, denied the legality or impartiality of their proceedings, and offered to submit the case to the arbitration of the other colonists. A strong party was sent out to seize him and his adherents, and being taken and conveyed to Boston, he was shortly after brought before the court on the charge of being a blasphemous subverter of " true religion and civil government." Hb vainly endeavoured to explain away the obnoxious impvitations, and being convicted, was by the greater part of the magistrates sentenced to death, although this, at the instance of the deputies, was commvxted to imprisonment and hard labour, which was also inflicted upon his adherents 1643.] MURDER OF MIANTONOMOH BY UN GAS. 95 who had been taken with him. Not even the fear of death couhl, however, restrain their zeal, and they were accordingly sent ou'i, of the colony. Gorton soon after returned to England, where he found, for a while, a suitable scope for his doctrinal phantasies amidst the sectarian disputes of the time. Far different was the fate of Miantonomoh. Between himself and Uncas, chief of the INIohcgans, the firm ally of the English, and who had placed him- self under their protection, a bitter hatred subsisted ', and mutual hostilities had broken out, as it is said, in consequence of an aggression on the part of Uncas. Miantonomoh was taken prisoner, the intercession of Gorton saved him from immediate death, but Uncas carried his captive to Hartford, and referred his fate to the decision of the commissioners for the United Colonies. The Narragansett chief was, on many grounds, obnoxious to the English ; he was looked upon as a " turbulent spirit, whom it would be dangerous to set at liberty ; " moreover he was the friend of Gorton and of Williams, through whose agency indeed he had been prevented from joining in the conspiracy of the Pequods. Yet the consciences of the council could not be satisfied without at least some decent pretext for his legal condemnation ; and he was charged with the murder of a servant belonging to the Mohegan chief. It was decided that he should die, but not by the sentence of the council; and they accordingly ordered him to be delivered over to Uncas, who was permitted to convey him beyond the bounds of the colony, and deal with him summarily, after his own fashion, but without the infliction of torture. The exulting Uncas hastened to fulfil this welcome command, and the instant he had passed the border, drove his hatchet into the skull of the unfortunate Miantonomoh, and even glutted his savage appetite of revenge by drinking the blood and tasting the flesh of his victim. During the progress of the civil war in England, it may be well imagined, that the sympathies of the people of Massachusetts were in favour of the " Godly Parliament," although they wisely determined not to involve them- selves in the dispute. There Avere not wanting, however, among them, some "malignant spirits," who were disposed to stir in favour of the king, English vessels, belonging to the rival factions, having come to action even in Boston Bay ; but a strict neutrality was now enforced. When the Parliament had fully established its authority, friendly invitations were sent over to the min- isters of New England to attend the conference at Westminster, and to sue for additional privileges ; yet the wise and wary heads of the INIassachusetts fathers evaded a proposal which, while it might tend to breed dangerous in- novations, could add nothing to the virtual independence which they al- ready enjoyed. Satisfied that they had built up the best of all possible com- monwealths, they had determined to defend their newly-established theocracy against the troublesome interference of either king or parliament. This latter body had indeed appointed a board of control for the colonies, of which the Earl of Warwick was governor, and Yane, Pym, and Cromwell members. This board was endowed with very ample general powers, and might appoint at pleasure governors, counsellors, and officers. No interference with the 96 ' TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL OF GOV. WINTHROP. [1G45. established order of things was as yet attempted, a friendly feeling subsisted between the parties, and the exports and imports of Massachusetts were ex- empted from taxation. Not only had the council to watch jealously against external interference, but also to repress a dangerous fermentation within its own boundaries. The strict exclusiveness and rigid regimen of the self-constituted government ap- peared, to a large body of those without, to be as unjust as it was unpalatable. The harshness considered necessary to repress the vagaries of different sect- aries had not only tended to increase their acrimony, but appeared to many, both at home and abroad, in the light of a cruel persecution. There was also a dangerous party, who were aiming at the establishment of Presbyterianism, and the re-modelling of the state by the authority of parliament. A spirit of determined opposition against the authority of the council was awakened. The people rejected fresh officers recommended by authority, and re-nominated the old, merely to show their independence. At length the dispute arose to a head. "VVinthrop, the governor, in the exercise of a legal right, had set aside a military election at Hingham. Complaint was eagerly made, and Winthrop stood upon his defence before the general court, which was divided in opinion, the minority being in favour of the people, the majority siding with the go- vernor. After a stormy discussion, Winthrop was declared to be honourably acquitted, when he ascended the bench and delivered a speech, in which the peculiar views entertained by the leaders of Massachusetts, and the limitations imposed by them on popular liberty, are so well expounded, that we cannot do better than quote it. " The questions," said Mr. "Winthrop, " that have troubled the country have been about the authority of the magistracy and the liberty of the people. It is you who have called us unto this office ; but being thus called, we have our authority from God. I entreat you to consider, that when you choose magis- trates, you take them from among yourselves, men subject unto like passions with yourselves. If you see our infirmities, reflect on your own, and you will not be so severe ccnsurers of ours. The covenant between us and you, is the oath you have exacted from us, which is to this i^urpose, ' That we shall go- vern you and judge your causes according to God's laws, and the particular statutes of the land, according to our best skill ! As for our skill, you must run the hazard of it ; and if there be an error only therein, and not in the will, it becomes you to bear it. Nor would I have you mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a liberty of a corrupt nature, which is affiscted both by men and beasts, to do what they list. This liberty is inconsistent with au- thority ; impatient of all restraint, 'tis the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty, which is the proper end and object of authority : it is a liberty for that only which is just and good. For this liberty you are to stand with the hazard of your very lives ; and whatsoever crosses it is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained in a Avay of subjection to authority ; and the authority set over you will, in all administrations for your 1646.] PARLIAMENT DECLARES ITS AUTHORITY. 97 good, be quietly submitted unto by all such as have a disposition to shake off the yoke, and lose their true liberty by their murmuring at the honour and power of authority." The defeat of the popular party seemed almost their victory, since they had indirectly obtained the concession, that the council for life should be deprived of its military authority, and they soon put forth fresh demands. A petition, got up by dissentients of different sects and parties, was presented, headed by Child, a young physician, recently arrived from England, where the doc- trines of toleration were making rapid progress. Complaining of the exclusion of all but church members from a share in the government, they prayed that civil liberty and freedom might be granted to all " truly English," and that members of other English or Scotch churches might be admitted to the same privileges as those of New England. They charged the government with being " ill compacted," and threatened, in default of redress, to appeal to the government at home. A similar movement had taken place at Plymouth, whence the governor, Winslow, wrote to Win thro j), " admiring how sweet this carrion," this indiscriminate toleration of all sects, alike clamorous for pre- eminence, " relished in the palate of most of the deputies." It was thrown out, however, as " being that which Avould eat out all power of godliness." Child was summoned to appear before the council, where he endeavoured to argue the matter, but was speedily silenced and fined, whereupon he pre- pared to sail with a new petition for parliamentary interference in favour of the non-freemen, but being seized before he could embark, was amerced in still heavier penalties. Another incident had occurred which added to the gravity of the crisis. Gor- ton had made interest in England in favour of his claim to the land of which he had been dispossessed by the council, and now sent over his agent, armed with a letter of safe-conduct from the parliament, together with an order from them to allow him j)resent possession of the disputed territory, until their final judg- ment could be pronounced. Such an assumption of authority on the j^art of the parliament struck directly at the root of the independence of Massachu- setts. The council, with closed doors, anxiously investigated the nature of their relation to the parent state ; and it was agreed upon after much discus- sion, that allegiance, rather nominal indeed than real, was to be paid to Eng- land, but that the right of regulating their internal affairs belonged exclu- sively to the council. In the critical position of affairs, however, and menaced both at home and abroad, they decided on adopting the policy of conciliation, and Winslow, who had influential friends in London, was deputed to repair thither to obtain the countenance of parliament by amicable means. In the same vessel with the agent thus sent over to defend the cause of the council, sailed another who carried out a copy of the obnoxious petition which laboured to subvert their authority. This personage was William Vassall, a mem- ber of the Plymouth colony, one whose restless liberalism would have involved him in trouble, but that his brother happened to be an influential member of parliament, on which ground he was therefore reluctantly allowed to embark. 98 PROGRESS OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND. [1647. But in his parting sermon to tlie passengers, the zealous Cotton had declared, tliat " if any should carry writings or complaints against the people of God in that country to England, it would be as Jonas in the ship," a hint which his jiious shipmates were not slow in understanding. A storm arose, the trunk containing the obnoxious papers was thrown overboard, but Vassall had secretly preserved copies. On their arrival both parties commenced their counter-intrigue. The apparently noble, though specious appeal of the council, together with the private interest of Winslow with Vane and other influential members, carried the day. " We have not admitted your authority," said the remonstrance, " being assured they cannot stand with the liberty and power granted us by our charter, and would be subversive of all government." While they humbly admit the superior wisdom of j)arliament, they modestly plead the great distance from the colony and ignorance of its local requirements, as tending to destroy the force and vitiate the suitableness of their legislation. " Confirm our liberties," they conclude, " discountenance our enemies, the disturbers of our peace under pretence of our injustice." This appeal, backed by powerful influence, proved an overmatch for the machinations of Vassall and Child. The parliament refused to reverse the decisions of the council, and generously extended to them " the utmost freedom and latitude that could, in any respect, be duly claimed by them." Meanwhile the dread of parliamentary interference had produced a strong reaction in the colony against the liberals, and thus the Massachusetts council, after a long and anxious struggle with their opponents, found themselves established still firmer in power than before. The foundation of " Providence, " and the settlement of Aquiday or Rhode Island by Roger Williams, has been already described. Thither, since the expulsion of Mrs. Hutchinson from Boston, had continued to repair a large number of those who were discontented vidth the " soul tyranny " established in Massachusetts. Antinomians and Anabaptists, fanatics and latitudinarians of every shade of belief, had there found a shelter from persecution, and a field for the free exercise of their conflicting creeds. Universal suffrage and equal right being the established code, the little state soon became notorious for the tumultuous character of its popular assemblies, for the collision of opinions and interests, of whims and vagaries, elements which by agitation neutralized one another, and formed an harmonious unity by the balance of forces. " Amor vincit omnia" was the happy and well-chosen motto of their little state. Over this restless democracy presided Roger Williams, venerated for the uprightness and simplicity of his daily walk. As years stole on him, and he beheld the evil arising from sectarian animosity, his zeal for fantastic innovation was sobered down, and from a restless propagator of novel tenets he became a humble and charitable " seeker " after truth. His antipathy to persecution, however, and his advocacy of an impartial toleration, increased only with his age. The arbitrary encroachments of the Massachusetts the- ocracy, their increasing territorial aggrandizement, and the apprehension lest they might ultimately claim jurisdiction over the other colonies, determined 'i 1650.] THE CHARTER OF RHODE ISLAND. 99 him to repair to England, and to obtain a charter of incorporation. He was entirely successful in his object. His publications on the Indian manners and language attracted deserved admiration. He attacked the principle of re- ligious despotism in his tract entitled " Bloody Tenet of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience," afterwards replied to by Cotton. Vane, who, though he had befriended the Massachusetts council, was opposed to a system of exclusiveness under which he had himself been stigmatized, strongly sym- pathized with Williams, and through his influence the benevolent founder of Ehode Island returned to America with the desired charter. As he ap- proached the spot where in his flight from persecution he had laid the first foundations of a refuge for the oppressed, the river was covered with a fleet of canoes, the whole population poured forth to meet their benefactor, " ele- vated and transported out of himself" by the success of his efforts, and the grateful acclamations of his fellow-citizens. A commission for governing the islands, granted to one Coddrington, by the council of state in England, which threatened to interfere with the patent, occasioned a second voyage, to obtain the powerful intercession of Vane, who obtained the withdrawal of the obno:ivious instrument, and the confirmation of the charter of Rhode Island. It was not until after some further troubles, however, that the government of that State was firmly and peacefully established. Dissensions arose among its citizens, while Massachusetts and Plymouth asserted their claims to differ- ent portions of the territory, and even meditated the annulling of their charter. The affairs of the last few years, and especially the recent agitation of Child and Vassall, had threatened the dissolution of the Massachusetts theocracy. Assailed on all sides by sectarian innovation, menaced by parlia- mentary interference, they had successfully weathered the storm ; but there were only two courses now open to them, either the relaxation of the bonds imposed by their rule, or their increased stringency. Before the recent agi- tation they had contemplated the former alternative — the oijposite course was now resolved upon. As even among their own body there were not a few im- bued with Antinomian or Anabaptist tendencies, it was determined to leave to them no latitude for schism, but to define the rule of faith, to draw up a formal standard of confession, and to subject the churches, hitherto more than half in- dependent, to the superintendence of a self-constituted majority, whose dictum should be without appeal. This scheme was not carried out without some oppo- sition. Boston at first refused to choose delegates. At length however, after much discussion, and " a clear discovery and refutation of such errors, objec- tions, and scruples, as had been raised about it by some young heads," a confes- sion of faith was agreed upon, conforming in all doctrinal points to the Cal- vinistic articles of the Westminster Assembly of Divines. This standard of orthodoxy resolved upon, it was decided, to insure unity of sentiment and action, that no deputy should be sent to the general court who did not subscribe it. The first shoots of heterodoxy were vigilantly watched for and extirpated, and recusant ministers were compelled to be silent or to resign their seats. Latitudinarianism, even more than heterodoxy, exposed its professors to the o 2 Lorc 100 INTOLERANCE OF THE PURITANS OF BOSTON. [1656. severest penalties, and any who should venture openly to deny that the Bible was the word of God, were punishable not only with fine, flogging, imprison- ment, or banishment, but even with death. The Koman Catholics had de- manded obedience to the traditions of the Church and asserted its authority, as the sole expounder of that Bible which it withheld from the people. Repudi- ating these claims, the different sects of the Reformers made the Bible itself their ride of faith, but each party claimed the right to decide upon its meaning, while it aimed at imposing its own convictions as the rule for others. Thus the right of private judgment was in truth as much derided by the Puritans of New England, as by their Romanist or Anglican persecutors. " New presbyter was but old priest writ large." They came over to establish a distinctive polity, which they believed to be founded on the word of God, and they would have deemed it a base derelic- tion of duty and principle to open the door to sectarians of every shade. This is well seen in the epitaph of the stern old Dudley, the governor : — " Let men of God in courts and churches watch O'er such as do a toleration hatch, Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice To poison all with heresy and vice ; If men be left, and otherwise combine. My epitaph's, I died no libertine." It was precisely when they were congratulating themselves on the vigour and firmness of their administration, and their victory over heresy and schism, that they were exposed to the most formidable irruption which they had yet experienced, called upon to carry out their inexorable principles to their ultimate consequences, and, in defiance of their humaner feelings, to inflict the last punishment of their harsh and mistaken code upon the fanatic enthusiasts who rushed upon and gloried in their fate. . This last onslaught was that of the Quakers, a body which had recently sprung up in England, the latest and the most remarkable form which sec- tarian development had yet assumed. The tenets and practices of its adherents overstepped the nice and perilous line of demarcation that separate the sublime from the ridiculous. As its fundamental principle was that of an inward reve- lation of God to man, an indwelling of the Divine Spirit in the human soul, and as by this unerring voice, and not by the creeds and formularies of man, were the Holy Scriptures to be interpreted to every individual believer, the interference of the magistrate with the consciences of men was expressly denounced as antichristian and intolerable. While Cromwell had declared that "he that prays best, and preaches best, will fight best," a doctrine religiously carried out in Massachusetts, the Quakers denied the lawfulness even of defensive warfare, and refused to bear arms when commanded by the civil magistrate. Their " yea was yea, and their nay was nay," and believing that "whatsoever was more than this cometh of evil," they insisted upon observing the letter of Scripture, which commands the believer to " swear not 1G56.] OPINIONS AND MANNERS OF THE QUAKERS. 101 at all/' and refused to take oaths when required by human authority. Titles they abhorred as opposite to the simplicity of the faith, which commands us to " call no man master " — declined even to take off their hats before the ma- gistrate, and thee'd and friended alike a Cromwell or a Charles II. Believ- ing that every man and woman was at liberty to preach as moved by the Spirit alone, they rejected either printed formularies, or established modes of worship, as cramping the free spirit of devotion, and regarded a settled and salaried priesthood as false prophets and as hireling wolves, against whom it was their duty to bear testimony. In the renunciation of the world and all its vanities, they outran even the most rigid Puritans ; they abhorred even the most innocent pleasures — they adopted a peculiar dress, divested of every trace of shapeliness and adornment — compassed their words and manners with ridi- culous formality ; their hair was lank, their visage sunken, and their eyes turned upwards, as if in invocation of spiritual succour. But they were above all dis- tinguished by the uncompromising boldness of their denunciations against the tyranny of rulers in high places, whether temporal or spiritual. Filled, as they believed, with the Divine afflatus, they feared not the face of man ; and if they refused the common titles of respect to established authority, upon those that withstood them they poured forth a complete vocabulary of abuse. Their adversaries were " dogs, lizards, scorpions, tinkers, firebrands, and Ju- dases." Nothing could surpass their zeal for the propagation of their tenets. " The apostles of the Nev/ Light, ploughmen and milkmaids," says Bancroft, " becoming itinerant preachers, sounded the alarm through the world, and ap- pealed to the consciences of Puritans and Cavaliers, of the Pope and the Grand Turk, of the negro and the savage. Their apostles made their way to Rome and Jerusalem, to New England and Egypt, and some were even moved to go to- wards China and Japan, and in search of the unknown realms of Prester John." Boston had already obtained in England the reputation of being the head- quarters of intolerance, and thither, of course, some of the more zealous were not long in finding their way. Their evil report had preceded them, and they are" described as " a cursed set of heretics lately risen in the world." Their principles, which struck at the very root of the theocracy, and the fierce en- thusiasm with which they propagated them, were far more to be dreaded than the errors of Antinomians or Anabaptists. The first that came over in July, 1656, were two women, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin. Popular superstition invested them with Satanic attributes, and their persons were examined for the marks of witchcraft. They were shortly afterwards imprisoned and sent away, on which Mary Fisher repaired to Constantinople, where the Turks, who venerate the insane as being under the especial protection of God, listened with respect to her unintelligible ravings. Heavy fines were now enacted against any who should introduce Quakers into the colony, or circulate the tracts in which they disseminated their opinions. Those who defended the opinions of the sectaries or gave them harbour were severely fined, and, on persisting, banished. Whipping was the mildest punishment awarded to a Quaker, and this disciphne was inflicted 102 EXECUTION OF R 0BIN80N AND STEPHENSON. [1659. upon males and females indiscriminately. On the first conviction they were to lose one ear^ on a second the other one, and, although the law proscribed tor- ture, on the third were to have their tongues bored through with a hot iron — extreme penalties, which were indeed rather intended to frighten away those who persisted in returning over again, in the face of the severest prohibitions. But their zeal amounted almost to insanity; they insulted and defied the magistrates — disturbed the public worship with contemj)tuous clamour — nay, instances afterwards occurred in which women, to testify after prophetic fashion against the spiritual nakedness of the land, and regarding the violence thus done to their natural modesty as '* a cross " which it behoved them to bear, displayed themselves without a particle of clothing in the public streets. The obstinacy of the Quakers was not to be repressed by any ordinary se- verities. Many of them had repaired to Rhode Island, where the free toleration aiforded to all sects indiscriminately, allowed them to propagate their tenets undisturbed. These, however, few appeared inclined to embrace, and above all — they were not persecuted. Their zeal was of that sort that loves to be sharpened by opposition, and rushes upon martyrdom with intense delight. To Boston therefore they were attracted, like the moth to the candle, by a sort of fatal fascination. It was war to the knife between ecclesiastical bigotry and insane fanaticism. The Puritans, to do them justice, sought to decline the conflict, but it was forced upon them. They did not desire to injure the Quakers, but they were determined to maintain their principles. Hitherto all had been in vain, fines, whippings, and imprisonments, and now, by a decree of the council, as a last resource, though not without the strenuous resistance of a portion of the deputies, banishment was enforced on pain of death. But that indomitable sect gloried in the opportunity of suffering martyrdom. Robinson, Stephenson, and Mary Dyer, persisting in braving the penalty denounced against them, were tried and condemned. The governor, '\Vin- throp, earnestly sought to prevent their execution, and Colonel Temple offered to carry them away, and, if they returned, fetch them off a second time. There was a struggle among the council, many regarding them as mere lunatics, against whom it would be as foolish as cruel to proceed to extremities ; but the majority prevailed, and Stephenson and Robinson were brought to the scaffold. " I die for Christ," said Robinson. " We suffer not as evil-doers, but for conscience' sake," said Stephenson. Mary Dyer, with the rope round her r.eck, after witnessing the execution of her two companions, exclaimed, " Let me suffer as my brethren, unless you will annul your wicked law." At the intercession of her son, she was almost forced from the scaffold, on con- dition of leaving the colony in eight and forty hours, but the spirit of the wretched woman was excited almost to insanity by inward enthusiasm and the iiorrible scenes she had witnessed, and after the trial she addressed from her prison an energetic remonstrance against the cruelty of the council. •' Woe is me for you ! ye are disobedient and deceived," she urged to the magistrates who had condemned her. " You ■will not repent that you were kept from shedding blood, though it was by a woman." With a coui'age that 1659.] MARY DYER EXECUTED ON BOSTON COMMON 103 would bs sublime were it not tinctured with insanity, forced by an irresistible impulse, she returned to defy the tyrants of " the bloody town," and to seal her testimony against them with her life. She was taken and hanged upon Boston Common. These fearful scenes excited a growing spirit of discontent. Disgust at the folly and frenzy of these enthusiasts was forgotten in the commiseration excited by their sufferings. The magistrates, before the last execution, had been com- pelled to put forth a formal apology for their proceedings. " Although," they urge, " the justice of our proceedings against William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, and Mary Dyer, supported by the authority of this court, the laws of the country, and the law of God, may rather persuade us to expect encourage- ment and commendation from all prudent and pious men than convince us of any necessity to apologize for the same ; yet, forasmuch as men of Aveaker parts, out of pity and commiseration, (a commendable and Christian virtue, yet easily abused, and susceptible of sinister and dangerous impressions,) for want of full information, may be less satisfied, and men of perverser principles may take occasion hereby to calumniate us and render us bloody persecutors, — to satisfy the one and stop the mouths of the otlier, we thought it requisite to declare. That, about three years since, divers persons, professing themselves Quakers, (of whose pernicious opinions and practices we had received intelli- gence from good hands, both from Barbadoes and England,) arrived at Bos- ton, whose persons were only secured to be sent away by the first opportunity, without censure or punishment. Although their professed tenets, turbulent and contemptuous behaviour to authority, would have justified a severer animadversion, yet the prudence of this court was exercised only to make provision to secure the peace and order here established against their attempts, whose design (we were well assured of by our own experience, as well as by the example of their predecessors in Munster) was to undermine and ruin the same. And accordingly, a law was made and published, prohibiting all masters of ships to bring any Quakers into this jurisdiction, and themselves from coming in, on penalty of the house of correction until they should be sent away. Notwithstanding which, by a back door, they found entrance, and the penalty inflicted upon themselves, proving insufficient to restrain their impudent and insolent intrusions, was increased by the loss of the ears of those that offended the second time ; which also being too weak a defence against their impetuous fanatic fury, necessitated us to endeavour our se- curity; and upon serious consideration, after the former experiment, by their incessant assaults, a law was made, that such persons should be banished on pain of death, according to the example of England in their provision against Jesuits, which sentence being regularly pronounced at the last court of assist- ants against the parties above-named, and they either returning or continuing presumptuously in this jurisdiction after the time limited, were apprehended, and owning themselves to be the persons banished, were sentenced by the court to death, according to the law aforesaid, which hath been executed upon two of them. Mary Dyer, upon the petition of her son, and the mercy and 104 CHRISTISOWS DEFIANCE OF THE JUDGES. [1659. clemency of this court, had liberty to depart within two days, which she hath accepted of. The consideration of our gradual proceedings will vindicate us from the clamorous accusations of severity ; our own just and necessary de- fence calling upon us (other means failing) to offer the point which these persons have violently and wilfully rushed upon, and thereby hecovae felones de se, which might have been prevented, and the sovereign law, salus populi, been preserved. Our former proceedings, as Avell as the sparing of Mary Dyer upon an inconsiderable intercession, will manifestly evince we desire their lives, absent, rather than their deaths, j)resent." But the magistrates having now dipped their hands in blood, and boldly maintained the justice of so doing, consistency required that they should persist in the same fatal course. William Leddra was put to trial and sentenced, but was offered pardon on condition of departing beyond the bounds of the colony. He re- fused, and was executed; but he was the last victim sacrificed. For the desperate expedient, which had brought so much odium upon the magistrates, was all in vain, and they were terrified, moreover, by the threat of an appeal to England. During the trial of Leddra, Wenlock Christison, who had also been banished, returned, entered the court, and being put on his defence, hurled defiance into the teeth of his judges. " By what law," he demanded, " will ye put me to death?" "We have alaw," it was answered, " and by it you are to die." " So said the Jews to Christ. But who empowered you to make that law?" "We have a patent, and we make our own laws." "Can you make laws repugnant to those of England?" "No." "Then you are gone be- yond your bounds. Your heart is as rotten towards the king as towards God. I demand to be tried by the laws of England, and there is no law there to hang Quakers." " The English banish Jesuits on pain of death ; and with equal justice we may banish Quakers." The jury returned a ver- dict of guilty. Wenlock replied, " I deny all guilt ; my conscience is clear before God." The magistrates were divided in pronouncing sentence ; the vote was put a second time, and there appeared a majority for the doom of death. " What do you gain," cried Christison, " by taking Quakers' lives ? For the last man that ye put to death, here are five come in his room. If ye have power to take my life, God can raise up ten of his servants in my stead." The people, too, gave unequivocal signs of sympathy with the sufierers. The scandal would go forth to all Christendom. The magistrates felt that they had gone too far, and we may reasonably believe that they were glad to re- trace their steps. Accordingly they discharged such Quakers as were in con- finement, and contented themselves with ordering all who returned to be whipjjed beyond the bounds of their jurisdiction, over and over again, until they desisted from their obstinate infatuation. Whilst a religious corporation were thus earnestly striving to maintain an exclusive orthodoxy, a design for the conversion of the Indians was originated by the benevolence of a single individual. John Elliot, the pastor of the church at Eoxbury near Boston, being animated with zeal for the temporal and 1GG5.] JOHN ELLIOT PREACHES TO THE INDIANS. 105 spiritual improvement of the savages, undertook the task of learning their language, into which he was at length enabled to translate the Bible. The objects of his labours were looked upon but coldly by the Puritans. "With their constant reference of every thing to the canons and circumstances of the Old Testament, they beheld in the Indians the counterpart of the idolatrous heathen, whose inheritance was to be given into the hands of the children of Israel, while, according to their harsh theological opinions, these children of un- regenerated nature were reprobate and accursed of God. They were also de- spised for their helplessness and ignorance, secretly hated, and feared, perhaps, as the original tenants of the soil, to which they might yet arise and assert their claim. Compassion however was, by many, largely mingled with this bitter and contemj)tuous estimate, since God might have chosen some of these despised ones, in the exercise of his inscrutable sovereignty, as coheirs of salvation with their superior brethren. This feeling was predominant in the mind of the bene- volent Elliot. He began his labours in 1645, among the tribes in the neigh- bourhood of Massachusetts Bay. His simplicity and kindness of heart won greatly upon the affections of the Indians, and their regard for the pastor was extended to the system which he propounded, even, perhaps, when it was but partially apprehended by them. When he assembled his Indian congre- gation, after getting one of the magistrates to offer up in English a prayer for Divine help, he would preach in a simple style to the Indians, encourage them to propose questions on what they had heard, and catechise the children, re- warding their diligence with presents of apple and cake. His tact was dis- played in simplifying to their obtuse apprehensions the knotty doctrines of the Westminster Assembly, until the children were at length able to answer, if they could not understand, all the questions it contained, in their own language. Although the Puritans, it is true, obtained far less influence over the minds of the Indians than the Roman Catholics, who sought for external conformity rather than inward conviction, who addressed the senses rather than the in- tellect; under the influence of the "Apostle of the Indians," the number of converts multiplied so rapidly as to excite attention, and Winslow, then in London, as political agent, formed a society in that country for the propa- gation of the Gospel amongst the Indians, which received a charter from the government, and appears to have been warmly supported by the pious in Eng- land. A considerable sum was remitted, churches were founded, and several native teachers received salaries, while other Puritan ministers, following the example of Elliot, also acquired the language of the Indians, and extended their labours on every side. Anxious to withdraw his converts from their un- settled mode of life, Elliot endeavoured to engage them in the pursuits of re- gular industry, and drew up for them a popular form of government. Good books were translated for their benefit, and a sort of Indian college estab- lished. No great or lasting impression was effected by these benevolent labours. The Indian Sachems and their priests looked with an evil eye upon the proceedings, and the habits of savage life were not to be easily eradicated. Between the pharisaic Puritan and the despised Indian there was also a great 106 CROMWELL'S COLONIAL POLICY. [1650-60. gulf, which the former would not, and the latter could not pass. But if the project was in the end all but abortive, this should not detract from the glory of the benevolent Elliot, who is worthy to take his i^lace by the side of Las Casas and of Schwartz, and especially of Oberlin and of Neff, M'ho sought to raise the objects of their laborious sympathy from the depths of temporal, as well as of spiritual destitution. " It is a remarkable feature," says Grahame, "in Elliot's long and arduous career, that the energy by which he was actuated never sustained the slightest abatement, but, on the contrary, evinced a steady and vigorous increase. As his bodily strength decayed, the energy of his being seemed to retreat into his soul, and at length, all his faculties (he said) seemed absorbed in holy love. Being asked, shortly before his de- parture, how he did, he replied, ' I have lost every thing ; my understanding leaves me, my memory fails me, my utterance fails me — but I thank God, my charity holds out still, I find that rather grows than fails.' " This admirable man died in 1690, full of years and honours. During the establishment of the commonwealth in England, the colony, untroubled by its interference, enjoyed a steady prosperity. The successes of CromAvell were regarded with enthusiasm, the prayers of the Puritans were offered up for him, and he received the warmest expressions of their regard. In return he took a deep interest in the well-being of their little state, to which, it is popularly believed, though not on adequate foundation, he had been at one time about to retire from persecution in England. With the vigour that characterized his foreign policy, the Protector had wrested Acadie from the French, and Jamaica from the Spaniards, and Winslow went out from Lon- don as one of the commissioners for the conquered '"ountries, but died soon after his arrival. Cromwell had already offered to the people of New Eng- land the lands confiscated in his recent war in Ireland ; he noAV desired that •a large body of them should settle in Jamaica, and plant the institutions and religion of England as a strong-hold in the midst of Catholics and Spaniards. Eew availed themselves of his proposal, the majority being too well satisfied with the blessings of their actual condition, to desire a removal to a more daz- zling but uncertain scene of enterprise. Whatsoever faults may be found with the exclusiveness and intolerance of the fathers of Massachusetts, it cannot be denied that under their administra- tion, firm even to sternness as it was, the colony had made far more rapid progress than any other in America. Industry was encouraged, nay, en- forced ; if any one would not work, neither could he eat ; mendicancy was a thing unknown, and thrift, self-denial, and enterprise soon distinguished the New Englander as much as his seriousness of deportment. The nature and climate of the country favoured the development of a hardy, self-re- Ijang character. Except in a few favoured spots, the soil was not rich, and required hard labour to subdue and render it productive. The fisheries off the coasts bred up a race of intrepid seamen, who were not long in extending the sphere of their enterprise to distant shores, the sea-ports grew rapidly, ship-building was soon extensively practised, and the Massachusetts mer- 1G50-G0.] THE CITY OF BOSTON IN 1660. 107 chantmcn visited Madeira and Spain. At first the inhabitants had been obliged to import corn for their sustenance, they now sent cargoes even to England. Almost all the trades had taken firm root in the land; saw-mills were established on the beautiful New England brooks, and a traffic in lumber and shoes, still characteristic staples, had been established. In 1639, the ma- nufacture of cloth was introduced, by a colony from Yorkshire, led by their pastor, Ezekiel Kogers ; and in 1643, iron-works were founded by a body of workmen brought over from England by the younger Winthrop. If we look to the progress of the towns, we find that the rude log-houses of the first settlers had been long replaced by a superior class of habitations. The beautiful villages with their frame-houses and verandahs, and groups of weeping elms, were even then admired. Boston, as the head-quarters of government and commerce, had in the course of twenty years surprisingly increased. Among a numerous body of other foreign vessels, the French, Por- tuguese, and Dutch were to be seen in its harbour. The base of the hilly peninsula on which it is built was of course the principal seat of traffic ; here thickly crowded buildings and wharves were " fairly set out with brick, tile, stone, and slate," and the continual enlargement of the " comely street, presaged some sumptuous city." " At the head of King Street," says a traveller of the period, " now State Street, was the old Town-house, built in 1660. It stood upon pillars, serving as an arcade for the merchants. The monthly courts were held in the .chambers above, and here the governor resided. The general style of the architecture, if we may judge from some houses near Faneuil Hall, bearing the date 1630, was the exact counterpart of that which formerly distinguished an English country town, with picturesque pointed gables, overhanging stories, huge chimneys, and projecting oriel windows. Some of the houses stood embowered in gardens and orchards." " South of the Town-house was," says John Josselyn, Gent., who visited the colonies in 1663, " a small but pleasant common." This was probably the scene of the execution of the Quakers, and here " the gallants, a little before sun-set, walk with their marmalet madams, as we do in Moorfields, till the nine o'clock hell rings them home to their respective habitations, when presently the constables walk the rounds to see good order kept, and to take up loose people." The regimen of the good fathers of the Commonwealth was indeed more than ordinarily severe. They had fled as much from the licence as from the persecu- tion of the Episcopalians, as much from " the Book of Sports " as from the prison or the pillory. On their emigration to New England, they had been above all things desirous to avoid the influx of " lewd fellows of the baser sort," before they could establish a model commonwealth, from which every in- dulgence that savoured of " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life " should be sedulously excluded. What Macaulay says of the Puritans in general, will apply, with little exception, to the founders of Mas- sachusetts. " Morals and manners were subjected to a code resembling that of the synagogue, when the synagogue was in its worst state. The dress, the deportment, the language, the studies, the amusements of the rigid sect were P 2 108 CUSTOMS OF THE PURITANS IN BOSTON. [1650-60. regulated on principles resembling those of the Pharisees, who, proud of their washed hands and broad phylacteries, taunted the Eedeemer as a sabbath- breaker and a wine-bibber. It was a sin to hang garlands on a Maypole, to fly a hawk, to hunt a stag, to play at chess, to drink afrieniVs health, to icear love-locks, (against which customs enactments were levied,) to put starch upon a ruff, to touch the virginals, to read the ' Fairy Queen.' The Puritan was at once known from other men by his gait, his garb, his lank hair, the sour solemnity of his face, the upturned white of his eyes, the nasal twang with which he spoke, and above all, by his peculiar dialect. He employed on every occasion the imagery and style of Scripture. Hebraisms violently in- troduced into the English language, and metaphors borrowed from the bold- est lyric poetry of a remote age and country, and applied to the common con- cerns of life, were the most striking peculiarities of this cant, which moved, not without cause, the derision both of prelatists and libertines." Such were the figures, and such was the phraseology which might have been seen and heard in Boston two centuries ago, in the meeting-house and the court of magistrates, in the public assembly and the private family, in the intercourse of business, or the labours of the field, on the deck of the mer- chantman, and in the ranks of the militia. But he must have been a bold man who should have ventured to smile at it. Beyond the pale of church member- ship there was indeed a " mixed multitude," who claimed and enjoyed a certain latitude. The attempt of the magistrates to introduce sumptuary regulations had been in vain, female vanity would break through the trammels imposed upon it ; " superfluous ribbons," and " strange new fashions," vexed the right- eous souls of the fathers of the theocracy, even * divers of the elders' wives," it seems, being " partners in this disorder." In spite, too, of all restric- tions, there were those, to quote the language of a traveller of the period, " who treated the fair sex with so much courtship and address, as if loving had been all their trade." But the Puritan legislators frowned upon every thing that tended to laxity of manners, they sternly watched over the morals of the community ; wisely considering prevention as better than cure, they coun- tenanced early unions ; and although courtship carried on without the per- mission of the girPs parents, or of " the next magistrate," was punishable with imprisonment, the magistrates might redress "wilful and unreasonable denial of timely marriage" on the part of parents. Adultery was a capital offence, and incontinence was punished with a severe discipline. Underbill, who, uniting, as he did, the gallantry of the soldier with his proverbial love of licence, and of " bravery of apparel," having been accused of a backsliding of this nature, was summoned into the presence of the magistrates; and then, " after sermon, in presence of the congregation, standing on a form, and in his worst clothes, without his band and in a dirty night cap, confessed the sin with which he had been charged ;" and " while his blubberings interrupted him," says "Winthrop, dolefully lamented the loss of his " assurance," which had been graciously vouchsafed while enjoying a pipe of tobacco. Such was the godly discipline under which succumbed even the martial spirits which 1650-60.] CUSTOMS OF THE PURITANS IN BOSTON. 109 had borne the brunt of many a desperate struggle against the fierce and wily aborigines. Failings like these, however, were by no means frequent among the pious " men of war " of Massachusetts. They believed " that he who ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city," and to the most fervid fanaticism they united the sternest self-control. The whole population were trained as militia, and formed twenty-six companies of foot and a regiment of horse, but the officers were all required to be " specially endued with faith." They were well armed and perfectly disciplined, and when " the Lord called them to war," a call they were always ready enough to obey, displayed the most enthusiastic courage. The forts, two in the town and suburbs, and one commanding the entrance of the harbour, were well supplied with artillery and carefully garrisoned. " The God of armies," exclaims the pious Johnson, " was over us for a refuge. Selah." The standard of comfort appears to have been unusually high. Those who had come over with nothing but their axe in their hand, were soon in posses- sion of comfortable dwellings and gardens, and many had saved considerable sums. " Good white and wheaten bread," says Johnson, " is no dainty, but every ordinary man hath his choice, if gay clothing and liquorish taste after sack, sugar, and plums lick not away his bread too fast. Flesh is now no rare food, beef, pork, and mutton being frequent in many houses; so that this poor wilderness hath not only equalized England in food, but goes beyond in some places :" an assertion fully borne out by Macaulay, who tells us that in England, at this period, fresh meat was not commonly in use even in the houses of the country squires, and unknown among the peasantry. In one particular, and one only, the Puritans seem to have been less rigid than their descendants. They had brought over from Old England the taste for beer, the want of which was often felt as a privation. But they were now getting accustomed to more generous liquors, the wines of Spain and Madeira were cheap and abundant, and were found wholesome in counter- acting the cold fogs and cutting winds of the climate. In the use of these " creature comforts " they were satisfied with observing " The rule of not too much, by temperance taught." The doctrine of " teetotalism " was unknown among them. The fathers of the New England commonwealth were sincerely anxious for the promotion of sound learning. Many of them had enjoyed a university education in England, and were men of considerable acquirements. Their literary taste was of course in accordance with their religious views. We find Josselyn carrying with him from England to " Mr. Cotton, the teacher of Boston Church," the same who defended the cause of Massachusetts intoler- ance against the attacks of Roger Williams, " the translation of several Psalms in English metre for his approbation, as a present from Mr. Francis Quarles, the poet." In Boston, now justly considered the Athens of America, and the seat of the most enlarged and liberal mental culture, the abode of poets, historians, philosophers, and painters, controversial divinity was at that time 110 ESTABLISHMENT OF FREE SCHO OLS IX MASS [1650-GO. the only literature cultivated. The Quakers had declared that " philosophy and logic are of the devil," while other sectarians gloried in their emancipation from the restraints of human learning. To check this presumptuous ignorance, from the ebullitions of which they had suffered so much, the council deter- mined on every where establishing free-schools and grammar-schools, from which some youths were to be sent to the university, where their minds would of course receive like wax the impress of that system of instruction most wisely provided for their reception. A college had been established for this species of training at Newtown, a suburb of Boston, which John Harvard, a worthy minister, who died shortly after his arrival, endowed with his library, and half his estate. It was now erected into a college bearing the name of its benefactor, and the village where it stood received the name of Cambridge, after that English university where many of the JNIassachusetts ministers had received their education. Other individuals also contributed large donations, and some assistance was received from the other colonies, to which were added the proceeds of the ferry between Boston and Charles- town. To Glover, another Nonconformist minister, who died on his passage from England, is due the credit of causing the introduction of the first printing press in the colony, if not in all America. He contributed largely him- self, and obtained the assistance of others in England and Holland. This press was first set up and worked at Cambridge by Stephen Day. The " Freemen's Oath," against which Eoger Williams protested, was its first production, the next an " Almanack for New England, by Mr. William Pierce, mariner," and the next a metrical version of the Psalms for the use of the New England congregations. CHAPTER IX. THE ABORIGINAL INDIANS. — THEIE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS, CTTSTOMS, MANNERS, ANTIQUITIES, AND LANGUAGES. Having now traced the gradual occupation of the whole coast of North America by the colonies of the white man, before whom the aborigines, hitherto subsisting almost undisturbed, were henceforth destined to melt so rapidly away ; it may be well to pause a while in the course of our narrative, and briefly survey their original condition, before we pursue any further the melancholy chronicle of their cruel sufferings, their fierce revenges, their bootless, although often heroic, struggles against an inevitable fate. The story 1660.] APPEARANCE OF THE INDIANS. Ill of the Indians is the poetiy of North America, and the lingerinc^ traces of their footsteps affect the traveller with a peculiar interest. There is some- thing moiu'nful in this fading away of a feeble race before one more powerful and gifted. Of the tribes that roamed at will over the forest-covered con- tinent, some are wholly extinct ; others are cast forth beyond the boundaries or subsist uneasily upon the outskirts of civilization, receding farther and far- ther into the wilderness from before the face of the white man, with the feeling of despondency so beautifully embodied by the poet — " They waste us — ay, like April snow In the warm noon, we shrink away ; And fast they follow, as we go Towards the setting day ; — Till they shall fill the land, and we Are driven into the western sea." In surveying the physical and mental organization of the tribes extending over such an immense expanse of country, its remarkable uniformity first at- tracts our notice. The skin of the North American Indians is of a reddish brown, slightly varying in shade, according to the locality ; the hair black, lank, and straight, with little or no beard ; the cheek-bones high, the jaw-bone prominent, and the forehead narrow and sloping. Their figure, untrammeled in every movement, is lithe, agile, and often graceful, but they are inferior in muscular strength to the European. Their intellectual faculties are also more limited, and their moral sensibilities less lively. They are characterized by an inflexibility of organization, which appears to be almost incapable of re- ceiving foreign ideas, or amalgamating with more civilized nations — a people, in short, that may be broken, but cannot be bent ; and this peculiar organiza- tion, together with the state of nature in which they were placed, determined the character of their domestic and social condition. The dwellings of the Indians were of the simplest and rudest character. On some pleasant spot by the banks of a river, or near a sweet spring, they raised their groups of wigwams, constructed of the bark of trees, and easily taken down and removed to another spot. The abodes of the chiefs were sometimes more spacious, and elaborately constructed, but of the same mate- rials. Their villages were sometimes surrounded by defensive palisades. Skins, taken in the chase, served them for repose. Though principally de- pendent upon the hunting and fishing, its uncertain supply had led them to cultivate around their dwellings some patches of Indian corn, but their exer- tions were desultory, and they were often exposed to the pinch of famine. Every family did every thing necessary within itself; and interchange of commodities was almost iinknown amonar them. The great characteristic of the savage is his unwillingness to submit to any curtailment of his freedom. Necessity and instinct dictated the institution of marriage, but its tie was but loosely held, and often capriciously broken. The condition of women was degraded and miserable , they were regarded as an inferior race. The pride of the savage, satisfied with his skill in the chase, nS OCCUPATIONS OF THE MEN AND WOMEN. [1G60. considered domestic drudgery as unworthy of him, and on the weaker sex the severe and continued toil of attending to all the necessities of the house- hold was exclusively devolved. The communities into which they were divided were very imperfectly or- ganized. Each savage conceded as little as possible of his personal liberty. There was no system of government, though common consent had con- secrated various usages as authoritative. The chiefs acquired and maintained their ascendency by superior valour, energy, and wisdom. They were, how- ever, sometimes hereditary, and the minor tribes were united into wider con- federacies under some general head. The life of the savage is necessarily filled up by long periods of listless in- dolence and mental vacuity, alternating with moments of wild and fierce ex- citement. War was the great passion, the only high and noble pursuit, the only avenue to distinction, in which the Indian found scope for the exercise of his faculties — for the most undaunted bravery, the keenest subtlety, and the most indefatigable perseverance. In small parties the warriors would follow upon the trail of an enemy for weeks through the tangled intricacies of the forest, hover about his village, pounce upon and scalp their victims, and effect their escape with these trophies of their skill and prowess to their own wigwams, where they were received with the distinction due to a successful "brave;" their feats were the theme of rude but impressive oratory, and, according to the number of similar achievements, was the meed of honour, and the consideration in which they were held. To inflict and to bear alike the severest torture, and to repress every ex- pression of emotion as unworthy of his dignity, was the point of honour in the Indian's code. " As monumental bronze unchanged his look, A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook ; Train'd from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier, The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear." The captive warrior, after being paraded in triumph, tied to the stake, and tortured for hours with all the refinements of cruelty, would defy the utmost efforts of his enemies to shake his invincible fortitude, taunt them with the success of his former exploits, and shout forth his triumphant death-song in the extremity of his agonies. Revenge, finely called by the philosopher, " a sort of wild justice," was religion to the savage, and, until full atonement had been made for the blood of his kindred, he deemed that a solemn duty re- mained yet unfulfilled. The intervals of his more exciting pursuits the Indian filled up in the de- coration of his person with all the refinements of paint and feathers, with the manufacture of his arms — the club, and the bow and arrows, and of canoes of bark, so light, that they could easily be carried on the shoulder from stream to stream. His amusements were the war-dance and song, and athletic games, the narration of his exploits, and the listening to the oratory of the IGGO.] THE RELIGION OF THE INDIANS. 113 chiefs. Bat, during long periods of his existence, he remained in a state of torpor, gazing listlessly upon the dim arcades of the forests, and the clouds that sailed over the tree-tops far above his head ; and this vacancy imprinted an habitual gravity and even melancholy upon his aspect and de- meanour. The undeveloped faculties of the savage, ignorant of the relations of things, cannot form the idea of a regular system of causation by one supreme and benevolent power ; but what reason is unable to demonstrate, is vaguely di- vined by instinct. The dread of evils to which his condition exposes him, the awe produced by the more striking phenomena of the elements, first rouse his attention towards the invisible powers of nature. Fear is his earliest re- ligion, and its rites, often cruel and bloody, are intended to propitiate the be- ings who can control his fate. But as he continues to ponder upon the phe- nomena that surround him, and the mysterious movements of his own mind, he forms some dim conception of a power which is seen not only in the whirl- wind and the earthquake, but stirs in the rustling leaf and the flowing stream, in the living creatures which people the shades of the forest, and in the passions and emotions of his own breast. This is their Great Spirit, or Manitou ; and believing that every thing and every place was thus pervaded, and rendered sacred, the Indians treated the bones of the animals slain by them with a certain reverence, and made offerings to the presiding genius of particular places. They believed that every man had his guardian spirit. They sought for amulets and charms, as a security against the displeasure of the unseen being. They put faith in the mysterious teachings of dreams, and in the supernatural powers of the Medicine Man — half enthusiast and half impostor, the occasional suc- cess of whose incantations and contrivances^ with some rude knowledge of healing, enabled him to obtain a powerful ascendency over their credulous and superstitious minds. The belief in immortality was distinct and consoling to the Indian. His paradise was coloured by his favo^^rite pursuits on earth. He believed that the spirit of the dejiarted warrior was to roam through a delightful country abounding in plenty of game, and to amuse himself with the exercise of the chase ; and as they were to begin their career anew, their weapons and gar- ments were buried with them, with food to sustain them on the long journey into the distant land. The mother woidd envelojje her dead infant in its gayest clothing, and lay its playthings by its side, that it might resume its amusements in that far region, its flight to which she followed with her tears ; and sometimes, on the decease of a distinguished Sachem, some of his de- pendants would embrace a voluntary death, in order to bear him company, and to render him accustomed homage in the world of spirits. The antiquities of the Indian tribes have acquired, within the last half cen- tury, an immense and increasing interest. The earlier historians of the con- tinent were ignorant or incredulous as to the existence of any such mementos of the past, although the chroniclers who followed in the wake of Cortez and other conquerors, had described them in the most glowing terms. At length. 114 MAGNIFICENCE OF THEIR BUILDINGS. [1660. by the researches of Humboldt and other travellers in Mexico and Peru, especially of Stephens and Catherwood in Central America, it has been found, that those portions of the continent abound in the most magni- ficent remains. Immense pyramidal mounds crowned with gorgeous pa- laces, or sacrificial altars adorned with elaborate sculptures, tablets covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions, as yet undecipherable, generally rude, but sometimes elegant in idea and execution ; sculptures, and i^aintings, and ornaments, — are met with in increasing numbers among the depths of the tropical forests, the gorgeous vegetation of which invests them, as it were, with a funereal shroud, and embraces them in the death-grasp of final ob- literation. It is fortunate, that some records of these precious memorials are preserved to us by recent explorers. They attest the former existence of a race which had attained a fixed state of civilization, a considerable knowledge of the arts and sciences, with a religious system, of which terror appears to have been the great principle, human sacrifices forming its con- spicuous feature ; a state of things indeed in all respects identical with the condition of Mexico at the period of its invasion by Cortez, when some of the temples were doubtless destroyed, while others of more ancient date pro- bably were at that period already fallen into ruin. In North America, during the period of its first settlement, which was confined almost exclusively to the seaboard, no discoveries whatever were made ; but as the stream of emigra- tion, crossing the ridges of the AHeghanies, poured down upon the Missis- sippi and the Ohio, and the dense forests and boundless prairies of the west were gradually opened and explored, another and very interesting class of an- tiquities began to be disinterred from the oblivion of centuries. It was but slowly, indeed, as the forest fell beneath the axe of the back-woodman, that they came to light ; they were for a long time but partially uncovered, or so imperfectly explored, that, even until a very recent period, they were re- garded by many as being only peculiarities of geological formation, which credulous imagination had converted into fortresses, and temples, and sepul- chres. The recent researches of Squier and Davis, accompanied as they are by elaborate surveys and drawings, have left no further roe/m for scepticism, and have established, beyond dispute, the interesting fact, that the interior of the North American continent, as well as the southern, was once in- habited by an immense and settled population, who have left behind them almost innumerable memorials of their occupation. These remains extend almost continuously over the whole interior, from the great lakes on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and from the sources of the Alleghany in western New York, far above a thousand miles up the Missouri, and into Michigan, "Wisconsin, and Iowa. They are found in far greater numbers in the western than in the eastern portion of this immense district. They may be traced too along the seaboard from Texas to Florida, but are not met with any further along the north-eastern coast. They are generally planted in the rich valleys of the western rivers, or elevated above them on commanding natural terraces. In the neighbourhood of the upper 16G0. ] R UIN8 OF RE MA RKABLE EA R TH- WORKS. 115 Lakes they assume the singular form of gigantic rilievos of earthen walls, often covering several acres, tracing out upon the soil outlines of the figures of men, birds, beasts, and reptiles. Southward of these appear, on the banks of the Ohio and its tributaries, mounds and truncated terraces of immense extent, sustaining earthen enclosures and embankments extending for entire miles. Of these extraordinary earth- works many were evidently fortifications, exhibiting no small constructive skill, defended by numerous bastions, having covered ways, horn works, concentric walls, and lofty mounds intended as observatories, and numerous gateways giving access to the im- mense line of fortified enclosure, with graded-roadways to ascend from terrace to terrace. Of these defences there appears to have been a chain, extend- ing from the head of the Alleghany diagonally across central Ohio to the river Wabash. Not all, however, of these earth-works were intended as fortresses ; many are evidently designed for religious purposes. One of the most extraordinary of these is called the Great Serpent, on a projecting tongue of high land in Adams County, Ohio. The head of the reptile points toward the extremity, his form is traced out with all its convolutions, and its jaws are open as it were to swallow a large egg-shaped enclosure occupying the extreme point of the promontory. .Its entire length, if stretched out, would be a thousand feet. The serpent and globe was a symbol in Egypt, Greece, Assyria, and Mexico ; and those familiar with English antiquities will no doubt remember a similar and still more gigantic instance of a serpent, sacred enclosure, and mound on the downs of Avebury in "Wiltshire. Of the earth-works some are square, some perfectly circular, others of intricate and curious outline, while many appear to have something symbolical in their arrangements. It is necessary also to correct a popular mistake with regard to their materials, which, it has been affirmed, consist exclusively of earth, whereas both stone and unbaked brick have occasionally been made use of. The mounds scattered over the ■western valleys and prairies are almost innumerable, and of infinitely various dimensions, one of the largest covering six acres of ground. These also ap- pear to have been appropriated to different purposes, some to sustain sacri- ficial altars or temples, others intended for sepulchres, containing skele- tons, with pottery and charcoal for consuming the bodies. A remarkable instance of the latter class is the great mound at Grave Creek, which was penetrated by a perpendicular shaft opening into two sepulchral chambers, containing several skeletons with pottery and other articles. Within these enclosures and mounds have been discovered numerous stone sculptures of the heads of men, or of human figures in crouching attitudes ; of the beaver, the wild cat, and the toad; of the swallow and other birds; of the heron strikiftg a fish, the last very beautifully executed ; and of the sea cow, an. animal peculiar to the tropical regions. Ornamented tablets have also been dug up, and in some places sculptures of men, eagles, and elks can be traced on the face of the rocks, with rude attempts to represent hunting scenes. There have also been found instruments of silver and copper, axes, drills, Q 2 116 LANGUAGES OF THE DIFFERENT TRIBES. [16G0. and spear heads, stone discs, and instruments for games, with beads, shells, ornaments, and pipes, as well as decorated pottery. Respecting the whole of these monuments it may be remarked, that they are evidently far ruder than those in Mexico and Central America, to which as they approach in locality they appear to approximate in their character and arrangements ; and it is thus an interesting question whether we are to regard them as the original and more ancient works of a race who afterwards reached a higher degree of civilization farther to the south, or whether, on the con- trary, they present to us traces of a migration from the south towards the north. " It is not impossible," observes Squiers, " that the agriculture and civiliza- tion of Mexico, Central America, and Peru, may have originated on the banks of the Mississippi." Whatever may be the result of further researches, one thing is abundantly evident, that the great valley of that river and of its tri butaries was once occupied by a population who had advanced from the migratory state of hunting to the fixed condition of cultivators of the soil, that the j)opulation who raised these great defensive and sacred structures must have been dense and widely spread, in order to execute works for which prolonged and combined effort were so obviously necessary, and that their -customs, laws, and religion must have assumed a fixed and definite shape. The languages of the North American Indians, like their physical character- istics, are generally uniform, and may be reduced to a few general heads. The Algonquin was the most widely diffused throughout the northern portion of the States, and was that spoken by the Pokanokets, Narragansetts, and Pequods, by the tribes of Lenni Lenape on the Delaware, and those in Vir- ginia and on the Ohio. The Wyandot was the language of the Hurons, who dwelt in the vicinity of the Great Lakes, and of the Iroquois, who occujoied the southern borders of the St. Lawrence, and the interior of the State of New York, where they have left behind them the names of their several confeder- acies, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas — powerful tribes, who having subjugated and extirpated many others, were destined to act a more conspicuous part in the intercolonial struggles than any other body of Indians, and to figure as the chief allies of the English. Advancing to the southward, Ave find that the Tu.scaroras in North Carolina, the Cherokees, occupying the southern district of the romantic Alleghanies, spoke a sejjarate language, as did also the Natchez, and the Uchees on the Lower Mississippi ; while the dialects of the rest of the tribes on this part of the great river and its borders, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, the Appalachees, and the Yamassees, are grouped under the general title of the Mobilian. Other tribes formed a link between the country east of the Mississippi, and the great West, where the prevailing language is that of the powerful Sioux or Dahcotas. We shall not attempt to discuss at any length the mysterious question of the first peopling of America — whether this immense chain of antiquities, ex- tending, with few interruptions, from the northern to the southern extremity 1G60.] POSSIBLE DESCENT OF THE RED RACE. 117 of the vast continent^ were the works of a race who came from afar, or who grew lip ujDon the soil itself. Endless have been the theories on this question, the final solution of which must await the progress of ethnological science. Some have imagined that the existence of pyramids denoted an oriental origin, and that they could trace upon the monuments of Copan and Palenque indubita- ble marks of a Tyrian migration ; while others, finding certain remarkable analogies between the customs of the Red Race and those of the Jews, have sup- posed that the former people must be derived from the latter. It is indeed well observed by Bradford, that "the character of American civilization is not Avholly indigenous ; that its mutual diversities are no more than might naturally arise when nations of the same stock are separated, while its uniformities are great and striking, and exhibit, in common, an astonishing resemblance to many of the features of the most ancient types of civilization in the eastern hemisj)here. The monuments of these nations were temples and palaces; their temples were pyramids ; their traditions were interwoven with cosmogonical fables which still retained relics of primitive history ; and their religion was sub- lime and just in many of its original doctrines, though debased in their super- stitious abuse and corruption. In all this there is nothing modern, nothing recent ; these features are not strictly Hindoo, Egyptian, or Chinese, thouo-h they approximate the aboriginal civilization to that of each of these nations. The origin of this resemblance is to be traced back to the earliest ages, when these great nations first separated, and carried into Egypt, Hindoostan, China, and America, the same religion, arts, customs, and institutions, to be variously modified under the influence of diverse causes. The great diversity of Ame- rican languages, the few analogies they present to those of the old world ; the absence of the use of iron ; certain peculiarities in their astronomical systems ; and some of their own traditions, which have preserved the memory of the great events of ancient sacred history, and attribute the colonization of the continent to one of those tribes who were present at the dispersion of man- kind ; all tend to support this position. The Red Race, then, appears to be a frimitive branch of the human family ; to have existed in many portions of the globe, distinguished for early civilization ; and to have penetrated at a very ancient period into America. The American family does not appear to be derived from any nation now existing ; but it is assimilated by numerous analogies to the Etrurians, Egyptiaris, Mongols, Chinese, and Hindoos ; it is most closely related to the Malays and Polynesians ; and the conjecture pos- sessing perhaps the highest degree of probability, is that Avhich maintains its origin from Asia, through the Indian Archipelago." This theory, perhaps most generally received, is certainly not without weight ; but on the other hand, it may be argued with equal truth that the rude efibrts of all uncivilized nations must greatly resemble each other, that the same ideas spring up spon- taneously in the minds of men under the same circumstances and in the same stage of development ; and thus that no safe conclusion can be deduced from correspondences, which, however remarkable, may, after all, turn out to be entirely fortuitous. 118 CL08E RESEMBLANCE OF DIFFERENT TRIBES. [1660. The evidence which has been adduced, that a higher state of civilization once existed in North America, naturally suggests the inquiry, whether we are to regard the Indians found on that continent by the Europeans, as de- scended from more cultivated ancestors, like those of Mexico and Central America from the builders of the pyramids and temples of Cholula and Pa- lenque. " The important question has not been solved," observes W. Van Humboldt, " whether that savage state, which even in America is found in va- rious gradations, is to be looked upon as the dawning of a society about to rise, or whether it is not the fading remains of one sinking amidst storms, overthrown and shattered by overwhelming catastrophes. To me the latter supposition appears nearer the truth than the former." The physical simi- larity of the tribes spread over the whole continent from north to south, the resemblances that may be traced in their religion, manners, customs, and monuments, certainly favour the conclusion, that they are but different branches of one great family, whose civilization, though not uninfluenced from abroad, is yet principally aboriginal, and who, having attained a cer- tain stage of development, have, from various disturbing causes, retrograded into the condition in which we find them at the present day. Tradition, however, also dimly points to struggles and revolutions among them, and ruder tribes from the hyperborean regions may, as it records, have pressed down upon those settled in the more fertile valleys of the south, and forced them to take refuge in Mexico, and thus the present North American Indians may be descended from nomad hordes, who, like the Goths and Vandals in Europe, succeeded, by brute strength and overwhelming numbers, in extir- pating the less hardy, but more gifted races, to whose skill and labour we are indebted for these relics of a lost civilization. CHAPTER X. PROGRESS OF NEW NETHERLANDS. — DISSOLUTION OF NEW SWEDEN. — DIFFICULTIES WITH CON NECTICUT. — CAPTURE OP NEW YORK BY THE ENGLISH. — RECAPTURE BY THE DUTCH, AND FINAL CESSION TO ENGLAND. After the death of Kieft, generally detested for his cruelty and caprice, the West India Company of Amsterdam appointed as his successor Peter Stuyvesant, governor of Cura9oa, who, disabled from a wound received at the siege of St. Martin's, had returned to the United Provinces. He was a ge- nuine soldier, somewhat high and arbitrary, and determined to maintain the supremacy of the Company against the encroachments of " the rabble ; " yet brave without any tincture of cruelty, and open, honest, and downright in i 1 1650-54.] STUYVESANT MADE GOVERNOR. 119 his dealings, both with the colonists and their adversaries. To his firmness and capacity the Company trusted for the settlement of the long-pending dis- putes with the people of New England, and for the repression of the rival emigrants from Sweden. The boundary question with Connecticut, the dis- covery of the river by the Dutch, their erection of the Fort of Good Hope, the encroachments of the New Englanders, and the disputes that had arisen in consequence, have been already described ; and these had now increased to such a pitch that it was feared lest the New Englanders, ten times as numerous as the Dutch settlers, might adopt a summary method of terminating the controversy. Soon after his arrival Stuyvesant was welcomed by a compli- mentary letter from the council of the United Colonies, but accompanied with a formidable enumeration of grievances, upon which he repaired to the fort of Good Hope in order to have a personal conference with the New England commissioners. The dispute was referred to arbitration, the issue proving entirely favourable to the people of Connecticut, who acquired the half of Long Island, and all the country running back from the Sound, to a line drawn parallel with, and only ten miles distant from, the Hudson. The Dutch were however to retain their trading fort of Good Hope. Fresh troubles were occasioned by the attempts of some settlers from New- Haven to establish a colony on the Delaware. To this, which he deemed an unjustifiable encroachment, Stuyvesant was determined not to submit — he de- tained the vessel, which had touched at Manhattan, and proceeded to occupy the ground by the erection of Fort Casimir, measures wliich with the break- ing out of the war between Cromwell and the Dutch, had nearly led to an enterprise from Massachusetts for the conquest of New Netherlands. A. fugitive Indian had endeavoured to provoke hostilities by a false statement of a pretended conspiracy between the Dutch and the neighbouring tribes, to cut ofi" the exposed settlers of Connecticut — a story in itself sufficiently im- probable, and of which Stuyvesant sent an indignant denial to the council of Massachusetts. Although the commissioners for the United Colonies had decided that there was no sufficient ground for war, the people of Con- necticut and New Haven, having solicited and obtained some assistance from Cromwell, t'esolved to proceed to hostilities on their own account ; but being delayed a^^ hile through the good offices of Roger Williams, the declaration of peace between the English and Dutch, which Avas made shortly afterwards, compelled them to break up the expedition. Opposed to a far superior force, Stuyvesant, though little disposed for sub- mission, felt that negociation was the only course he could venture to pursue with the New Englanders. But if the latter were far more numerous than the Dutch, the Dutch were, in their turn, far more numerous than the Swedes. With these intruders therefore Stuyvesant was prepared to deal in a manner more conformable with his soldier-like temper, and the imprudence of his ad- versaries soon afforded him a welcome opportunity. Jealous of the vicinity of Fort Casimir to their principal settlement of Christiana, Risings, the Swedish governor, partly by force and partly by stratagem, contrived to obtain posses- 120 THE CITY OF NEW AMSTERDAM. [1054-60. sion of the Dutch stronghokl. In revenge for this outrage, Stuyvesant received the welcome order, twice renewed, to effect the reduction of the Swedish colonists. Gathering together a body of six hundred men, he proceeded to execute his commission ; the scattered settlers, after a brief resistance, were compelled to take the oath of allegiance to the Slates-General, being at the same time guaranteed the possession of their lands and property : and thus, after maintaining its footing for about seventeen years, came to an end the little colony of New Sweden, the members of which, always a mere handful, soon became incorporated with those who had conquered them. During the absence of the governor, the Indians had made an abortive attempt to sur- prise New Amsterdam. They mustered in sixty-four canoes, ravaged the unjjrotected neighbourhood, and created considerable alarm in the little town, but dispersed to their forests as soon as the Dutch soldiery appeared in sight. It is worthy of remark, that the chief cities and settlements of America re- tain to this day evident traces of the people by whom they were planted, and of the circumstances under which they grew up. New England, peopled exclusively by Puritans, is still remarkable for the deep moral sense and serious deportment of its citizens ; Virginia, founded by courtiers and ca- valiers, for the more open manners, the imjoulsive generosity, and fiery temper of its planters ; while New York was from the first a cosmopolitan city, the resort of strangers of every faith and from every clime — a commercial rendezvous for merchants ; and by these characteristics it is still peculiarly distinguished. Hither had repaired some of those AValdenses, who, expelled from their valleys in Piedmont by the cruelty of the Sardinian king, had first found a refuge in Holland and Germany, together with persecuted Protest- ants from France and different countries of Europe, Puritans and other sec- taries from New England, Jews, refugees, and distressed persons of every shade of belief, who were alike sheltered by the wise policy of the West India Company, and allowed the free exercise of their respective modes of worship. A considerable number of negro slaves were also imported by the special in- structions of the Company. Thus mixed were the elements of the future state, and free the toleration in religious matters. From the exercise of popular rights, the people were, however, zealously excluded by the policy of the Company. A body of settlers of such various origin, most of whom had lived contentedly under monarchical or aristocratical institutions, were not at first animated by the same restless desire for self-government which characterized emigrants of the purely English blood. But this spirit was not long in breaking forth, partly from that natural impulse which stirs in the breasts of those who have subdued the wilderness, and partly also from the contagious influence of the neigh- bouring states of New England. Unlike that colony. New Netherlands had not been founded by the voluntary compact of freemen, but Avas a commercial plantation made by a privileged company, and managed by them exclusively for their own interests. The power delegated by them to the governor was bestowed for this purpose, and exercised in this spirit. The settlers might 1660-64] INVASION OF THE NEW ENGLANDER8. 121 complain of, but they could not control, the arbitrary measures of Stuyvesant, who appointed to all subordinate offices, and levied taxes at his own discre- tion. When his proceedings were deemed rash or high-handed by the West India Company they checked him as they thought proper, whilst they urged him to pay no attention whatever to the impatient demands of the settlers for self-government, and in levying the taxes to have no regard to their consent. Thus urged and supported at home, Stuyvesant set his face as a flint against the tide of democratic encroachment. A convention of two delegates from every village met to deliberate upon the state of the colony, and in a pe- tition suggested and drawn up by a settler from New England, demanded the abrogation of arbitrary misrule, and asserted their own right of approving, at the least, the laws which were made for their own government. Stuyv^esant, however, was inflexible, and after some sarcastic allusions to the origin of the jDetition, and soldier-like sneers at the exercise of "rabble" sovereignty, pe- remptorily dissolved this self-constituted convention. This enforced obedi- ence was accompanied by a sullen discontent, which the New England settlers, who were both numerous and active, were not sIoav in inflaming. The people, too weak to resist, evinced a passive dissatisfaction with their institutions, murmurs and questionings of the authority of the Company were heard on all sides, and it soon became evident that they would ofler but a spiritless resist- ance to the menaced invasion of the New Englanders, which perhaps they secretly invoked, as bringing in its train the popular liberties after which they sighed. The position of Stuyvesant became from day to day more insecure, but he bore up bravely against his difficulties. The weak and divided con- dition of New Netherlands encouraged fresh demands and aggressions on the part of her more powerful neighbours. Massachusetts claimed the Upper Hudson ; the Connecticut settlers, regardless of the limits agreed ujion by the treaty, pushed nearer and nearer to New Amsterdam. The New England settlers on Long Island, though under Dutch jurisdiction, invited the pro- tection of Connecticut. In vain did Stuyvesant repair personally to Boston ; he met only with delays and evasions. In vain did he invoke the public spirit he had repressed, call together the assembly he had formerly dissolved ; it passively recommended him to apply to the States-General and the West India Company for that protection which they were unable to aflbrd. With as little success did the zealous old governor appeal to his employers at home, and, setting before them his perils and perplexities, entreat for succour before it should prove too late. Unable or unwilling to incur any further expense on behalf of the colony, they had left it to defend itself even against the Con- necticut settlers, and the rumours of an English plot to take possession of the province, in- a time of profound peace, were received by them with incredulous apathy. That design, however, so often meditated by the people of New Eng- land, was now to be carried out in earnest. So jn after the restoration of Charles II. the Duke of York, having purchased up some old claims, received from the king a grant of the country from the Connecticut to the Delaware, and a fleet of three armed vessels, having on board Sir Robert Nichols, Sir 122 D UKE OF YORK TAKES NEW NETHERLANDS. [16G4. George Cartwright, and Sir Robert Carr, as commissioners, and a large body of soldiers, was sent to take possession of the country. Touching at Boston, where they vainly waited awhile for recruits, and taking on board Winthrop the governor of Connecticut, who had considerable influence among the Dutch, they quietly dropped anchor in the vicinity of New Amsterdam. Rumours of their design had indeed reached that city, but no effectual defence had been, or indeed could be, attempted by the Dutch. Stuyvesaiit endeavoured to awaken the spirit of the inhabitants to a gallant defence by recalling to them the recent heroic struggle of the fatherland against the Spaniards, but he met but with a feeble response. Determined at least to put a bold front upon the matter, he sent in concert with the deputies to request of the English com- mander the reason of his hostile appearance. Nichols replied by asserting the claims of England, and demanding an immediate surrender of New Amster- dam on condition that the lives, liberties, and property of the inhabitants should be respected. Stuyvesant retorted by a spirited protest, detailing the manner in which the Dutch had obtained a lawful possession of the country, affecting to doubt whether, " if his Majesty of Great Britain were well informed of such passages, he would not be too judicious to grant such an order " as that by which he was summoned, especially in a time of profound peace ; and reminding the commissioners that it was " a very considerable thing to affront so mighty a state as Holland, although it were not against an ally and con- federate." Neither argument nor threats produced, however, any effect upon the English commander, who refused to protract the negociation, and threat- ened an immediate attack upon the city. Grating as it was to the spirit of the old soldier to surrender without a struggle, he was compelled to submit to circumstances ; the majority of the inhabitants were unwilling to run all the risks of an assault to which they could not hope to offer any effectual oppo- sition, in defence of a government with which they were discontented, against another which many among them were secretly disposed to welcome. Like the ass in the fable, they had nothing to fear, and something perhaps to hope for, from a change of masters. It was in vain for Stuyvesant to contend ; the influence of Winthrop had been active among the New Englanders ; the com- missioners advocated a surrender, which was consented to by the majority, and quietly carried out on the succeeding days. The terms granted were liberal, and the inhabitants were satisfied, although Stuyvesant held out to the last, and did not ratify the articles until two days after they had been signed by the commissioners. The whole province, together with the city, now received the appellation of New York. In a few days. Fort Orange on the Hudson capitulated, and exchanged its name for Albany. A treaty was here concluded with the chiefs of the five nations, whose hostilities had occasioned so much distress to the Dutch. Sir Eobert Carr meanwhile entered the Delaware, and received the submission of the settlers; and thus by a claim asserted without a tittle of foundation, and enforced without the shedding of a single drop of blood, the whole of North America passed quietly into the possession of England. The 1665-72.] ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW JERSEY. 123 Dutch soon became as loyal as their English neighbours ; feAV of them re- turned to Holland, and even the stern old Stuyvesant himself, attached to the country, remained to end his career under the allegiance he had so stoutly tried to repudiate. Simultaneous with the English conquest of New Netherlands was the establishment of another State. The country between the Hudson and the Delaware had been conveyed by the Duke of York to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Gartaret. Sir George had been governor of the island of Jersey during the civil war, and had gallantly defended it for Charles I. ; and in compliment to him, the province received the name of New Jersey, This extensive tract was then but very thinly inhabited. The settlements of the Swedes upon the Delaware, and their expulsion thence by Stuyvesant, together with his frustration of the scheme of emigration from New Haven, have been already described. A few Quakers and Puritans had nevertheless been per- mitted to naturalize themselves on the banks of the Earitan ; extensive pur- chases had been made from the Indians ; and a few scattered hamlets and isolated farms appeared at wide intervals in the immense expanse of wilderness. It was the policy of the proprietaries to attract settlers for their thinly peo- pled territory by offering to them the most advantageous terms. Absolute freedom of worship, a colonial assembly, which had the sole power of taxa- tion, and participated in the legislative but not the executive government of the province, with a moderate quit-rent not to be collected till 1770, were the principal inducements. The proprietaries reserved the right of checking the local legislation and of appointing the officers of government. Messengers were despatched to New Haven, from whence a considerable emigration of the Puritans soon took place. The liberality of the institutions, the beauty of the climate, attracted many to the new State, the " Paradise " of those who delighted in an untrammeled and primitive form of society, because " it had no lawyers, or physicians, or parsons." It soon became evident that the settlers were im- patient even of the slightest restraints. Philip Carteret had been appointed go- vernor of the new province, to the great discontent of Nichols, who protested in vain against this encroachment upon his jurisdiction. Upon the attempt of the former, in 1670, to collect the quit-rents for the proprietaries, a general discontent, and at length an open insurrection, broke out. The lands had in most cases been purchased from the Indians by the actual tenants, and having satisfied this original claim, they repudiated the further demand of a quit- rent as unjustifiable. The assembly convened at Elizabeth-town deprived the governor of his functions, elected in his place the young James Carteret, a natural son of Sir George, who had studiously encouraged the agitation, whilst Philip was compelled to fly to England, to justify his conduct, and seek for a reinforcement of his authority. Although no advances towards a popular government of his newly-acquired State were made by the Duke of York, the passing of a code embodying many valuable privileges and customs derived from local experience, and adapted to the wants of the colonists, trial by jury being among them, was one of his R 2 124 NEW YORK AGAIN, FOR A TIME, A DUTCH CITY. [1G73. earliest measures. But tliat democratic spirit which had led the inhabit- ants of the colony to rebel against the arbitrary government of Stuyvesant, and to welcome the English rule as promising a more liberal policy, dissatis- fied and disappointed with these concessions alone, vented itself in angry and bitter remonstrances against a system no less despotic than the former. The merchants were oppressed by fresh duties, which, to swell the coffers of the Duke of York, were levied upon their imports and exports. Thus at the moment when, war having been declared between England and Holland, a Dutch fleet suddenly appeared before the city, a general disaffection prevailed amongst the citizens, and Colonel Manning, who, in the absence of the go- vernor, Lovelace, held possession of the fort with a small body of English soldiers, was compelled to surrender without resistance. For awhile New York again became a Dutch city, and was under a Dutch governor ; but a peace concluded the foEowing year, by which it was agreed that all con- quests were to be mutually restored, it was again replaced in the hands of the English. On resuming his original possessions, and obtaining a fresh grant, which in- creased his territorial pretensions, and which empowered him " to govern the inhabitants by such ordinances as he and his assigns should establish," the Duke of York sent over INIajor Edmund Andros, to assume the office of go- vernor, to assert his proprietary rights, and consolidate his scattered territories under one uniform system of administration. With this view, one of the first proceedings of Andros was an expedition to Fort Saybrook, -svith a small force, in order to enforce the claim of the Duke to all such territory between the Hudson and the Connecticut, as had been settled by the citizens of the latter State. He was astonished at the sturdy resolution of the Connecticut men, ■who refused even to listen to the reading of his commission, and without violence, but by a display of power which he was unable to resist, compelled him to return disconcerted to New York. Perhaps this first taste of tl*e spirit of the provincials over whom he was called upon to preside, together with the increasing dissatisfaction at taxes levied by irresponsible authority, and fresh demands for a system of self-government, may have led him to advise the Duke, his master, to grant to the people of New York a charter, similar to that enjoyed by the other American provinces. This boon, however, was not for the present conceded to them. Meanwhile, it is necessary to glance at the progress of affairs in New Jersey. The dissension that took place in that infant colony on the subject of the quit-rents, has been already described. Cartaret, the governor, had been forced by a mutinous assembly to retire to England, whence he shortly re- turned invested with fresh powers from the Duke of York. Soon after the recovery of the province from the Dutch, Berkeley, one of the proprietors, disposed of his share of New Jersey to a company of Quakers, who, exposed in England to the contempt and persecution of every party in the state, were desirous of obtaining a place of refuge in the distant West. A dispute be- tween the proprietors was settled by the arbitration of William Penn, who 1075-83.] FREEDOM OF TRADE IN NEW JERSEY. 125 now first appears in connexion -svitli tlie history of America, and not long after Cartaret consented to a formal partition of the province into two distinct sec- tions, called East and West Jersey. West New Jersey thus became a colony of Friends, liberty of conscience and democratic. equality were established by them ; sincere lovers of peace, they soon came to a friendly understanding with the Delaware Indians, large reinforcements of their persecuted brethren successively arrived, and the little Quaker State rapidly assumed an appear- ance of almost Utopian prosperity and concord. Whilst in the neighbouring harbour of New York duties and customs were levied at the arbitrary pleasure of the English Duke, freedom of trade was established in New Jersey. Such an anomaly could not be suffered to subsist, and Andros, in the spirit of his instructions, set himself to do it away with a high hand. He prevented vessels from landing on the shore of Jersey until the obnoxious imposts had been paid; asserted his jurisdiction over that province, seized and tried the governor, Cartaret, who refused to yield to his pretensions, and in the face of his acquittal by a jury, kept him in confine- ment until the matter could be referred to England. These aggressions aroused in both the Jerseys a determined spirit of resistance ; even the pacific Quakers asserted the constitutional principles of justice and the common law. The document containing their arguments in support of the views of the colonists, drawn up by Penn and others of his persuasion, is well worthy of being cited as a fine specimen of the combined mildness and firmness in the pursuit of liberty, which characterize the proceedings of that sect and their associates. " To all prudent men," says the remonstrance, " the government of an.y place is more inviting than the soil. For what is good land without good laws ? the better the worse. And if we could not assure people of an easy, and free, and safe government, both with respect to their spiritual and worldly property — that is, an uninterrupted liberty of conscience, and an in- violable possession of tlieir civil rights and freedoms, by a just and wise go- vernment — a mere wilderness would be no encouragement ; for it were a madness to leave a free, good, and improved country, to plant in a wilderness, and there adventure many thousands of pounds to give an absolute title to another person to tax us at will and pleasure. We humbly say, that we have lost none of our liberty by leaving our country ; that the duty imposed upon us is without precedent or parallel ; that, had we foreseen it, we should have preferred any other plaiitation in America. Besides, there is no limit to this power ; since we are, by this precedent, taxed without any law, and thereby excluded from our English right of assenting to taxes, what security have we of any thing we possess? We can call nothing our own, but are tenants at ■will, not only for the soil, but for our personal estates. Such conduct has de- stroyed governments, but never raised one to any true greatness." By the consent of both parties the disputed question was referred to the decision of Sir William Jones, one of the most eminent la-vvyers of the time. His opinion was unfavourable to the pretensions of the Duke of York, Avho thereupon, by a fresh indenture, resigned all claim to both West and East 126 SELF-G0VERN3IENT IX NEW YORK. [1683. Jersey, whicli, thus left almost entirely to their own internal government, con- tinued rapidly to increase. The cruel persecution of the Scottish Presbyterians also drove forth a large body of them, who emigrated to East New Jersey, and added their national characteristics to those of the numerous fugitives from all parts of Europe, who sought refuge from religious intolerance in the New World, and con- tributed to build up the majestic fabric of the great and free republic. On his first visit to England Andros had endeavoured to convince the Duke of York that it would be necessary to concede a system of self-government to the discontented colonists — on a subsequent occasion his request was power- fully seconded by symptoms of determined opposition to the arbitrary levy of taxes under the sole authority of the Duke. A jury in New York had by their verdict declared that they deemed this measure illegal, and the same opinion was expressed by the lawyers in England. Overwhelmed with fresh petitions from the council, court of assize, and corporation, praying that they might participate in the government, a request reinforced by Penn, whose influence with him was considerable, the Duke of York was at length compelled to yield, and Dongan was sent out as governor, empowered to ac- cede to the wishes of the colonists, and to summon the freeholders to choose their representatives. Accordingly, on the 17th of October, 1683, met the first popular assembly in the state of New York — consisting of the governor and ten counsellors, with seventeen deputies elected by the freeholders. A de- claration of rights was passed; trial by jury was confirmed; and taxes hence- forth were to be levied only with the consent of the assembly. Every freeholder was entitled to a vote for the representatives. Religious liberty was declared. Such was the spirit in which the assembly proceeded to exercise their newly- acquired powers. One of their acts was entitled " The Charter of Liberties and Privileges granted by his Royal Highness to the Inhabitants of New York and its Dependencies." The following year another session was held, to the great satisfaction of the colonists ; but soon afterwards the flattering prospect thus opened to them of redressing their own grievances, and of managing their own affairs, was interrupted by the accession of the Duke of York to the throne of England. 1640.] SIR JOHN HARVEY MADE GOV. OF VIRGINIA. 127 CHAPTER XI. CONTiyrATION OF HISTORY OF VIRGINIA, FROM THE DEATH OF JAMES I. TO THE DEPOSITION OP JAMES H. It has been seen that the people of Virginia, at the period when the charter of the Company was dissolved by the arbitrary proceedings of James I., who had intended to frame a code for their compulsory adoption, were al- ready, under the auspices of Sir G. Yeardley, in possession of all the elements of self-government. Although, by the dissolution of the charter, the right of governing the colony devolved exclusively on Charles I., it does not ap- pear that he either attempted or even meditated any invasion of its popular rights. For this indeed no motive existed. Unlike Massachusetts, the nursery of a religious faction hostile to the court, Virginia had established episcopacy upon its soil, and its population was known to be loyally affected to the crown. All that the monarch, pressed as he was for money, seems to have desired, was a monopoly of the profits formerly accruing to the Com- pany ; and in order that this might be conceded with a good grace by the colonists, he declared his intention of not interfering with their established franchises, and referred his proposal for the monopoly to the consideration of the assembly. The popular Yeardley was appointed as successor to Wyatt, who desired to return to England. Under his administration the colony con- tinued to flourish, but his career of government, so beneficial to the Virginians, being shortly after closed by death, the council, by the power vested in them, proceeded to elect West, and afterwards Doctor Potts, as temporary governors, until the arrival of Sir John Harvey with the royal commission. The new governor appears, from various causes, to have been exceedingly disliked. He was the member of a party hostile to the liberties of the Virginians, and was accused of consulting the interests of favourites more than the welfare of the colony itself. The general dislike magnified his delinquencies, and when, instead of sheltering Clayborne, whose quarrel with Lord Baltimore was espoused by the people, he sent him to England for trial, the exasperation reached its height ; a majority in the council suspended the obnoxious go- vernor from his office, and prepared articles of impeachment against him. Harvey repaired to England, together with his accusers, but they were not now admitted to a hearing of their charges, and he soon after reappeared in Virginia as governor. He was however superseded, in 1639, by Sir Francis Wyatt, until, in 1642, Sir William Berkeley arrived to assume the adminis- tration. The new governor soon rendered himself as popular as Harvey had become detested. He not only did not interfere with the established privileges 128 VIRGINIA UNDER THE PARLIAMENT. [1G52-58. of the colonists, but assisted them in carrying out a system of legishition adapted to their own expressed wishes and peculiar local requirements. The royal monopoly alone, with Avhich the Virginians had been threatened, appeared as a serious grievance : they earnestly protested against its estab- lishment ; but as it was not for the present carried out, they soon became reconciled, and even attached, to the exercise of the regal authority. Such was the state of affairs, when, after the struggle in England between the king and his parliament, the authority of the latter became there de- cisively established. During its progress, the Virginians had warmly sympa- thized with the cause of the monarch, they looked upon his execution with horror, and boldly declared their allegiance to his son in the face of all the formidable power of parliament. This feeling of ardent loyalty had been in- flamed by the constant emigration of a large body of Cavaliers, who fled to Virginia to sigh over their ruined fortunes, or, haply, to nourish schemes for the future restoration of the royal authority. The warm-hearted governor and the hospitable planters received them with open arms ; a correspondence had been opened with the fugitive prince, who gratefully sent over his royal reappointment of Berkeley as governor. Provoked at this open renunciation of their authority, and perhaps apprehensive that Virginia might become the nucleus of some dangerous plot, the parliament, with characteristic vigour, proceeded to assert and enforce their claim to her obedience. They fitted out a squadron, which, after reducing the recusant West India colonies, at length appeared in the waters of the Chesapeake. Resistance was in vain ; and, moreover, the parliament had adopted the wisest measures, not only to secure the allegiance, but even to engage the gratitude of the Virginians. The late king had threatened them with his system of commercial monopoly ; the par- liamentary commissioners offered them a perfect freedom of trade. Not only w^as their representative system maintained in its integrity, but they were al- lowed to choose their own governors, and to acquire an absolute right of control over the levying and disposing of the taxes ; so that their allegiance was rendered little more than nominal. The affections of the Virginians were with the " sainted " monarch, as he had been called by them and by his banish- ed son ; but a wise regard to their own liberties, with the liberal concessions of the parliament, led them to accept its supremacy. Berkeley retired unmo- lested into private life, and Richard Bennett, one of the parliamentary com- missioners, with the consent of the assembly, succeeded him, Clayborne being appointed for his secretary : on his retirement from office, Edward Diggs, and after him Samuel Matthews, one of the planters, were elected by the people to the vacant office. Virginia continued for several years to enjoy, under this system, an almost entire tranquillity and a rapid development of her internal resources. Uni- versal suffrage, freedom of trade, the choice of a governor, and the control over the taxes were established. Although episcopacy was rooted in the affections of the people, and established by law, there was in fact, with the exception of the Quakers, a practical toleration of other sects. There was a law against 1644.] INDIAN CONSPIRACY UNDER OPECHANCANOUGH. 129 Dissenters, but it was not put into force. Various Nonconformists had long enjoyed, unmolested, the liberty of worship, when the breaking out of hos- tilities between the king and parliament led to a revival of the obnoxious statutes and to the banishment of Dissenters by Berkeley. The parliamentary commissioners had been particularly enjoined to enforce the abolition of epis- copacy, but this they found to be impossible, and though liberty for sectaries was for a time established, Virginia remained at heart firmly attached both to the state religion and to the royal family. During the administration of Berkeley fresh troubles had arisen with the Indians, who had not yet renounced the visionary hope of cutting ofFor starv- ing the colonists. They had sown what they had reaped, blood was repaid with blood. After their memorable conspiracy, it became a standing law to the colonists to advance every year upon " their adjoining salvages" and massacre them — a cruel reprisal, which probably led to another and equally hopeless at tempt by the Indians, who cut off the straggling colonists, but fled as before at the aspect of determined resistance. The aged Opechancanough was taken prisoner and put to death. A treaty of peace was concluded with his successor, on condi- tion of a large cession of territory, and the Indians, their power finally broken, began to retreat from the face of the white men towards the boundless west. The immense development of the Dutch commercial marine has been already noticed. Their ships had acquired a large 23roportion of the carrying trade of the colonies. To check their rapid encroachments, from which the English shipping interests were severely suffering, the parliament determined on adopting a defensive policy. Accordingly an act was passed against the importation of any merchandise from Asia, Africa, or America, except in ves- sels English built, and manned and owned either in the mother country or her dependent colonies. This act, intended solely for the protection of British shipping, appeared unfavourable to Virginian commerce, yet it occa- sioned but little interruption to her trade with Holland, even during the war between that country and England, and generally appears to have been practi- cally disregarded or evaded. At the death of Cromwell the succession of his son Eichard was pro- claimed without opposition. Through the troubled state of affairs in England, an impending change was not improbably foreseen by the Vir- ginians, who, though secretly desirous for the restoration of the monarchy, were chiefly intent upon the maintenance of that increased measure of self- government which they had obtained from the parliament. The death of Matthews happened during that interregnum between the resignation of Richard Cromwell and the restoration of Charles II. The royalist tendencies of the Virginians might now venture to display themselves, and Sir William Berkeley, who had passed several years among the colonists in honourable retirement, was restored by them to his original dignity. In entering again upon his functions he acknowledged the authority of the assembly which had reappointed him, and agreed not to dissolve it without the consent of the ma* jority of its members. 130 RE-ELECTION OF BLBKELEY AS GOVERNOR. [IGGO. Before we pursue the narrative of the affliirs of Virginia it is desirable, if not essential, to form a clear conception of the elements of society existing in that colony. Originally settled by offshoots or adherents of the English no- bility, it had received a more decidedly aristocratic cast from the influx of Cavaliers during the civil war in England, who carried with them to the New World their hereditary prejudices in favour of the privileges conferred by birth and rank, and a contemptuous disregard of popular rights and preten- sions. Underlying this class was another, consisting of free descendants of the first settlers of inferior rank, and also of indented servants who had been brought over by the planters, and who, bound to labour for a certain number of years, were, during that period, virtually in a state of serfdom. The intro- duction of negro slaves has been already mentioned ; they had since that period very largely increased, and were destitute, as at the present hour, not only of the rights of freemen, but even of those of humanity itself. The aristocratic class naturally acquired a great, and now almost uncon- trolled ascendency, which was further increased by the establishment of the Anglican Episcopal church. The restoration of Charles II., and the arbi- trary tendencies of the English government, strengthened still more its power and pretensions, and encouraged it to aim at the uncontrolled direction of affairs. It has been already mentioned that, in anticipation of the re-establish- ment of the monarchy. Sir William Berkeley, deposed by parliamentarian influence, had been re-elected as governor by the royalist party, who pre- dominated in the assembly. High-spirited and brave, but obstinate and im- patient of opposition, he displayed in a characteristic degree both the virtues and vices of his order. Attached to the soil of Virginia, with which he had identified his interests and his pleasures, his views of her requirements never extended beyond the narrow limits of a class legislation. His policy accorded perfectly with that of the assembly by which he had been chosen, and their influence was united to perpetuate the tenure of that poAver already in their hands. The term for which they were authorized to hold office was two years, when a fresh election should, according to previous usage, have taken place. They continued, nevertheless, quietly to retain possession of their seats, to obtain the reappointment of Berkeley, and to legislate in a spirit entirely favourable to their own interests. Furthermore, in order to insure the con- tinuance of aristocratic influence, they disfranchised, by their own act, a large proportion of the people who had chosen them, confining in future the exercise of the elective privilege to freeholders and housekeepers alone. The taxes became exorbitant, the governor and assembly Avere overpaid, while all power of checking these disorders was taken out of the hands of the people. The discontents engendered in the minds of the commonalty by these and other encroachments on the part of the assembly, were suspended for a while by the union of all parties in a common protest against the navigation act. The opposition to this measure in Massachusetts has been already mentioned. It bore with peculiar severity upon the trade of the Virginians. Compelled to send their tobacco exclusively to England,their market was at once narrowed and 16G0-70. ] ED UCA TION A ND SLA VER Y IN VIE GINIA. 131 their prices reduced, and they even meditated a desperate attempt to raise it by leaving the land uncultivated for a year, thus producing an artificial scarcity. Berkeley was sent to England at a heavy expense, with the hope of obtaining some relief for the planters ; but was entirely unsuccessful in his mission, although he contrived to obtain for himself a share in the newly- erected province of Carolina. Meanwhile the proceedings of the Virginia as- sembly were but an echo of those of the government in England. Intolerance obtained the ascendency, nonconformity was rendered penal, old edicts were revived and sharpened, and fresh ones enacted against Puritans, Baptists, and Quakers, who were visited with fines and banishment. With the re- membrance of what had happened during the civil war, the pulpit itself was dreaded as an engine for moving the public mind, and Berkeley expressed his wish that even the established ministry " should pray oftener, and preach less." Education was studiously discouraged. " I thank God," continues the governor, " that there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have this hundred years, for learning has brought disobedience, and heresies, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both ! " he piously concludes. Such was the aim of the party in power, to maintain the domination of a body of wealthy aristocratic planters, over a submissive and ignorant commonalty, and an abject herd of indented white servants and of negro slaves. - Between the two latter classes, indeed, a marked distinction should be ob- served. The white man might and often did break through the trammels of a temporary servitude, and enrol himself among the ranks of freemen, though for a while deprived by an arbitrary majority of his legitimate privilege of the franchise. For the wretched negro there was no such hope, and the laws now formally passed constituted him and his posterity the absolute property of masters, who might whip, brand, torture, or even kill them, with a restraint that was little more than nominal. Even his conversion to the faith of his master was declared, by a decision of clerical casuists, to involve no forfeiture of this unholy bond, — Christian or heathen, he still remained a slave. It would be u.ryust, however, to involve the Virginia assembly alone in the guilt of thus establishing slavery, since, with the exception of a few bene- volent minds, whose clearness of moral vision no soj)histry could cloud, the negro was then universally regarded as being both by nature and provi- dence destined to be the bondman of the white ; and we are shortly after pained at discovering that the profound philosopher who probed the myste- rious laws of the human understanding, conferred, without misgiving, the sanction of his illustrious name upon this atrocious violation of human rights. "While the popular discontent was rapidly coming to a head, fresh alarm was created by the intelligence that the English monarch, with the reckless prodigality which distinguished him, had granted away the entire colony to the Lords Culpepper and Arlington, two of his rapacious courtiers, against whose claims it was thought necessary at first to enter a protest, and if this were unavailing, to buy them out ; measures which occasioned the call for a fresh s 2 132 JOIIX WASHINGTON AND THE INDIANS. [1675. levy of taxes, already insuj)portably severe. Moryson, Ludwell, and Smith were despatched to England on this business, and the governor and assembly em- braced the opportunity of soliciting from the court a royal charter, which should confirm them in the privileges they had recently assumed. This re- quest Avas conceded ; but, before the document had passed the seals, a for- midable rebellion had already broken out in Virginia. Its immediate occasion, or pretext, appears to have arisen out of certain disputes with the Indians, in regard to which, as in so many similar instances in American history, it is difficult to arrive at the exact truth. Virginia, it must be remembered, had suffered too deeply from the ti'eacherous outbreaks of the Indians, not to be predisposed, even after an interval of thirty years' peace, to take the worst view of their character and intentions, which the war with Philip of Pokanoket, then raging in Massachusetts, could not fail to strengthen. The Senecas had attacked and driven the Susquehannahs upon the frontiers of Maryland, with which state a war had arisen, in which the neighbouring Virginians became involved. Certain outrages of the Indians had been resented by a planter named John Washington, who had emigrated some years back from the north of England, and became the founder of the family from which sprung the illustrious hero of the revolution. He had col- lected a body of his neighbours, besieged an Indian fort, and unhappily put to death six envoys, sent forth to treat of a reconciliation ; an outrage met on the part of the savages by the iisual retaliation of murder, pillage, and incendiarism. The indignation of Berkeley was excessive when he heard of the flagrant violation of established custom, and which had led to such alarm- ing consequences. " Though they had killed my father and mother," he ex- claimed, " yet if they had come to treat of peace, they ought to have gone in. peace." In the heated state of the public mind, he was accused, on account of enjoying a sort of monopoly of the beaver trade with them, of favouring the Indians ; but there is no reason to attribute to sordid self-interest an ex- clamation which appears to have been exclusively prompted by a feeling of humanity and justice. In this conjuncture the assembly met, and proceeded to pass an elaborate, and certainly unsuitable series of " articles of war." Certain forts were to be established, and communications kept up between them ; a system which in- volved a ruinous expense. The spontaneous movements of the colonists in checking sudden attacks, and their tendency to indulge in fierce and bloody re- prisals, were also restrained to a degree of which they became impatient. The bitterest discontent prevailed, the scheme proposed by government was pro- nounced ineffective and costly, and the more ardent declared their intention of taking vengeance with their own hands, and on their ovnx responsibility, for any hostilities the Indians should hereafter dare to commit. The chief of the malcontents, who numbered among them not a few of the rich and influential planters, was a young man named Nathaniel Bacon, but recently arrived from England. Educated in the temple, eloquent and of good address, and of active and ardent temperament, he had rapidly risen into no- 1G75.] REBELLION UNDER NATHANIEL BACON. 133 tice. Being himself the o^viier of estates in Virginia, and, together with his uncle, a member of the council, he was thus looked up to by the dis- affected as possessing both the qualities and influence requii-ed in a popular leader. Whilst the public excitement was at its utmost height, the news ar- rived that the Indians had broken in upon his plantation and murdered some of his servants ; upon which he instantly flew to arms, and being joined by a large body of people, set off in pursuit of the marauders. The governor, re- garding this proceeding as an insult to his authority, proclaimed Bacon as a rebel, deprived him of his seat in the council, and called upon all those who respected his own authoidty to disperse immediately. Some of the less zeal- ous of the insurgents obeyed the summons and returned to their homes ; but this defection did not restrain their leader, who pushed forward in hot pursuit of the Indians. Some bodies of the latter were still on a friendly footing, al- though suspected ; and when nearly out of provisions, Bacon and his company approached oiie of their forts and requested a supply. This being protracted until their necessity became extreme, the English crossed the river in order to compel their acquiescence : a shot was discharged from the shore, which induced Bacon to retaliate by attacking the fort, and putting a hundred and fifty Indians to the sword. Thus, as was so often the case in these miserable quarrels, did the innocent suffer for the guilty, and the flames of mutual ani- mosity become more widely extended. The exasperated governor, meanwhile, had scarcely left James Town with a body of troops for the purpose of seizing Bacon and his followers, when a general explosion of popular discontent broke out in his rear. The rising of the young planter, and the absence of the governor, emboldened the dis- affected in the lower counties to fly to arms, and demand the dissolution of the assembly. Berkeley was compelled to give way before the storm of popular indignation. The " royal " assembly was accordingly broken up ; and writs be- ing issued for a fresh election, a large body of representatives were chosen, who were bent upon redressing the gi'ievances under which Virginia had so long groaned. Among these newly-elected burgesses Bacon was returned in triumph ; but as he repaired to James Town in an armed sloop, he was inter- cepted and seized by order of the governor, and compelled, in the presence of the assembly, to beg pardon for his mutinous behaviour, offering his estate as a security for future obedience. The members of the new assembly were not long met before they proceeded to restore their franchise to those freemen who had been deprived of it by their predecessors, and to carry reform into every department of the adminis- tration. Bacon, in the mean time, perhaps suspicious of treachery on the part of the governor, had secretly absconded, and gathered together a body of four hundred of his adherents, who, before* Berkeley could assemble the mi- litia to withstand them, appeared in formidable array upon the green at James Town. The assembly being convoked. Bacon himself soon after approached with a guard of soldiery for the purpose of stating his grievances. The go- vernor, accompanied by several of the members, Avent forth to meet him in a 134 BERKELEY COMPELLED TO FLY TO AC COM AC. [1G7G. state of the highest exasperation — his cavalier blood boiled within him at find- • ing himself thus outwitted and brow-beaten by a rebel, he tore open his dress, ■ and exposing his breast, exclaimed, half choked with passion, " Here, shoot me ! Fore God ! fair mark, shoot me ! " passionately reiterating his insane request ; to which Bacon, though also highly excited, replied, " No, may it please your honour, we will not hurt a hair of your head, nor of any other man's — we are come for a commission to save our lives from the Indians, which you have so often promised, and now we'll have it before we go." The insurgents also made the same demand, accompanied by menaces in case of refusal, of the as- sembly itself, who, thus threatened, and with many among them who were the partisans of the rebel leader, were content enough to give way before the po- pular movement, and to compel the governor, though sorely against his will, to accede to the demands of Bacon, and also to appoint him to the command of the forces sent against the Indians. This point being settled, the assembly pro- ceeded to enact many salutary reforms, popularly known as " Bacon's Laws," all tending to abate the exorbitant pretensions of the aristocratic party, and to restore to the mass of the people the privileges of which they had been un- justly deprived. Thus by a sudden and well-concerted movement, and without the shedding of a drop of blood, a most salutary reformation had been effected. But it was impossible that matters could thus rest without a further struggle between the hostile parties. The supporters of aristocratic privilege encouraged Berkeley, whose adhesion to the new reforms had been most reluctantly con- ceded, and who was smarting under a sense of his recent humiliation, a second time to proclaim Bacon as a rebel; to which the latter retorted by publishing his vindication and denouncing the tyranny of the governor, calling delegates to assemble and discuss the critical position of the colony. The popular party, among whom were many of the most influential citizens, rallied at his sum- mons, and agreed that they would defend him, even against troops that might be sent from England, until a statement and appeal could be forwarded to the king. Thus overborne a second time, the governor was compelled to retreat before the storm he had raised. His flight was regarded as an abdication, and writs were issued by Bacon for the election of a new assembly. Together with his partisans, Berkeley retired to Accomac, where by promises of pay and plunder he collected a considerable force, with which he soon returned in triumph to the seat of government, which had been abandoned on his approach; but his exultation was soon interrupted by the reappearance of Bacon, with an arma- ment, which, although inferior to his own in numbers, was animated by a far more resolute and determined spirit. James Town immediately was invested, and Berkeley, finding his own ardour but indifferently seconded by his men, was a second time compelled to retreat some distance doAvn the river. Bacon and his followers then re-entered the little town ; the only one which had yet grown up in a country where the planters were scattered at wide intervals along the numerous inlets and rivers, and consisting of but nineteen dwellings and a 167G.] BERKELEY'S REVENGE ON THE CONSPIRA TORS. 135 little cliuvch and state house. Lawrence, one of the most active among the popular agitators, set fire to his own abode, and the little capital of Virginia . "was soon enveloped in flames, which, seen to a considerable distance down the river, acquainted Berkeley and his adherents with the flite of the seat of government. This sacrifice, which, though painful to the feelings of the insurgents, was deemed necessary to prevent the governor's party from making a stronghold of the place, having been made, Bacon boldly marched against a large body who were advancing to attack him. Upon the desertion of this body their leaders speedily dispersed, leaving him free to prosecute the struggle with every pi'ospect of a successful issue, when, to the grief and consternation of the popular party, he was suddenly cut off by a disorder contracted among the marshy lowlands of James Town. The death of their leader, cut off in the flower of his youth, and in the midst of a career of success, utterly disconcerted the measures and broke the spirits of the insurgents, while it gave increased confidence and activity to the governor and his adherents. The greater part of the popular leaders were surprised and taken, although some few held out with the courage of despair. Lawrence fled and was never heard of more ; Drummond and Horsford were made prisoners. The latter was first destined to feel the weight of the governor's vengeance, and Avas the first Virginian that ever suf- fered death by hanging. He met his fate with intrepidity, glorying in the cause of popular liberty for which he was called upon to lay down his life. Drummond soon after shared the same fate. The wife of Cheasman, another of the leaders, went on her knees before the governor, and pleading that her husband had become guilty through her instigation, earnestly besought him to allow her to suffer in his stead. Berkeley dismissed the asronized sufferer with a torrent of unmanly insult, and refused to show mercy to his victim, who escaped the ignominy of an execution by dying in prison soon afterwards, outworn with grief and misery. The weak, irritable old Cavalier, his pride mortified, and his possessions ravaged, showed like another Jeffery in indiscriminate slaughter and confiscation. But his thirst for vengeance was interrupted by the protestations of the assembly, and by the arrival of com- missioners from England, who had been despatched upon the news of the re- bellion, and bearing a royal proclamation to all, with the exception of Bacon, who should submit within twenty days of its publication. They brought over with them a body of English soldiers, the first ever introduced into the American colonies. Even the arrival of the commissioners, although it operated as a check, did not however immediately cut short the merciless career of Berkeley. Suppressing the publication of the king's pardon, he still continued to execute and imj^rison the objects of his vengeance, who, brought to trial, were convicted by. partial or terrified jurymen. Eines and confisca- tion were also resorted to, until the commissioners at length decisively inter- fered, and having declared their readiness to hear any complaints on the part of the colonists, so many Avere poured in that their report on the causes of the troubles was highly unfavourable to the governor, whose friends published a 136 OOVERNORSHIP OF LOED CULPEPPER. [1677. protest against it, and who himself soon after returned to England, to ajDpeal to the king, to the great satisfaction of the bulk of the colonists. But his ardent loyalty received a severe shock at hearing that Charles had said of him, " The old fool has taken away more lives in that naked country than I for the murder of my father ;" and consumed with chagrin at such a reception, and by the cen- sure upon his measures passed by the commissioners, he died not long after his return to the mother country. The reaction produced by the disastrous issue of Bacon's rebellion was very unfortunate for the colonists. Some trifling concessions were indeed made to their complaints, but the majority of those abuses by which they had been provoked into a rising remained in full force. The whole of " Bacon's Laws" enacted by the popular assembly were annulled, the franchise, as just be- fore, and not as originally, was restricted to freeholders alone, and the assembly chosen by it was only to meet once in two years, nor, except on special occasions, to remain m session for more than a fortnight. Oppressed with the still stricter enforcement of the navigation laAvs, which ruinously reduced the price of their staple, tobacco, saddled with the additional burden of supporting a body of English soldiers, forbidden even to set up a printing press, the Virginians might have seemed to be sunk into a condition of abject and hopeless dependency on the royal power. But a legitimate popular movement, even if it fail of its immediate object, never fails to awaken a spirit of resistance, which, though for a wliile suppressed, is destined some day to work out its desired results. The government of the unfortunate colony for the next ten years closely resembled that of the mother country itself, in the unblushing profligacy and rapacity of those by whom it was administered. The grant of Virginia to Arlington and Culpepper has been already mentioned. The latter nobleman had obtained the cession of his partner's share, and had been invested besides with the oflice of governor for life, as the successor of Berkeley. The spirit of sordid avarice which had infected the English court had alone dictated the request of these privileges, and in the same spirit was the administration of Culpepper conducted. Compelled to repair with reluctance from the delights of the court to the government of a distant province, his only indemnification was to make the best use of the period of his banishment. He carried out with him a general amnesty for the recent political offences, and an act for increasing the royal revenue by additional duties. He obtained a salary double that of Berkeley's, and still further contrived to swell his emoluments, and to satisfy his greediness by means of perquisites and peculations. The pinch began to be severely felt even by the most ardent loyalists, and symptoms of opposition arose in the assembly itself. The misery of the planters had led them to solicit the enforcement of a year's cessation from the planting of tobacco, the assembly could but refer it to " the pleasure of the king," and in the mean time the exasperated sufferers proceeded to cut up the tobacco plants. These outrages, dictated by despair, led to several executions, and laws were passed for their future suppression. After thus conducting his 1675-83.] RAPID PROGRESS OF MARYLAND. 137 administration for a period of three yerrs, during which he twice repaired to England, Culpepper was at length deprived of his office for various mal- practices, while at the same time his claims over Virginia were commuted for a pension. Culpepper was succeeded by Lord Howard of Effingham, who sur- passed even his predecessor in the devisal of fresh expedients for fleecing the suffering colonists. New fees were multiplied, and a court of chancery established, of which he constituted himself the sole judge ; and after thus securing the lion's share for himself, participated, it is said, with his own clerks the perquisites of their offices. Despotism Avas rapidly attaining its climax. A frigate was stationed to enforce the stricter observation of the navigation laws, an additional excise duty in England on the import of tobacco still further discouraged trade. The conduct of the governor towards the assembly became more and more arbitrary, until scarcely the shadow of popular liberty was left. Such was the condition of affairs in Virginia at the accession of the last of the Stuarts. Alarming symptoms of insubordination having appeared, not only among the body of the people, but even in the assembly itself, who presumed to question the veto of the governor, that body, by order of the arbitrary monarch, was summarily dissolved. But the same spirit that was about to hurl James II. from the English throne Avas now fully awakened also in the breast of the Virginians, once so loyal, but whose loyalty had been too cruelly abused by an infatuated race of kings, and the next assembly was imbued with such a determination to maintain its privileges, that the governor, counting upon the royal support, determined, after a brief experience of its temper, to dissolve it upon his own authority ; upon which they deputed Ludwell, formerly conspicuous among the most influential loyalists, to complain of this abuse of authority. "While Virginia had been agitated by rebellion and almost crushed by despotic encroachment, Maryland continued, with little interruption, her tran- quil and rapid progress. The broad and liberal basis upon which Cecil, Lord Baltimore, had planted his colony, the peaceful and happy circumstances of its settlement, insured, for the period of his oAvn life-time at least, an almost total exemption from those disputes and revolutions that agitated the other American colonies, as well as a handsome return for filie liberal expenditure he had been put to. He lived to see this colony widely extending its boundaries, and in- creased in wealth, population, and prosperity. As in Virginia, the cultiva- tion of tobacco was the principal staple, a great impulse was given to its increase by the introduction of slave labour ; and as in Virginia, a proportion- able discouragement by the navigation act. The wise endeavours of Lord Baltimore to secure an impartial toleration for all religious sects, through which the colony had so greatly prospered, and immigration from Europe so largely increased, were not in harmony with the bigoted spirit nor with the political tendencies of the times. The Catholics, by whom the first settlement had been made, had not increased in proportion to the Protestants. The Episcopal clergy, unlike their brethren in Virginia, 138 THE FIRST SETTLERS IN CAROLINA. [1663. enjoyed no livings, and consequently no settled incomes, and bitterlj'' com- plained to the English bishops of what they considered to be a degraded and miserable position. When, after the death of Lord Baltimore, his successor repaired to England, earnest attempts were made by the ecclesiastical authorities to enforce an establishment for the Anglican Church, a claim which he was enabled Avith some difficulty to resist. The prejudices of the times were, however, so unfavourable to the Catholics, both in England and in the colony itself, that an order was sent out by Charles II. to confine the possession of office to Protestants alone, a stretch of authority evidently unauthorized by the terras of the charter granted to his father, which exempted the proprietor from any control on the part of the crown. CHAPTER XII. FOUNDATION OF CAROLINA. — LOCKE's SYSTEM OF LEGISLATION FOUND UNSUITABLE. — DIFFICUL- TIES "WITH THE COLONISTS. — ABROGATION OF THE " GRAND MODEL." The discovery of Florida by Ponce de Leon, and the attempt of Admiral Coligny to found upon its shores a Protestant colony, so tragically defeated by the cruelty of Melendez, have been already narrated. Since that period Spain had never renounced her claims to an indefinite extent of country com- prised under the title of Florida, but had not carried her settlements further along the line of coast. The early colonists sent out by Ealeigh left fcAv or no traces behind them, nor does a patent granted by Charles I. to Sir Robert Heath, his attorney-general, for a tract to the southward of Virginia to be called Carolina, appear to have been followed by any result beyond a voyage of observation. Yet more than one band of immigrants had established them- selves at different points of this fertile territory. A small party from New England had settled near Cape Fear, bringing with them their love of self- government and peculiar religious views. Some of the pioneers of discovery who penetrated the wilderness to the southward of Virginia had opened the way for more numerous adventurers, some of them bodies of emigrant Dis- senters, who spread themselves over the vicinity of the river Chowan, and to the north of the neighbouring Sound. Soon after the restoration of Charles II., a body of courtiers of the highest rank, the Earl of Clarendon, Monk Duke of Albemarle, Lords Berkeley, Craven, and Ashley, Sir George Cartaret, Sir John Colleton, and Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, " excited," as they affirmed, " by a laudable 1633-38.] CHARLES II.' S GRANT TO HIS COURTIERS. 139 and pious zeal for the propagation of the gospel," but in reality by a desire to obtain a rich and valuable territory, petitioned the king for a grant of the vast province, to be called Carolina, extending from Albemarle Sound to the river St. John's, with a westward continuation to the Pacific. The charter, easily bestowed at their request by the careless and improvident monarch, resembled that of Maryland. The proprietors were to govern with the assent of a popular assembly which was conceded to the colonists, and no one might be molested for matters of religion, unless he disturbed the civil order and peace of the community. The first object of the proprietaries was to conciliate the afore-mentioned settlers from New England and Virginia. The former body, on hearing of the ncAV grant, had claimed for themselves the privileges of self-government, which the proprietors, desirous of attrf|,cting fresh emigrants from New Eng- land, Avere readily disposed to concede. But the poverty of the soil, com- bined with the hostility of the Indians, outweighed their liberal offers ; the greater part of the inhabitants returned to New England, while those that lingered behind were reduced to such distress that contributions were levied by that colony for their relief. More fortunate was the issue of an emigration of planters from Barbadoes, who entered into an agreement with the proprietaries to remove to the neigh- bourhood of Cape Fear River, near the neglected settlement of the New Eng- landers. Sir John Yeamans, one of their number, was appointed governor of the new country, which received the name of Clarendon. He was espe- cially directed to " make things easy to the people of New England, from which the greatest emigrations were expected ; " an instruction which he car- ried out so wisely, as soon to incorporate the remains of the old settlement. He also opened a profitable trade in boards and shingles with the island whence he had emigrated, and arranged the general affairs of the little colony with great prudence and success. Towards the Virginia settlers on the Sound which, with the surrounding district, now received the name of Albemarle, and who were supposed by the proprietors to be " a more facile people " than the New Englandcrs, Berkeley, upon whom the jurisdiction had been conferred, was instructed to be some- what less lavish in his concessions. But to a body, many of whom had fled malcontent from Virginia, and with whose temper he was well acquainted, he judged it expedient to behave with caution. IMaking therefore the tenure of land as easy as possible, and appointing as governor the popular William Drummond, the same who afterwards shared and suffered death in Bacon's rebellion, he made no attempt at interference with existing usages. The noble proprietaries, meanwhile, upon a further acquaintance with their territory, became greedy of adding to it still greater, and indeed almost boundless, acquisitions. They obtained, with little more difficulty than at- tended the first, the grant of a second patent, by which their limits were increased half a degree northward, and a degree and a half southward, a boundary which, being run to the Pacific, included several of the modem T 2 140 LOCKE'S SYSTE3I OF LEGISLATION. [1669. States, and even part of Mexico and Texas. The Bahama Ishmds were also thrown in. Over this immense territory, which, had it been portioned out among its possessors, would have afforded a principality to each, the ]3ro- prietors determined to establish a system of legislation, which should exhibit the utmost refinement of political sagacity. The office of drawing up this scheme devolved on Lord Shaftesbury, who, himself one of the most remark- able men of his time, called in the assistance of one far greater than himself, the immortal author of the " Essay upon the Human Understanding." In framing the desired plan, Locke appears to have steered midway between the democratic principles, of Avhich he had witnessed the failure in England, and the royalist doctrines of the Tories, and to have lodged the principal power in the hands of an almost feudal aristocracy. His pompous and elaborate scheme for the government of a country which, with the exception of a few scattered settlers, was still in a state of nature, a scheme pronounced to be " incompara- ble, fundamental, and unalterable," never was nor could be carried into ex- ecution, and after a vain atten^t to accommodate its provisions to a state of things to which it was totally unfitted, and much consequent hostility between the proprietaries and settlers, it was at length abrogated by the consent of both parties. A brief outline of its provisions, however, is due to the illustrious name of its founder. " The eldest of the eight proj^rietors was always to be palatine, and at his decease was to be succeeded by the eldest of the seven survivors. This pala- tine was to sit as president of the palatine's court, of which he and three more of the proprietors made a quorum, and had the management and execution of all the powers in their charter. This palatine's court was to stand in room of the king, and give their assent or dissent to all laws made by the legislature of the colony. The palatine was to have power to nominate and appoint the go- vernor, who, after obtaining the royal approbation, became his representative in Carolina. Each of the seven proprietors was to have the j)rivilege of ap- pointing a deputy, to sit as his representative in parliament, and to act agree- ably to his instructions. Besides a governor, two other branches, somewhat similar to the old Saxon constitution, were to be established, an upper and lower house of assembly ; which three branches were to be called a parliament, and to constitute the legislature of the country. The parliament was to be chosen every two years. No act of the legislature was to have any force un- less ratified in open parliament during the same session, and even then to continue no longer in force than the next biennial parliament, unless in the mean time it be ratified by the hands and seal of the palatine and three pro- prietors. The upper house was to consist of the seven deputies, seven of the oldest landgraves and caciques, and seven chosen by the assembly. As in the other provinces, the lower house was to be composed of the representatives from the different counties and towns. Several officers Avere also to be ap- pointed, such as an admiral, a secretary, a chief justice, a surveyor, a trea- surer, a marshal, and register ; and besides these each county was to have a sheriff, and four justices of the peace. Three classes of nobility were to be 1670.] FOUNDATION OF CHARLESTON. 141 established, called barons, caciques, and landgraves; the first to possess twelve, the second twenty-four, and the third forty-eight thousand acres of land, and their possessions were to be unalienable. Military officers were also to be nominated, and all inhabitants from sixteen to sixty years of age, as in the times of feudal government, when summoned by the governor and grand council, were to appear under arms, and, in time of war, to take the field. With respect to religion, three terms of communion were fixed ; first, to be- lieve that there is a God ; secondly, that he is to be worshipped ; and thirdly, that it is lawful, and the duty of every man, when called upon by those in authority, to bear witness to the truth, without acknowledging which no man was to be permitted to be a freeman, or to have any estate or habitation in Carolina, But persecution for observing different modes and ways of wor- ship was expressly forbidden, and every man was to be left full liberty of con- science, and might worship God in that manner which he in his private judg- ment thought most conformable to the Divine will and revealed word. Every freeman of Carolina was declared to j)ossess absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever." Before this cumbrous and unsuitable code had been sent over to Albemarle, the planters had already organized a system of legislation far simpler and better adapted to their Avants. When at length " the model " appeared, it was found, as already stated, titterly impossible to carry it out. Other influ- ences had also been at work. A few persecuted Quakers had taken refuge in the colony, whom George Fox, the founder of their sect, now visited. His simple manners and fervent preaching made a great impression on the colon- ists, and made numerous converts, who, it may easily be supposed, were little inclined to accept a code which contradicted the fundamental principles of their belief. While these scattered colonists were growing up in habits of self-reliance and self-government, and acquiring a corresponding distaste for foreign con- trol, the proprietaries, after a long delay, sent out three vessels, with a body of emigrants, under the command .of Captain William Sayle, v»'ho had already been employed in a preliminary exploration. An expense of £ 12,000 was in- curred in providing necessaries for the plantation of the colony. Touching at Port Royal, where they found traces of the fort erected by the Huguenots, they finally' settled at a spot between two rivers, which they called the Ashley and the Cooper, the family names of Lord Shaftesbury, and where they laid the original foundations of Charleston, whence they removed, however, two years afterwards, in 1672, to the more commodious situation occupied by the present city. Before this removal took place, Sayle died, and was succeeded by Sir John Yeamans, governor of Clarendon, who introduced a body of negroes from Barbadoes, afterwards recruited so largely that they were twice as numerous as the whites. Slave labour soon became thus established in darolina, to the soil and climate of which it was peculiarly adapted. During the next ensuing years a stream of emigrants poured in from England, Ireland, and Scotland, 142 UNSUCCESSFUL GOVERNORS OF NORTH CAROLINA. [1G7:2. from Holland and Germany, and particularly of persecuted Huguenots from France, destined to meet with a better welcome and a more lasting asylum than had been the lot of their unfortunate predecessors, led out by Ribaut, and put to death by the Spaniards. The latter indeed were not idle on this occasion, they threatened an attack from St. Augustine, and excited the In- dians to revolt ; a domestic insurrection also broke out ; but all these troubles were promptly suppressed by the governor. On constituting their new State, the " grand model " was found to be too elaborate to be carried out, and a provisional system was accordingly agreed upon, by which the government was shared by a council of ten, half of whom were elected by the projirietors, and half by the colonists, in connexion with twenty delegates chosen by the people. Thus had already a popular element grown up, which was soon found to be incompatible with the claims of the proprietaries ; and thus the subsequent career of the colony displays every where a scene of confusion and dissension, of which it is as difficult to trace the origin as it would be tedious to dwell iipon the details, and in describing which we shall accordingly en- deavour to use the utmost brevity consistent with preserving the general thread of the narrative unbroken. Turning first to Albemarle or North Carolina, which had by this time made considerable progress, we find, as might have been anticipated, that the pro- mulgation of the " grand model " was received with the utmost disgust, and that bitter and acrimonious disputes arose between the agents of the proprie- taries and the people. After the death of Stevens, the governor, the assembly elected their speaker, Cartwright, to the vacant office, the limits of which being doubtful under the " grand model," he sailed for England, accomj)anied by the new speaker, Eastchurch, to submit the case to the proprietaries. Millar, a person of eminence in the colony, had been accused of sedition, but being acquitted, had also repaired to London with complaints, and his treatment being disapproved of, he was rewarded for his troubles with the office of se- cretary to the colony. Eastchurch being appointed governor, was, on his re- turn, delayed in the West Indies by a wealthy marriage ; while Millar pro- ceeded to execute his functions, and to enforce the obnoxious provisions of the navigation act, • which pressed heavily upon the rising commerce^ of the planters. The public discontent broke out into an insurrection, headed by John Culpepper ; Millar was imprisoned ; a popular assembly established ; and when Eastchurch appeared to assume his government, the people refused their submission. Confident in the justice of their cause, they sent Culpepper, who had been apjiointed by them collector of customs, to England, to obtain the consent of the proprietaries to the recent changes ; but Millar, having in the mean time made his escape, charged Culpepper as he, having effected liis object, was about to embark, with " treason " for collecting the revenue with- out the authority of the king. Singularly enough, he was defended from this unjust charge by no other than Shaftesbury himself — then aiming at popu- larity, on the principle that the offence was not towards the crown, but the planters ; a plea so successfully urged, that Culpepper was acquitted by the 1670-90.] TRADE WITH THE BUCCANEERS. 143 jury. The proprietaries, finding it useless to attempt to carry out their vi- sionary " model " by force, agreed to a compromise with the settlers, promised an amnesty, and appointed a new governoi', Seth Sothel, a man of sordid cha- racter, who, during an administration of five years, pillaged both the proprie- taries and the colonists, until the latter at length arose, banished him for a twelvemonth, and compelled him finally to abjure the government. In South Carolina the progress of matters was hardly more satisfactory. The colonists were little disposed to submit to the authority of laws totally unsuited for their condition. Large demands were made upon the proprietors for supplies, while they looked in vain for returns from the settlers. Yea- mans, the governor, was accused by them of consulting his o^vn private in- terests rather than those of his employers ; and he was accordingly superseded by West, as was West by a rapid succession of others no more fortunate than himself. During these fugitive administrations, the buccaneers, or pirates, ap- peared at Charleston to purchase provisions, and whether from fear or in- terest, the people, and even the governor himself, seemed to have connived at and even encouraged their visits. This dreaded body of freebooters had sprung up in the West India seas, where the Spaniards had once destroyed their haunts, but during the war with Spain they appeared anew, and obtained privateering commissions to harass the commerce and attack the cities of that country in America ; armed Avith which power they so increased their numbers by desperadoes from every clime, and entered upon such daring and successful enterprises, that their exploits inspired an admiration, with which, however, a feeling of terror was largely mingled. One of their leaders had been knighted by Charles II., and another created governor of Jamaica. But the horrible abuses of such a system of licensed outrage and pliuider had sur- vived the occasion which led to its permission, and the peace with Spain had withdrawn from them the countenance of the English government, who now desired their suppression. The colonists, half dazzled by the ill-got gains which these rovers scattered so freely about them in exchange for provisions, half afraid of incurring their enmity, and regarding them, moreover, as their natural allies against the neighbouring Spaniards of St. Augustine, were but little anxious to observe the prohibitions of the proprietai'ies, who, finding at length that Governor Quarry was conniving at the proceedings of the pirates, dismissed him from his situation, and appointed Morton in his stead. Nor was this connivance at piracy the only indication of a loose code of morality among the settlers, connected with, or produced by, the system of slavery. They persisted in carrying on a border warfare with the Indians, and selling the captives in the West Indies, in spite of the remonstrances of the proprietors, who found the breach between themselves and the colonists becoming every year wider. In circumstances of such perplexity, placed between two parties, the one in favour of the absolute control of the proprietors, the other con- tending for a local and independent legislation, Governor Morton, unable to satisfy either, was shortly superseded by Colleton, under whose administration the dispute broke out into an open quarrel. In vain did he produce a copy 144 ABROGATION OF THE "GRAND MODEL." [1G93. of the " grand model," with its numerous titles and elaborate provisions, for the acceptance of the assembly ; they insisted that they had only accepted that modification of it originally proposed to them, and drew up another body of laws in substitution. In vain did he attempt to enforce the payment of the quit-rents due to the proprietaries, and issue, as a last expedient, a proclama- tion of martial law. By a singular caprice of fortune, the fugitive Sothel, from Albemarle, suddenly appeared at Charleston, artfully assumed the leadership of the opposition, and was installed by them in the post of Colleton, who was in his turn deprived of his office, and ordered to depart the colony. But the popular candidate, thus lifted by a sudden caprice of the South Carolinians to a post from which he had been driven by those of the North, soon displayed the same characteristics of rapacity and dishonesty which had led to his ex- pulsion, and for the second time was disgraced and banished. He was suc- ceeded by Philip Ludwell, who carried to England the complaints of the Vir- ginians against the administration of Effingham, and was appointed by the proprietaries to the government of Carolina. Respected by the colonists, his administration opened with every appearance of promise ; but he soon found it impossible to enforce the laws against tlie pirates, or to obtain the passing of an act enfranchising the Huguenots, which, originally proposed by the as- sembly and rejected by the proprietors, was now, when brought forward by the proprietors, rejected by the assembly, and he speedily retired from so un- pleasant a post. Under his successor an important alteration took place. The proprietors passed a vote, " that as the people have declared they would ra- ther be governed by the powers granted by the charter, without regard to the fundamental constitutions, it will be for their quiet, and for the protection of the well-disposed, to grant their request ; " and thus the " unalterable " system of Locke, with its high-sounding titles of palatines, landgraves, and caciques came to an end, " And like the baseless fobric of a vision, Left not a wrack, behind ; " a notable instance of the fallacy of even the wisest of constitution-makers, in seeking to build up an imposing edifice upon a foundation of sand, forgetting to adapt their elaborate provisions to the chai'acter and rircumstarces of those with whom they have to deal. IGGO.] HEWS OF CHARLES II.'S RESTORATION. 145 CHAPTER XIII. AFP.VIKS OP MASSACHUSETTS, FROM THE ACCESSION OF CHARLES II. TO THE DEPOSITION OP JAMES II. — DIFFlCULTIE'i WITH THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. — WAR WITH PHILIP OF POKA- NOICET. — ABROGATION OF THE CHARTER. — AFFAIRS OF THE OTHER COLONIES. The first news of the restoration of Cliarles II. were brought to Boston by the ships in which Whalley and GofFe, two of the regicides, fled for their hves from the vengeance of the ministry ; and the fact that they were courteously received and shehcred, is sufficient to indicate the poHtical bias of the people of Massachusetts, who, with their characteristic Avariness, re- solved to await the progress of events before committing themselves to any open manifestation of adherence to the restored monarch. In a few weeks, more decided accounts were received of the confirmation of the king's power, and of the re-establishment of Episcopacy; and now, conscious that they must be regarded with suspicion on account of their sympathy with the re- publicans, and charged, by numerous enemies created by their intolerant policy, with a secret design of throwing off their allegiance to the crown, a general court was convened to decide upon the best measures for meeting the emergency. A deprecatory address, coviched in Old Testament phraseology, humbly excusing themselves on the convenient ground of distance, for not having sooner sent in their congratulations ; earnestly entreating that their enemies might not be listened to, and that their rights and liberties might be maintained inviolate; was forwarded to the good-natured monarch, who returned to it a gracious reply. Further to parade their laggard loyalty, a treatise upon the Christian Commonwealth, originally drawn up by Eliot for his converted Indians, and incautiously published in England, was piiblicly con- demned by the court, as well as recanted by its author. Letters were written by influential friends, and the agent for the colony instructed to use every means to counteract the machinations of its enemies. Foreseeing the character of the impending struggle, the INIassachusetts leaders felt that they must trust, under Providence, mainly to their own de- termined energies. Their first measure Avas to draw up and publish a declar- ation of their rights. These were defined to be " the poAver to choose their own governor, deputy governor, magistrates, and representatives ; to prescribe terms for the admission of additional freemen ; to set up all sorts of officers, superior and inferior, with such poAvers and duties as they might appoint; to exercise, by their annually-elected m.agistrates and deputies, all authority, legis- lative, executive, and judicial; to defend themselves by force of arms against every aggression ; and to reject any and every interposition Avhich they might u 146 uVASSA CHU8ETTS SEND 8 ENVO Y8 TO ENGL A ND. [1G62. judge prejudicial to the colony." Charles II. Avas at length proclaimed with punctilious formality, but all lively demonstrations of rejoicing on the part of his adherents were ingeniously forbidden, as if " by his own express authority." In fact, besides its enemies in England, the ruling party in Massachusetts had to contend against others no less active at home. The liberal party, con- sisting of Episcopalians, Baptists, and others, who Avere excluded from a share in the government, had largely increased, and, encouraged by the posture of affairs, loudly demanded a relaxation of the unjust restrictions under which they laboured. Even among the theocratic freemen themselves there was a division of opinion. The greater part remained stanch to their original prin- ciples, but many finding them too rigorous, a " half-Avay covenant" had been adopted, by which those who strictly conformed to the established Avorship, but Avithout professing themselves regenerate and elect, Avere admitted to the civil prerogatives of church membership. There were also many who deemed it the Avisest policy to bend to necessity, and not to risk the loss of every thing by refusing to make reasonable a«id timely concessions. But the majority sternly resolved to maintain their independence of English supre- macy, Avhatever might be the issue. To avert, hoAvever, if possible the neces- sity of a recourse to armed resistance, Norton and Bradstreet, two confidential envoys, were sent over to attempt, if possible, to amuse the English ministry, but they were at the same time instructed to deprecate its interference, or, if it came to the Avorst, openly to disclaim its authority. Such a mission Avas justly regarded as rather hazardous. A very short period had sufficed to develope the arbitrary tendencies of the English government. Weary of the anarchy of the last days of the republic, all classes had eagerly united in welcoming the restoration of the monarchy — conditions were never thought of; the time required to make them would haA^e been a dangerous, and perhaps a fatal delay. In the momentary gratitude oc- casioned by his sudden restoration, Charles had promised every thing, but his promises Avere as soon forgotten. There Avas besides a general reaction against all parties concerned in bringing about the late revolution, which tended to fortify the prerogative of the monarch and to abet the arbitrary pro- ceedings of his councillors. The Church of England Avas again in the ascend- ant, the Act of Uniformity had been passed, Presbyterians and Independents were crushed by severe enactments, and exposed at once to the persecution of the ministry as Avell as the dislike of the people. The royalist party had to the utmost gratified their thirst for revenge. Such of the regicides as could be taken were hung, draAvn, and quartered — among them Hugh Peters, father-in-laAv of the younger Winthrop, and formerly minister of Salem. A more illustrious victim, Sir Henry Vane, Avas soon after conducted to the block. Though opposed to the intolerance of the Massachusetts theocracy, he had ever been a firm friend to Noav England, and his influence had procured a charter for Rhode Island from the Long Parliament. "When chargied with treason he •was " not afraid to bear his Avitness to the glorious cause " of popular liberty. 1GG2.] CONNECTICUT'S FAVORABLE CHARTER. 147 nor to " seal it with his blood," and his calm and heroic conduct on the scaffold Avon the admiration even of his enemies. Such was the unpropitious aspect of affairs when the agents of Massachusetts arrived in England charged with their important but perilous commission. With all their tact and in- fluence, they were but very partially successful in their object. The confirm- ation of the charter was conceded, together with a conditional amnesty for all recent offences ; but the king firmly insisted upon the maintenance of his prerogative, he demanded the repeal of all laws derogatory to his authority, the imposition of an oath of allegiance, and the administration of justice in his own name. He also required complete toleration for the Church of England, and the repeal of the law confining the privilege of voting to church members alone, admission of Episcopalians to the sacrament, with the concession of the franchise to every inhabitant possessing a certain amount of property. In one respect, and one alone, did he respond cor- dially to the wishes of the Massachusetts council, they were freely allowed to enact the most stringent provisions against the pertinacious intrusion of the Quakers. Meanwhile the people of Connecticut, having rapidly increased their set- tlements and purchased a considerable tract from the Indians, became desirous of consolidating their territory and fixing their institutions by means of a royal patent. They were singularly fortunate both in the timing of their petition and in the character of their agent. Winthrop the younger was a man of high standing and influence, whose naturally fine qualities had been culti- vated by education and travel ; a lover of literature and science, his enlarged and humane mind rose superior to narrow sectarianism, and advocated an impartial toleration ; and while his character was unblemished and his morals 23ure, he displayed none of that sanctimonious moroseness that characterized so many of the Puritans, but could move with unembarrassed dignity and ease amidst the meretricious splendour of the courtiers — " amongst them, but not of them." His grandfather had received from Charles I. a ring in token of services rendered to that monarch ; this, on his audience with the king, he is said to have produced, and with effect ; he had also the good fortune to obtain the personal favour of the good-natured monarch, and the good will of the minister Clarendon, and other influential courtiers. He was thus en- abled to return with a patent as ample in territorial concessions, as it was hitherto unexampled for the power of self-government which it conceded, for the grant extended from the shores of the Narragansett to those of the Pacific, including the State of New Haven, which held back for a while its consent to the Union, till the apprehension of being placed under the jurisdiction of the English commissioners, and of obtaining less favourable terms, induced them at length to consent. The charter allowed the colonists to choose their own governor and officers, and to exercise legislative and judicial authority on the sole condition of an approximation to the lavfs of England, and without any reservation of interference by the English government. Clarke too, i;ho had been left as agent by Roger "Williams, was, through u'2 148 RHODE ISLAND'S CHARTER RATIFIED. [1GG3. the favour of Clarendon, equally fortunate, in obtaining tlie ratification of the charter for E.hode Island. How this little State was originated and increased by refugees from the intolerance of Massachusetts has been already described. Freedom of conscience, and liberty of discussion, had only, upon further ex- jDcriment, become more dear to its citizens ; they had been exempted from the theological disputes and bloody persecutions that had disgraced Massa- chusetts, and in their petition to Charles II. they declare " how much it is in their hearts to hold forth a lively experiment, that a most flourishing civil state may stand, and best be maintained, with a full liberty of religious con- cernments." The general terms of the charter differed but little from that of Connecticut, but it contained the especial provision, that " no person within the said colony shall be molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any differences of opinion in matters of religion, who does not actually disturb the civil peace ; but that all persons may, at all times, freely enjoy their own consciences in matters of religious concernment, provided they be- haved themselves peaceably and quietly, and did not abuse their liberty to licentiousness and profaneness, nor to the civil injury of others." The arrival of the charter under the broad seal of England created tlie greatest enthu- siasm ; a public meeting was convened for its exhibition, and a vote of thanks jiasscd to the monarch and his minister, by and through whom it had been granted, as well as to the disinterested and indefatigable agent who had pro- cured it. Whilst Connecticut and Rhode Island were thus rejoicing in their newly established privileges, the leaders of Massachusetts were sullenly preparing to defend those they had long enjoyed against the threatened interference of the English ministry. Among the concessions demanded by the king, those of an increase of the franchise, and the toleration of Episcopalians, were in themselves both just and desirable, but they were hardly less repugnant to the self-constituted theocracy than was the assertion of parliamentary control ; and the more so, as they were designed to favour that party Avhich advocated and desired it Their answer to the royal requisitions was accordingly couched in respectful but evasive language. " For the repealing of all laws here established since the late changes contrary and derogatory to his Ma- jesty's authority, we, having considered thereof, are not conscious to any of that tendency ; concerning the oath of allegiance, we^are ready to attend to it as formerly, according to the charter ; concerning liberty to use the Common Prayer Book, none as yet among us have appeared to desire it; touching ad- ministration of the sacraments, this matter hath been under consideration of a synod, orderly called, the result whereof our last general court commended to the several congregations, and we hope will have a tendency to general sa- tisfaction." Such a reply, it may be well conceived, gave but little satisfac- tion to the English ministry : and as fresh complaints against the government of Massachusetts continued to pour in, the king declared his intention of pre- sently sending out commissioners, armed with authority to inquire into and decide unon the matters in dispute. 16.64.] THE COMMERCE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 149 This menace produced a wide-spread feeling of excitement and alarm. A general fast was proclaimed to invoke the forgiveness and implore the protec- tion of God, in whose name and for whose glory the commonwealth had been built up. Every possible precaution was immediately taken, the charter was intrusted to a committee of four for concealment and safe keeping, and, to prevent surprise, none but small bodies of soldiers were allowed to be landed. Filled with enthusiasm, yet calm and wary — determined, if possible, to weary out the enemy by passive resistance, but prepared, if needful, to contend imto the death, the council of Massachusetts awaited with anxiety the arrival of the commissioners from England. The situation of the dispute with the English government had become more critical from its being complicated with difficulties arising out of the acts re- lating to trade. These had originated in the reign of Charles L, were asserted though not enforced by the Long Parliament, and had been revived with still more stringent conditions by that of Charles II. The act of 1651 forbade any importations into England unless by ships built in or owned by inhabitants of either the mother country or her colonies. This had been enacted princi- pally to protect the English shipowners against the rivalry of the Dutch, and though it was not seriously objected to by the colonists, had in reality been thought to be injurious to their interests, and had consequently been evaded. But the act of 1663 required that articles of American production should be sent only to the English market, which was followed tip by another forbidding the importation of European commodities into the colonies except in English- built ships. Thus by this double monopoly were the Massachusetts merchant- men constrained both to sell their own commodities at the cheapest, and to buy those of foreign countries at the dearest rate. Even the intercolonial trade was hampered by a duty to be levied at the port of shipment. These restrictions were prompted chiefly by the cupidity of the English merchants, who were jealous of the rajjidly increasing commerce of Massachusetts, which, from the energetic character of the people, had become the staple of North America, and by the desire to divert into their own coffers the profits arising out of it. The authority of these laws had never been recognised, and the colonists had protested against them ; it is not surprising, therefore, that they should have been frequently evaded, if not entirely disregarded. Load complaints, full of artful exaggeration, were accordingly made by the English merchants and manufacturers. It was alleged, that " the inhabitants of New England not only traded to most ports of Europe, but encouraged foreigners to go and trafRc with them ; " that " they supplied the other plantations with those fo- reign productions which ought only to be sent to England ; " that " having thus ,made New England the staple of the colonies, the navigation of the kingdom is greatly prejudiced, the national revenues impaired, the people extremely impoverished ; " and that " such abuses, at the same time that they will entirely destroy the trade of England, will leave no sort of dependence towards her on the part of the colonies." The remedy suggested was to establish a royal custom-house, with offices to receive the duties, enforce the loO PEOPLE OF BOSTON ASSERT THEIR RIGHTS. [1G64. provisions of the act, and, sliould they be contumaciously resisted by Massa- chusetts, to refuse Mediterranean passes to her ships, so as to expose them to capture by the Barbary corsairs, while at the same time offenders were to be transmitted to England for trial. This suggestion they followed up by a re- commendation to his Majesty to appoint a governor ; nor was it long before a commissioner was sent over, authorized to administer to the New England governors an oath that they would enforce the provisions of the navigation act. They refused to acquiesce, and came to the memorable decision, upon Avhich the whole dispute with England afterwards turned, that " not being repre- sented in the English parliament, the acts of navigation, passed by that body, were an invasion of their rights and privileges." But having thus saved the vital question of principle, they gave validity to the acts by the exercise of their oivn authority, and appointed a custom-house to receive the duties. The dreaded armament made its appearance at Boston about the close of July, consisting, in fact, of the vessels sent out to take possession of New Netherlands for the Duke of York ; and having on board the commissioners appointed to examine into the alleged grievances, and redress them " according to the royal power, and their own discretion." Their first demand was for a body of soldiers to accompany the expedition, who, however, were so long in being raised, that the ships at length departed -without them. Meanwhile the court at Boston was occupied in making a trifling concession as regards the franchise, to disarm their more active opponents, and in draw- ing up a solemn protest against the authority of the commissioners. In this document they remind the king that, " under a patent granting to them full and absolute power of self-government, and of electing their own magistrates, they had for more than thirty years enjoyed this ' fundamental privi- lege,' without dispute ; that a commission under the great seal, of four per- sons, (one their avowed enemy,) to receive and determine complaints at their discretion, subjects them to the arbitrary poAver of strangers, and will be the subversion of their all." They declare that "if these things go on, they will be either forced to seek new dwellings, or sink under intolerable burdens ; that the king will be a loser of the wonted benefit by customs, and this hope- ful plantation in the end be ruined. That it is a great unhappiness to have no testimony of their loyalty offered but this, to yield up their liberties, which are far dearer than their lives, and which they have willingly ventured their lives, and passed through many deaths, to obtain." Finally, in their accus- tomed phraseology, they remind the monarch " that it was Job's excellency when he sat as king among his peoj^le, that he was ' a father to the poor,' and that they, ' a poor people,' cry unto their lord the king." This character- istic appeal being despatched, they resolutely proceeded to carry its principle into practice by issuing an order to forbid any complaints to the commissioners, or any exercise of their assumed authority. By this time, the latter, having touched at Connecticut, where, as their functions were more welcome and useful, they had been received with greater consideration, returned to Boston with a firm determination to carry out the royal mission. 1GG5.] THE ENGLISH COMMISSIONERS IN BOSTON. 151 Their first proceeding, however harmless, was not calculated to undermine the dogged resolution of the fathers of the theocracy. The commissioners, themselves Episcopalians, and armed with the royal authority in favour of toleration, set u.p and attended the service of the Anglican Church. Each party thus predisposed to regard the otRer with dislike, all accommodation Avas of course impossible. The magistrates and ministers, inflexible in resolution, animated the people by prayer-meetings, and exhortations to stand firm for the heritage given them by God. They felt themselves besides the stronger party, and the commissioners, unsu^^ported as they were by any adequate force, soon found the exercise of their functions to be impracticable, and even ridicu- lous. They made a temporary visit to Plymouth and Rhode Island, where they settled disputed boundaries, and made offers of fresh charters, which, however, were respectfully declined. This contumacy of the authorities at Boston, of which accounts had been transmitted to the English ministry, appeared to them both groundless and unreasonable. They did not consider themselves to be invading the liberties of Massachusetts, nor had their agents attempted any act that in their judg- ment could be thus construed. To them the assertion of the king's preroga- tive and the supreme power of parliament was tacitly involved, if not openly expressed, in all charters granted to colonists. The truth seems to be that this matter was not very clearly defined, and was interpreted by each party in ac- cordance with its own particular views. With Massachusetts it was a ques- tion of principle, although mingled with a feeling of bigotry and intolerance. They had denied to Charles I., and to the parliament, the right to entertain appeals against their local legislation, and the same right they still continued to deny, since their charter, while it gave them unlimited powers of self-govern- ment, made no express provision of the kind. Upon this they accordingly took their stand, and the matter at length came to an issue. The commissioners opened a court to audit complaints against the magistrates ; — they refused to admit its authority. The morning arrived, the plaintiffs appeared, when the magistrates adopted a method of nullifying the proceedings, which curiously recalled the mode of resistance practised by the parliament towards Charles I. They boldly sent forth a herald to proclaim with sound of trumpet, in the name of God and llie king, that no one might abet his Majesty'^ honourable commissioners in the exercise of their illegal authority. Baffled and pro- voked by the cool audacity of the court, the commissioners declared " that they would lose no more of their labours upon them, but would represent their conduct to his Majesty," and, for the second time, retreated from the un- welcome contest, to Gctlle the affliirs of New Hampshire and of Maine. Thither, however, they were followed by the indefatigable court , who forbade the people of New Hampshire to recognise their authority. In Maine they were at first more successful, many appeared disposed to welccmo thoir inter- ference, and they attempted to settle claims and exercise jurisdiction, but as soon as their backs were turned, the Massachusetts magistrates entered the province and promptly put down the disaffected by force of arms. On their return to / 152 COMMISSIONERS RETURN UNSUCCESSFUL. [1GG5. Boston, fresh vexations and indignities Avere in store for the unlucky com missioners. They were accustomed, to quote the amusing version of Hildreth, *' to hold of Saturday nights a social party at a tavern in Ann Street, kept by one Robert Vyal, vintner. This was contrary to the law, which required the strict observance of Saturday night as a part of the Lord's day. A constable went to break them up, but Avas beaten and driven off by Sir Robert Carr and his servant. Mason, another constable, bolder and more zealous, imme- diately proceeded to Vyal's tavern ; but meanwhile the party had adjourned to the house of a merchant over the way. JNIason went in, staff in hand, and reproached them, king's officers as they Avei'e, who ought to set a better ex- ample, for being so uncivil as to beat a constable ; telling them that it was well they had changed their quarters, as otherwise he should have arrested them all. ' What,' said Carr, ' arrest the king's commissioners ! ' ' Yes,' an- swered Mason, 'the king himself, had he been there.' 'Treason! treason!' shouted Maverick ; ' knave, thou shalt presently hang for this ! ' and he called on the company to take notice of the words." " The next day Maverick sent a letter to the governor, accusing the consta- ble of treason. The governor also sent a polite note to Carr, informing him of a complaint for assault and battery lodged against him by the constable he had beaten. What was done in that case does not appear ; but INIason, being bound over to the next court, the grand jury found a bill against him. Ma- verick, however, declined to prosecute, declaring his belief that the man had spoken inconsiderately, intending no harm. The magistrates thought the matter too serious to be dropped in that Avay. They did not choose to es'pose themselves to the charge of Avinking at treason. The matter finally came be- fore the general court, AA'here Mason Avas acquitted of the most serious charge, but was fined for insolence and indiscretion, principally, no doubt, through apprehension, lest some handle might be made of the matter by the commis- sioners." The commissioners, being recalled, soon afterAA^ards xcturned to England, where their reports elicited an order upon Massachusetts to send OA'er Bel- lingham, the governor, and a fcAV others, to ansAver for their defiance of his Majesty's shithority, a summons Avhich created no small excitement. Many thought that the magistrates had carried matters Avith too high a hand, and sent in petitions for their compliance. The court Avas couA^ened ; and after several hours spent in prayer, the matter Avas Avarmly debated — some con- tending that the king's authority Avas paramount ; Avhile others maintained that it could not be admitted Avithout the loss of their liberties, which Avould then be at the mercy of the English court. The arguments of the latter party pre- vailed; and it Avas determined to evade his Majesty's demand, but, if possible, at the same time to conciliate his favour. War had lately broken out between Erance and England ; and Charles had suggested to Massachusetts the con- quest of Canada. From this project they excused themselves, on the ground of distance ; quietly evaded the summons to England, Avith the most profuse expressions of loyalty, and softened their refusal by sending a supply of pro- 1G74.] OROWINa DISCONTENT OF THE INDIANS. 153 visions for the fleet in the West Indies, with a present of masts for the English navy, which, through the neglect and wastefulness of the government, had fallen into a miserable plight. By these tactics they hoped for the present to avert the royal indignation, and circumstances were happily in their favour ; for though the English government was indeed becoming more despotic, and would willingly have punished the contumacy of the Puritans, the corruption of the court paralysed its active energies, while the firm and formidable atti- tude of the colonists imposed respect, and, after a few abortive resolutions, Massachusetts was forgotten amidst the dissipations of the palace, and the more exciting affairs that absorbed the attention of the king and ministry. Scarcely had the colony recovered from this alarm, when it was involved in another and far more formidable peril. With the exception of the Pcquods, whose extermination has been already described, the Indian tribes in the New England territory remained u.ndiminished in numbers, though greatly altered in position, and in the feelings with which they regarded the growing en- croachments of the colonists. Many, indeed, under the benevolent exertions of Eliot and his confederates, had been reclaimed from the v/ild faith of their forefathers, and formed into little communities of so-called " praying Indians " scattered amongst the settlements of their Christian benefactors ; while other small tribes, looking up with awe to the white men, and acquiring a taste for their habits, remained in peaceful and contented dependence upon them. Not so, however, with the Wampanoags or Pokanokets, and their sachem, Philip. His father, Massasoit, has been honourably distinguished for his assistance of the Plymouth settlers in their day of distress, but Avhile he had favoured the white men, he had looked with suspicion upon their attempts to convert his people from their ancient faith, and had endeavoured, but in vain, to obtain from them a promise that such attempts should cease. Since the days when the Pilgrims landed upon the rock of Plymouth, the Indians had been gradually, but con- stantly losing ground. With the thoughtless haste of savages, they had bartered their lands for the first trifle that had attracted their childish cupidity ; in- capable of foresight, they looked not to the hour when, by increasing numbers, their forests should be replaced with fields and houses, until, upon the faith of their own treaties, they should be pushed from the old hunting-grounds of their fathers. Above all, they little dreamed that their lordship of the forest^ their free movements, and their ancient customs, shoukl be curtailed and abridged, that they should find themselves feudal vassals where they were before independent sovereigns, and accustomed to a jurisdiction of others, when traditionary practice had so long sufficed them. — These Lllccr vexations festered in the proud bosom of Philip of Pokanoket, yet he way too well ac- quainted with the formidable power of the colonists to form ar,y deliberate conspiracy against them ; but, as in the Pequod war, circurasLa!i( es trifling in themselves, like a sudden spark lighting upon a p]-cpared trail', kindled the fierce passions that lay suppressed within, and hurried him into a hasty act of revenge, by which the whole of the colonists and Indians were involved in a bloody and desolating struggle. 154 WAE WITH PHILIP OF POKANOEET. [iG75. Philip had been before suspected, though it would appear without reason, of a design against the English, and had been comj^elled by the people of Plymouth to deliver up his fire-arms, to pay a tribute, and acknowledge his submission to the colony. Not improbably he might have given vent to his disgust in vague and passionate threats against the settlers; at all events he was accused by an Indian informer of having formed a conspiracy to de- stroy them. This informer was waylaid and murdered by some of Philip's adherents, who, being taken, were put upon their trial by a half English, half Indian jury, and hanged. Philip hastily retaliated by plundering the near- est settlements, while his people, it is said, to his great regret, murdered several of the inhabitants. Thus committed by an act of hasty passion into open defiance of the English, his pride forbade him to recede, and he found himself embarked in a desperate and hopeless struggle against a superior power. A body of troops from Plymouth and Massachusetts immediately hastened to Mount Hope to punish the aggressions of Philip, but found that he had fled with his Indians, leaving behind him the burned dwellings and mangled bodies of his unhappy victims. The colonists, unable to effect their principal object, sent to the Narragansctts to demand assurance of peace, and the delivery of fugitives. Forced into a reluctant consent, this powerful tribe was for the present compelled to remain passive. In the mean time news came that the fugitive chief had posted himself in a swamp at Pocasset — a body of soldiers repaired thither and surrounded the place to prevent hi| ^scajDC, but soon experienced the harassing perils of an Indian war. Entan^icd in the morass, and fired upon by lurking enemies, whom they were unable to discover, they were compelled to retreat with the loss of sixteen of their number, while Philip, breaking through the toils of his pursuers, escaped to the territory of the Kip- mucks, who had already taken up arms. Passions long pent up in the breasts of the Indians now suddenly broke forth ; Avhich Philip, running from tribe to tribe, inflamed by an appeal to their common grievances and fears, and in a short time, not one of the exposed out-scttlcments on the Connecticut was secure. Panic prevailed throughout the colony. Dismal portents of still heavier calamities were fiincicd in the air and sky ; shadowy troops of careering horses^ Indian scalps, and bows imprinted upon the sun and moon, even the sigh of the wind through the forer.t, and the dismal howling of wolves, terrified the ex- cited imagination of the colonists. The out-settlers fled for security to the the tov/ns, where they spread abroad fearful accounts of the cruel atrocities of the Indians. Nothing but the sins of the community, it was believed, could have brought upon them this alarming visitation, the most innocent amuse- ments appeared in a heinous light, and the magistrates and clergy earnestly commenced tightening those bonds of discipline which of late had been so alarmingly relaxed. Meanwhile the war spread along the whole exposed frontier of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and even of New Hampshire. To form any adequate concep- tion of its horrors, we must previously form to ourselves a correct idea of its 1G75, 70.] GOFFE DEFEATS THE INDIANS A T IIADLEY. 155 theatre. Except in the vicinity of tlie larger towns, the M'hole country was still overspread with a dense forest, the few villages were almost isolated, being connected only by long miles of blind pathway through the tangled woods; and helpless indeed was the position of that solitary settler who had erected his rude hut in the midst of a profound wilderness, and could see no farther around him than the acre or two of ground which he had cleared in the im- pervious forest. On the other hand, every brake and lurking-place was inti- mately known to the Indians, and the most watchfiii suspicion could not foretell the moment of their sudden onslaught. A circumstance which, added fearfully to tlie peril was, that they had gradually come to obtain possession of fire-arms, thus adding modes of destruction which, had been taught them by the white man to those with which they were already familiar. The farmer, if he ventured forth to till the fields, was picked ofi'by some lurking assassin, while the main body of marauders would burst upon his defenceless dwelling, and scalp the helj)less inicint ia the presence of its frenzied mother, or consume them in the flames of their own homestead. Unable to cultivate the fields, the settlers were exposed to famine, while the convoys of provisions sent to their assistance were waylaid and seized, and their escort cut ofi" in ambush. Such was the fate of the brave Lathrop, at the spot which still retains the name of "Bloody Brook." Tlie cavalcade proceeding to church, the marriage pro- cession, if marriage could be thought of in those frightful days, was often interrupted by the sudden death-shot from some invisible enemy. *0n one occasion, at Hadley, while the people were engaged in Divine service, the Indians burst in upon the village, panic and confusion were at their height, when suddenly there appeared a man of very venerable aspect, who rallied the ter- rified inhabitants, formed them into military order, led them to the attack, routed tlie Indians, saved the village, and then disappeared as marvellously as he had come upon the scene. The erccited and grateful inhabitants, unable to discover any trace of their pi'eserver, supjDosed him to be an angel sent from God. It was no angel, but one of Cromwell's generals, old Gofie the regicide, who, comj)elled by the vigilant search made after him by order of the Eng- lish government, to fly from place to place, had espied from an elevated cavern in the neighbourhood the murderous approach of the savages, and hurried down to effect the deliverance of his countrymen. During the leafy summer the Indians, enabled to conceal themselves in every thicket, carried on this harassing warfare to the great disadvantage of the English, who sought in vain to grapple with a foe that, after spreading death and devastation on all sides, vanished into the impenetrable recesses of the woods. But the winter was come, the forests were more open, and a large body of a thousand men having been raised by the united efforts of Plymouth, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, it was determined to strike a decisive blow. The Narragansetts had given shelter to the enemies of the colony, with whom it was resolved to anticipate their junction. After a long march through the snow, and a night spent in the woods, the soldiers approached the strong- hold of the tribe, planted in the midst of a morass accessible only by a X 2 156 THE INDIANS AT LAST OBLIGED TO RETREAT. [1676. narrow and fortified pathway, and crowded with armed Indians. The leaders Avere all shot down as they advanced to the charge ; but this only excited to the highest pitch the desperate determination of the English, who, after having once forced an entrance, and being again repulsed after a fierce struggle protracted for two hours, burst infuriated into the Indian fort. Revenge for the blood of their murdered brethren was alone thought of; mercy Avas im- plored in vain ; the fort Avas fired, and hundreds of Indian Avives and children perished in the midst of the conflagration ; Avhile their jjrovisions gathered to- gether for the long Avinter being consumed, and their Avigwams burned, those Avho escaped fioia iire and sword wandered miserably through the forests to perish Avith cold and hunger. Tiic losses of (r.e English had been severe, but they AA'ere capable of being repaired ; those of the Indians Avere irreparable. Their stores destroyed, their villages burned, and unable to cultivate their lands to obtain a fresh supply, they (;ollected all their energies for one last despairing struggle. Permanently to resist the poAver of their enemies Avas hopeless, but they might inflict upon them a fearful amount of suffering. Accordingly they fell every Avhere Avith fi.-esh fury upon the exposed toAvns, and even approached Avithin. tAventy miles of Boston itself. They had threatened, in the insanity of their hatred, to carry on the Ava,r for many years. But their strength Avas rapidly exhausting itself; stronghold after stronghold fell before the settlers, and by the approach of the ensuing autumn the Indians Avere completely broken, and began to fade aAvay from the presence of their exterminating foe. The Indian leaders, amidst all the disasters of their folloAvers, preserved an inflexible courage. Canonchet, the chief of the Narragansetts, being taken, Avas offered his life if he Avould consent to negociate a peace. He firmly re- fused, and .suffered death Avith stoic resolution. The unhajipy Philip, the author of the war, had foreseen its fatal termination for his OAvn race. Wan- dering from tribe to tribe, assailed by recriminations and reproaches for the misery he had brought upon his brethren, his heart Avas full of the bitterest anguish. Compelled at length to return to his old haunts, Avhere he Avas yet sustained by Witanio, a female chief and relative, he was presently attacked by the English, aa^io carried off his wife and child as captives ; a loss Avhich filled up the measure of his sufterings, and it Avas perliaps a merciful release Avhen, shortly after, he was treacherously shot by one of his oaa'u adherents Avho deserted to uie Eugliyh. Thus perished Philip of Pokanoket, Avho, possessed as he Avas of ail the nobler aualities of the Indian chieftain, Avas Avorthy of a better fate. His child, the last of the princes of his tribe, Avas sold into slavery at Bermuda. * INIeanAvliile the agents aa^io had been sent to England returned, and the ex- treme terms which they were instructed to demand sufficiently indicated the king's intention of subverting the spirit of the charter, or, in default of the consent of the colonists, to cancel it. Church-membership Avas no longer to be the exclusive condition of the freedom of the colony ; a property qualifica- tion Avas to be substituted, an innovation justly deemed no l(;ss than vital. 1679.] LAST RESOURCES OF THE PEOPLE OF BOSTON. 157 Kandolph followed soon after with his commission, which was very contemptu- ously ignored by the magistrates, who ordered the proclamation of his ap- pointment to be torn down. His pertinacious endeavours to carry out his ajjpointment were all in vain, and he went home to England to complain of the contumacy of the colonists, and to return with an order for them to send over two agents empowered to negociate a modification of the charter — a de- licate mission at a very critical period. The arbitrary power of the English government had reached its height, and the complaints of the English mer- chants, and of disaffected persons in the colony itself, afforded a plausible pre- text for its interference. Principle forbade the fathers of the theocracy to flinch, but policy imperiously demanded of them to bend. The agents were sent over, but their powers of treating with the government were most care- fully restricted ; they were to make no concessions vital to the liberties of the commonwealth, but were to use every artifice, and even to condescend to bribery, then universal at ■ the English court, could they but succeed in mi- tigating the hardness of the ministerial demands. All their attempts were unavailing ; the ministry would not accept the offered concessions ; the agents were compelled to f^o back, and Randolph returned in triumph to Boston with a writ of " quo warranto," accompanied by a promise of the royal favour pro- vided the charter was peaceably surrendered by the colonists. Every attempt to avert the catastrophe had been made, and further resist- ance was hopeless. The English cities, even London itself, had been disfran- chised ; the liberties of the mother country lay utterly prostrate. The governor and magistrates were inclined to submission, and proposed to send agents "to receive his Majesty's commands." The qtiestion proposed to the deputies was warmly debated by them, and agitated the entire community. The religious party recalled the fundamental principle upon which the colony had been founded, and under which it had gro-vm iip to its actual state of prosperity. This being to establish a commonwealth for God, to be governed exclusively by his people and for his glory, it was obvious that to surrender it into the hands of unregenerated men — to divorce the civil and religious power — would strike at the very foundation of their Zion, break down the wall of partition between the church and the world, and open their beloved institutions and habits to the inroads of profanity, heresy, and vice. " Their fathers had not bowed the neck to arbitrary tyranny, neither would they betray the sacred cause of Christ, and the civil liberties of their children. They might suffer, but not sin ; their liberties might be wrested from them — they would not surrender them. Submission would be contrary to the unanimous ad- vice of the ministers given after a solemn day of prayer. The ministers of God in New England had more of the spirit of John the Baptist than now, when a storm hath overtaken them, to be reeds shaken with the wind. The priests were to be the first that should set their foot in the waters, and there to stand till the danger be past." AVith arguments at once thus noble in spirit, but faulty in philosophy, did the pious fathers of the theocracy animate the minds of the freemen, who, after a fortnight's discussion, rejected the 158 CHARTER OF MASSACHUSETTS ANNULLED. [1G83. royal mandate, earnestly beseeching, but in vain, the gracious forbearance of his JMajesty. A scire facias was issued in England, the charter declared to be forfeited ; and thus the rights and liberties of Massachusetts, so long and so dearly cherished, lay at the mercy of the English monarch, who was known to meditate the most serious and fundamental innovations, but who died before any of them could be carried into effect. The reign of the last of the Stuarts, no less in America than in England, was a period of arbitrary and illegal encroachment. Scarcely was James II. enabled to turn his attention to the affairs of the American colonies, than he proceeded to carry out his long-cherished design of uniting them under the administration of s. ffovenior-general, who should be a passive instrument in the hands of dc^]J.atisni, and to ei^force upon the unAvilling theocracy of INIas- sachusetts that afor:eral toleration of all religious sects, under cover of which he hoped to advance the interests and insure the final supremacy of the Koman Catholic Church. These designs, although illegally carried out, had yet many important and salutary results. The consolidation of the northern colonies tended to give them the sense of their own power, and to unite them in resisting the encroachments of the French, while the enforcement of toler- ation gave the death-blow to that exclusive system of religious bigotry, the mischievous results of which have been developed in the preceding pages. In tracing the results of this policy it may be well to depart from our usual arrangement, and, in order to insure the unity of the narrative, to glance from one colony to another, placed as they were under one general administra- tion, and subjected to causes which every where produced the same results. Let us first continue our attention to the affairs of Massachusetts. The an- nulling of their charter by the late king, had left the members of the government as well as the whole population in a state of great anxiety. The theocratic leaders who, by their courageous defiance of arbitrary encroachment, had precipitated the catastrophe, found themselves deprived of political power, if not of moral influence. Even the more moderate jJ^i'ty looked forward with great uneasiness to what might befall the colony, now prostrate and helpless at the feet of the throne, and the general alarm was increased by the report that the government of the colony was to be conferred on Colonel Kirk, a man of savage and ferocious temper, who had commanded an English regiment at Tangier in Africa, and who afterwards became infamous for his cruelties on the occasion of Monmouth's rebellion. This report turned out to be un- founded, and .Joseph Dudley, a native of the colony, M'as appointed to a tem- jiorary administration. Dudley was one of the party in favour of the king's prerogative ; he had been colonial agent in England, and disposed to become a complaisant tool in the hands of the power that had appointed him. He presented iiis credentials to the assembly, who, after giving vent to their dis- satisfaction in a protest, were compelled to break up their sittings. Shortly after arrived the new governor. Sir Edmund Andros, fulJy pre- pared and authorized to carry out the system marked out for him by James. He came out in a royal frigate to enforce the navigation acts, and brought 1687.] GOVERNMENT OF SIR EDMUND AND EOS. 159 with hhn two companies of English troops to overawe the stubborn spirits of the colonists. He was empowered to remove and appoint the members of the council at his pleasure, and, with the consent of a body thus under his control, to levy ta.ves, make laws, and call out the militia. His subordinates were entirely devoted to him. Dudley, the late governor, was made chief justice, and Randoljih, that old antagonist of the theocracy, who had spent years of persevering hostility, and put in practice every artifice to hum- ble the pride of his enemies, was appointed as colonial secretary. The press, previously placed under his control, had already been thoroughly gagged ; it Avas now entirely suppressed. / The first rude shock to the feelings >f the majority of the people Avas the demand of a meeting-house, in which to set up the ceremonial of the Estab- lished Church. The proprietors of the building expostulated, the sexton re- fused to toll the bell ; but all was in vain, and the surpliccd clergyman went through the hated ritual, protected by a force against which it was in vain to contend. The dififerent sects which had been so long engaged in a restless struggle for toleration. Baptists, Quakers, and Episcopalians, enjoyed their hour of triumph, but alloyed with the reflection that what should have been granted them as a natural right, was but the result of the designing policy of a hated despot. Having established his government in Massachusetts, Andros now turned his attention to Rhode Island and Connecticut, against which writs of quo ivarranto had been prepared. He summoned the council of the first-mentioned State to give up their charter, and upon their demurring, re- paired thither himself, and at once dissolved the then existing government, appointing an irresponsible commission. In the autumn, protected by a guard, he proceeded to Hartford, and made the same demand of the assembly of Connecticut, who were at that time in session. Treat, the governor, earnestly pleaded with Andros in favour of the beloved charter of their liberties ; the debate, protracted until night, was warmly supported, and the feelings of the people highly excited. The disputed document lay upon the table, on a sud- den the lights were extinguished, and when they were kindled again the charter had disappeared. A faithful citizen had snatched it up and fled with it, concealing it in the hollow of an old oak, till the time of this tyranny should be overpast. Andros declared the charter forfeited, and at the end of the records inscribed the ominous word — FINIS. In the same summary manner had the charters of East and West Jersey been revoked. The assembly of New York had not again been summoned. The king had determined to rule without assemblies. Andros repaired thither to assert his authority and to appoint Nicholson as his deputy. — ^ Over the extensive territory thus subjected to his government, Andros, secure of the sympathy and approval of the king, proceeded to establish a system of grinding despotism, and to pillage the colonists by the imiDosition of fresh fees and taxes. The most notable and shameless expedient was the issuing of " writs of intrusion," as they were called, against great numbers of people, on the ground that their original titles to the land were defective. 160 OLD CUSTOMS OF BOSTON DISCONTINUED. [1G88. and that they must take out fresh ones from his Majesty, for Avhich prepos- terous privilege the most extravagant sums were extorted. Every possible device, in short, was adopted by the agents of the government for swelling their own coifers at the expense of the people. Their emoluments were vastly increased, and fees for the probate of wills multiplied almost twenty-fold. ^V'hile the proj)erty of the colonists was thus scandalously pillaged, the liberties to which they had been so long accustomed were, oiie by one, torn from them, until not even the shadow of self-government was left. The old town meetings, first established by the Plymouth settlers, and the very basis of their polity, were declared illegal, unless for the election of town officers. No person was allowed to leave the colony without a permit. The government openly asserted their intention to subvert the privileges of the people, and to substitute for them the exercise of the royal prerogative alone. They denied that the " Habeas Corpus " act extended to the colonies, and even refused an appeal to the common law of England. They irritated the religious feelings of the bulk of the people, and aroused the animosity of the theocratic clergy, by encouraging Dissenters to refuse the taxes levied by the towns for their support. Oaths were required to be taken by laying the hand on the Bible, a custom deemed superstitious by the Puritans ; and marriages, which were before registered by the civil magistrate, could now be celebrated at Boston only by the Anglican clergy, and according to the ritual of the Prayer Book. Against oppressions so intolerable, and vexations so galling, the proud, stern New Englanders revolted ; and a spirit was gathering, which, though for awhile suppressed, was ready to burst forth into open insurrection. Meanwhile, Increase Mather, one of the principal clergy, fled to England, on the almost hopeless errand of laying before James the grievances and suf- ferings inflicted by his unprincipled agents. The king, whose policy just then was to conciliate the Dissenters, received him civilly, but all his endeavours to procure redress were utterly abortive. But the career of -tjaat infatuated monarch was rapidly hurrying to a close. James had succeeded in alienating every party and every sect in the blind endeavour to build up the Poman Catholics upon the ruins of the Estab- lished Church. His insidious Declaration of Indulgence, ostensibly for the relief of oppressed sectarians, but in reality to advance the interests of his party, enraged the clergy of the Establishment, and alarmed the Dissenters themselves, who made common cause with the former aoainst the encroach- ments of Popery. He had offended the great lords by depriving thcin of their places, because they refused to fill up the subordinate offices with his creatures. His bringing over an Irish army to supply the place of the disaffected Eng- ish soldiers was regarded by the people with disgust and horror. His illegal violation of the privileges of the universities, and his forcing upon them pa- pistical offi;cers, — but, above all, his impeachment of the seven bishops for re- fusing to lend themselves to his arbitrary designs, — had inflamed the popular disaffection to the very highest pitch. On the very day that all London rang with acclamation, and blazed with bonfires and illuminations, at the issue of 1689.] SUCCESSFUL INSURRECTION AGAINST ANDROS. 161 this memorable trial, a messenger had been despatched to "William of Orange, who had long been in treaty with the Whig nobility of England, to entreat him to hasten his arrival. His appearance on the English soil, with a power- ful and veteran army, was the signal for the defection of Churchill with the best part of the troops, and of the flight of the Princess Anne, in com- pany with his artful wife, her friendship for whom exceeded the love she bore to her father. Unmanned by the universal defection, the weak and wretched monarch fled even while the more devoted of his adherents were endeavouring to effect a compromise with the Prince of Orange, but was seized and detained by the populace, and brought back again to his me- tropolis. Not a blow was struck. A second flight of the king's justified the convention parliament, called together by the prince to settle the affairs of the government, in pronouncing the deposition of James, and in offering the crown to the Protestant William of Orange. The intelligence of these events, as welcome as it was surprising to the people, reached Boston on the 4th of April, 1689, and instantly produced a fermenta- tion alarming to those in power. Andros affected to disbelieve the news, and imprisoned those who brought it. But the New England sagacity and spirit Avere fully vigilant and alive. On the 18th, as the commander of the frigate stepped on shore, he was surrounded and made pi'isoner by the popu- lace. The sheriff, who hastened to quell the disturbance, was similarly treat- ed. The whole town was in commotion. The militia gathered together and formed under their old leaders ; the ship's barge was intercepted, as it came off to rescue Andros, who had fled for safety to the fort, against which the guns of'the battery were turned by the people. Andros, obliged to submit, was forthwith conducted to prison. Simon Bradstreet, venerable alike for years and character, and who had already honourably distinguished himself in office, happening to appear at this conjuncture, was pronounced governor by general acclamation. This sudden movement, by which the castle and frigate fell into the hands of the insurgents, was fully sustained by the popu- lation of the surrounding country, who rapidly flocked into Boston to the as- sistance of their brethren in the city. The news flew rapidly to Plymouth, Bhode Island, and Connecticut, where similar insurrections took place. Every where the old charters were brought forth or their authority asserted, and the administration of affiirs for the most part fell, provisionally, into the hands of the former magistrates, until a new arrangement could be entered into with the English government. In New York the news of the English revolution produced also a move- ment, but by no means so unanimous as that of New England, and destined, unhappily, to lead to a tragical result. In that colony, among inhabitants partly English and partly Dutch, and unaccustomed to those popular privi- leges which had fused together all classes in the Ncav England States, the spirit of party and the feelings of caste ran high. The same appointment of Papists to office which had given such bitter offence in England was also practised at New York, where it created even greater excitement, and where 162 LEISLER GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK. [1690. .he most sinister suspicions were entertained of tlie designs of the king. Upon the news of the deposition of James, the populace flew to arms, and sur- rounded the houae of Jacob Leisler, a merchant of Dutch origin, and senior captain of the companies of militia, who was thus induced to put himself at the head of a movement exclusively designed to insure the triumph of Pro- testantism, and of William of Orange. As the militia sided with the people, Leisler had no difficulty in seizing the fort, and in taking possession of the public money. The insurgents put forth a proclamation, in which they avowed that their sole design was to hold possession of the province until the arrival of orders from the Prince of Orange, to which they promised to pay implicit obedience. A committee of safety was organized, who invested Leisler with the provisional administration of the province. An address accompanied by a letter from Leisler were immediately forwarded to the English monarch. This movement of the popular party, together with the prerogatives con- ferred upon their leader, were highly offensive to the council and aristocratic party, who, although they professed loyalty to the new monarch, refused to acknowledge an authority rightly judged by them to be illegal, and by which their own was cast into the shade. Unable, however, to cope with their ad- versaries, they retired to Albany, where they continued their sessions, whilst Nicholson, the deputy of Andros the late governor, took his departure for England. Thus did the colony present the singular spectacle of two factions, alike professing their zealous allegiance to the lawful monarch, and only intent upon humbling each other's pretensions ; and this opportunity was quickly furnished to Leisler, by the arrival, soon after the departure of Nicholson, of letters from the government confirming the latter in his post, and addressed to those who " for the time being hold the administration of affairs." In the absence of Nicholson, Leisler, conceiving that the authority with which he had been invest- ed by the people was valid, assumed the title of lieutenant-governor, and even issued warrants to arrest his opponents, a stretch of authority which inflamed their exasperation to the highest pitch. During their sittings at Albany, they had been threatened with an attack from the Indians, and had demanded succour. Leisler sent to their assistance his son-in-law Milbourne, to whom they refused possession of the fort, upon which he returned to New York. In the mean time 'Leisler continued his preparations for prosecuting the hos- tilities pending with Cixnada. While the colony was thus a prey to internal anarchy, William had confer- red the government of the province upon Colonel Henry Sloughter ; who was accompanied by Captain Ingoldsby, in another vessel, with a troop of soldiers raised for the Canadian war. The ships were separated by a storm, and the captain with his band of soldiers happened to arrive some weeks before the governor. As soon as Ingoldsby had landed he demanded possession of the fort, but as he could show no order either from the king or Sloughter, Leisler refused to give it up to him, although he issued an order that the troops should be quartered in the city, and a proclamation, in which he recognised 1C91.] EXECUTION OF LEISLER AND MILBOURNE. 163 the authority of Slougliter. Meanwhile a new assembly had been convened, who, the opponents of Leisler, inflamed to the utmost the irritation of - Ingoldsby, already galled at the refusal of the fort ; and thus, at the moment when the new governor arrived, he fell into the hands of a faction composed of the bitterest enemies of the unfortunate Leisler, whose conduct was misre- presented as nothing short of factious rebellion against the royal authority. His fate was hurried on with the indecent precipitation of party revenge. Disregarding his offer to surrender the fort, Sloughter ordered that Leisler and his council should be arrested for high treason. A special court of eight persons was packed to try him, and on refusing to plead before so unjust a tribunal, he was pronounced guilty, and sentenced to death, his estate and those of his adherents being also confiscated to the crown. The assembly, then newly convoked, and composed of the party thoroughly subservient to despotic rule, refused to recommend a reprieve, and although the governor desired to await the result of instructions from England, the council urged the instant execu- tion of the prisoners as essential to the safety of the colony. It is even said that the fatal mandate was procured from the heated governor in the midst of a banquet artfidly given for the purpose, and protracted until it was too late to recall it. It was a cold and rainy morning when Leisler and Milbourne were dragged from their weeping families and hurried to the gallows. The populace, with tears and execrations, crowded to its foot to behold the doom of their favourites, and some of their enemies also repaired thither to gratify a hellish vengeance by the sight of their expiring agonies. To one of these Milbourne cried out with the last wild energy of a voice soon to be hushed in the silence of death, — " Robert Livingston, for this I will implead thee at the bar of God ! " The integrity of Leisler was evident in his dying address to the people ; he acknowledged that he might have committed errors, " through ignoi'ance and jealous fear, through rashness and passion, through misinformation and misconstruction," while, together Avith Milbourne, he pro- tested his loyalty with his latest breath, and commended his parting spirit into the hands of God. The people rushed around to procure some memento of his judicial murder, the impression made by it sunk deep into their hearts, and, transmitted to their children, greatly fortified those popular principles, in his zealous assertion of which their unhappy martyr had incautiously over- stepped the doubtful limits of legitimate resistance. ' An appeal to the king was afterwards made by the son of Leisler, and the result sufficiently indicated the opinion entertained of the transaction by the English government. While they admitted that the forms of law had not been broken, they recommended that the estates of the deceased should be restored to their families. At a later period the iniquitous attainder was completely reversed. Y 2 164 EARLY LIFE OF WILLIAM PENK [IG60. CHAPTER XIV. FOUNDATION OF PENNSYLVANIA. — LIFE OF PENN. — GRANT FROM CHARLES II. — ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COLONY. — DISPUTES WITH THE SETTLERS. Whilst, during the reigns of Charles and James II., the northern states were thus oppressed by foreign tyranny or torn by domestic dissensions, another colony had been peacefully planted on the banks of the Delaware, and, undis- turbed by interference from abroad, had grown up with unprecedented rapidity, owing, in a great degree, to the wise and benevolent policy adopted by its founder. This remarkable person was William Penn, the son of Admiral Penn, distinguished during the protectorate of Cromwell by the con- quest of the island of Jamaica, and afterwards by his conduct and courage during the war with Holland, in the reign of Charles II., with whom and his brother, the Duke of Yox'k, he was a great favourite. Young Penn was entered as a gentleman commoner at Oxford at the period when the Quakers, in the midst of abhorrence and persecution from all sects and parties, persisted in the propagation of their offensive tenets. Through the earnestness of one of their itinerant preachers, the son of the courtier became converted to the doctrine of the ISl'ew Light, and it is said, though the truth of the allegation is disputed, even went so far as to drag from the backs of the students their academical vestments, which he regarded as badges of the Popish superstition. Persisting in an enthusiastic advocacy of his new views, he was fined and expelled the university. The exasperated old admiral, his father, at first beat him and turned him out of doors, but afterwards sent him to make the tour of Europe, in the hope that mingling more freely with the great world might effect the cure of his eccentric enthusiasm. His travels undoubtedly tended both to enlarge his mind and to give additional suavity to his manners, and perhaps also to check for a while the revolution which was taking place in his moral nature. On his return to London for the purpose of studying the law at Lincoln's Inn, he was considered quite "a modish fine gentleman." " The glory of the world," he says, " overtook me, and I was even ready to give up myself unto it;" but his deep sense of the vanity of the world, and the " irre- ligiousness of its religions," which the preaching of the itinerant Quaker had produced, were aroused from temporary skimber by his providential en- counter with the same individual on the occasion of a journey to Ireland, and he determined to cast in his lot with the persecuted advocates of brotherly love and impartial toleration. " God in his everlasting kindness," thus he declares, " guided my feet into this path in the flower of my youth, when 16G0-70.] PENN IMPRISONED FOR HIS OPINIONS. 165 about two and twenty years of age." At once he entered upon that career of preaching his beloved doctrines, which in the face of persecution he long continued to follow both at home and abroad. Imprisoned in Ireland, he was only enlarged to be received on his return to England with the animosity of the clergy, the derision of the courtiers, and a fresh ebullition of fury from his indignant father, who, for the second time, expelled him fvom his home. But the spirit of Penn was too high and calm to be intimidated or exasperated. He boldly repaired to court, and while he refused to take off his hat to those in power, pleaded with them the cause of the persecuted sectaries. He Avas a convert of a grade too high, and of an influence too extensive, to be re- jDclled by ordinary penalties : and thus, by the influence of the ecclesiastical authorities, he was committed to the Tower, and menaced with imprisonment for life. The king sent Archbishop Stillingfleet to reason with him, but the apostle of liberty of conscience was not to be convinced by the sophistries of despotism ; menaces and promises were alike employed in vain. " Tell my father," he said, " that my prison shall be my grave before I will budge a jot, for I owe my conscience to no mortal man. I have no need to fear. God will make amends for all." He remained many months in confinement, from which he was at length released through the influence of the Duke of York, the friend of his father the admiral, who, as a brave man himself, could not but feel respect for the unflinching courage of his son. Again taken preaching in the street, he was brought up, under the con- venticle act, to stand his trial at the Old Bailey, where he defended his cause with such energy that the jury, in spite of the intimidation of the judges, declared him innocent. The judge imperiously demanded another verdict of the jurors, while Penn exhorted them to stand up nobly for the liberties of their country. After a- confinement of two days and nights, they still jicrsisted in declaring the prisoner " not guilty." They were fined for their contumacy, while Penn was sent back to prison ; but the moral influence of so noble a stand, at a period of servility and corruption, was at the time in- valuable, and ultimately became irresistible. A^^e cannot follow in detail the incidents of that career, the consistent tenor of which may be inferred from what has been already unfolded. The father of Penn died, fully reconciled to his noble son, whom, on his death-bed, he com- mitted to the protection of the Duke of York, his old and intimate friend, through whose influence he afterwards obtained that grant in America of which a more detailed mention will presently be made. Again imprisoned for several months, he put forth a Plea for Universal Toleration, in which, look- ing through the clouds of hostile factions and religious animosities, by which the prospect around him was darkened, he clearly foresaw the future tri- umph of the principles of religious liberty, and expressed himself, " resolved by patience to outweary persecution, and, by constant sufferings, to obtain a victory more glorious than his adversaries could achieve by their cruelties. ' The accession of James II. to the throne of England worked an entire change in the condition of the Quakers, and of Penn, who had long enjoyed 166 PENN'S INFLUENCE WITH JAMES 11. [1G70-80. his friendship, and had already been indebted to him for many import- ant services. His worth and integrity, together with his well-known prin- ciple of non-resistance, rendered him at once a valuable confidant, and it has been also insinuated, a convenient ally of the new sovereign. His reputation for favour at court, and his benevolent character, caused him to be encircled by a crowd of suppliants, whose suits he not only forwarded to the best of his ability, but the contingent expenses of which he often dis- charged. It is far from improbable, that his good-nature may have been abused by the designing, while his motives were misrepresented by the envious and malicious. The first use made of his influence Avas to procure the liberation of his imprisoned brethren, fourteen hundred of -^hom were at that time languishing in the prisons of England. Can it excite sur^ prise, that when the well-known declaration of indulgence was promulgated by the designing monarch, it should have been well received by Penn and the Quakers ? They had been exposed to the persecution of Episcopalians and Puritans, alike, and the toleration now demanded by James, however intended to cover his own artful designs, was welcomed by them as a boon and a deliverance. It was their hope that what had been introduced, al- though illegally, by James, would be ratified by an act of the parliament. It has been recently insinuated, that bound as he was by gratitude to the monarch, or corrupted by courtly smiles, Penn was henceforth induced to become an agent in promoting the success of his designs against the Pro- testant religion, and upon the liberties of England ; but this accusation appears to be wholly mistaken. That he did not join with the Church and the Dissenters in opposing the projects of James, that he was willing to consent to the toleration of the Catholics, that, grateful to the despotic monarch, he should not have openly sided with his enemies, but continued to be his personal adherent, even after his expulsion from the throne, can scarcely be charged to his discredit. But it is abundantly evident, that far from becoming a willing tool in the hands of the king, he uniformly endea- voured to deter him from those arbitrary and illegal courses Avhicli led to his eventual downfal; and that while he could see no objection to allow the Ca- tholics the same liberty which he demanded for the Quakers, it is undeniable, both from the evidence of Clarendon, and the Dutch ambassador. Van Citters, that he laboured in private to thwart the Jesuitical influence Avhich pre- dominated in James's cabinet. Unhappily, the king was as deaf to Penn's advice, as the parliament and the nation, at that time divided by the spirit of party, were to his plea for universal and impartial toleration. While, therefore, his far-reaching mind looked to future ages for the realization of his hopes as to his native land, he resolved attempting to carry out his noble and pa- cific principles upon the distant shores of the New World, and to set up " an example and standard to the nations." " Tliere Ave may find room, al- though not here!" (thus he writes to a friend,) "for the holy experiment." Penn had taken an early interest in the concerns of America, which had been greatly increased by his transactions Avith the Quakers of Ncav Jersey. His 1G81.] PENNSYLVANIA GRANTED TO PENN. 1G7 father had bequeathed him a cLilm against the government for sixteen thou- sand pounds. As it was ahnost hopeless to expect the liquidation of this debt ■ from an embarrassed and extravagant sovereign, Penn became desirous of ob- taining in lieu of it a grant of American territory ; a wish that his influence with the Duke of York and the leading courtiers at length enabled him to realize. " This day," he observes in a letter dated Jan. 5th, 1681, " after many waitings, watchings, solicitings, and disputes, my country was confirm- ed to me under the great seal of England, with large powers and privi- leges, by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the king gave it in honour of my father. I chose New Wales, being a hilly country, and when the secretary, a Welshman, refused to call it New Wales, I proposed Sylvania, and they added Penn to it, though I much opposed him, and went to the king to have it struck out. He said 'twas past, and he would take it upon him ; nor could twenty guineas move the under secretary to alter the name, for I feared it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a resjiect in the king to my father, as it really was. Thou mayst communicate my grant," he adds, " to my friends, and expect shortly my proposals. 'Tis a dear and just thing, and my God, that has given it me through many difficulties, will, I believe, bless and make it the seed of a nation. I shall have a tender care to the government, that it be well laid at first." The charter thus obtained differed little from that of Lord Baltimore, creat- ing Penn absolute lord and proprietor, with the reservation of allegiance to the crown ; and it invested in him and his heirs the power of making laws Avith " the advice and consent of the freemen," and subject to be annulled by the king and council, if contrary to English legislation. The right of levying duties and taxes was also reserved to the parliament. As there were already within the limits of Penn's grant numerous English, Dutch, and Swedish settlers, he sent out the royal proclamation, constituting him lord proprietor, by the hands of his kinsman, William Markham ; and to engage the good will of these, he tells them " that they are now fixed at the mercy of no governor that comes to make his fortune great, that they shiall be governed by laws of their own making, and live free, and, if they will, a sober and industrious people. I shall not usurp the right of any," he continues, " nor oppress his person. God has furnished me with a better resolution, and has given me his grace to keep it." Markham was also deputed to arrange the question of boundaries with Lord Baltimore. The next measure was to issue proposals for the sale of the lands, which were disposed of at the rate of twenty pounds for every thousand acres, subject to a perpetual quit-rent of one shilling for every hundred acres. A company was formed, and three vessels set sail with a body of emigrants for the shores of the Delaware — carrying out instructions for building the new city, which Penn desired might resemble a green and open country town. For the first time, perhaps, the Indians found themselves addressed in the lan- guage of genuine philanthropy and good will. " The great God," thus he wrote to their sachems, "had been pleased to make him concernedin their part 188 AB RIVAL OF PENN AT HIS COLONY. [1G82. of the world, and the king of the country where he lived had given him a great province therein, but he did not desire to enjoy it without their con- sent ; he was a man of peace, and the peojole whom he sent were of the same disposition, and if any difference should ha23|)eii between them, it might be adjusted by an equal number of men chosen on both sides." What form of government it would be best to adopt, next engaged the anx- ious consideration of the Quaker sovereign. He determined to legislate in the most liberal spirit, " to leave to himself and his successors no power of doing mischief," " that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country — for liberty without obedience is confusion, and obedience without liberty is slavery." The assembly, to consist, first, of all the freemen, af- terwards, of delegates, never more than five hundred nor less than two hun- dred freemen, were to elect a council of seventy-two members, one third to go out and be replaced annually, over whom the proprietor was to preside and enjoy a triple vote. This council was not only invested with the executive power, but was also authorized to prepare bills for presentation to the assembly. In addition, a body of forty fundamental laws was agreed upon by Pcnn and the emigrants. Every preliminary arrangement being concluded, Penn prepared to set sail, accompanied by a hundred settlers, chiefly of his own persuasion. His voyage was long and disastrous ; the small pox broke out on board, and cut off thirty of the passengers. At length the ship entered the broad and majestic Delaware, and came to an anchor at Newcastle. As soon as the news of Penn's arrival was spread abroad, the magistrates and settlers flocked together, to greet him at the court-house ; his title-dee 's were produced ; and he conciliated the assembled multitude with promises of civil and religious freedom. Continuing his ascent of the river, he landed at Chester, where he found a plain, simple, industrious population, composed of Swedish Lutherans and Quakers, who had established themselves in a country Avith Avhich, from the purity of the air and Avater, the freshness and beauty of the landscape, and the rich abundance of all sorts of provisions, he declared, in his enthusiasm, that " Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Avould be Avell contented Avith." Hence his journey up the river is tradition- ally said to have been prosecuted in an open boat, Avhen, in the company of a few friends, he A^sited and marked the spot upon which he determined to found his capital city. At some distance further up the stream, opposite to Burlington, his kinsman INIarkham had already commenced the erection of a mansion-house for his residence. After a visit to Quaker friends in New Jersey and Long Island, and a glance at his friend the Duke's capital of Ncav York, Penn returned to Avatch over the progress of his colonists ; the affairs that required his earliest atten- tion being — to settle the form of government, to arrange the question of boundaries, and to propitiate the lasting amity of the Indian tribes. An assembly of the Avhole body of freemen Avas convened at Chester ; but, as they Avere unaccustomed to the exercise of legislative poAver, they preferred to send their delesjates. This circumstance somcAvhat modified the form of 1682.] THE GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA. 169 both the assembly and the council, the numbers of both being considerably reduced, and the power of the proprietary enlarged, — an alteration made, how- ever, as Penn declared, at the suggestion of the freemen themselves. The three lower countries were now incorporated with Pennsylvania. A code of laws Avas enacted nearly resembling those already agreed upon in England between the emigrants and Penn. Its broad outlines were worthy of his philanthropic professions. Universal toleration was proclaimed, each sect was to support itself. Every freeman had the right of voting and holding office — the only reservation being the necessity of a belief in God and absti- nence from labour on the sabbath. Trial by jury was established. Murder alone was punishable with death. Oaths were abolished. Primogeniture, with a trifling reservation, was abrogated. Marriage was regarded as a civil contract. Two Avise and important provisions, far beyond the legislation of the times, must not be overlooked — every child was to be taught some useful trade, thus tending to prevent future vagabondage and crime, — while the prisons were to be also workhouses, where the offender might be not only punished, but fortified in industrious habits, and reclaimed again to the com- munity. What a contrast to the horrors of those dens of cruelty, indolence, and vice, in the mother country, which the benevolent Howard was the first to expose to the world ! The arrangement of boundaries with Lord Baltimore proved to be more dif- ficult than the work of legislation. ISIany of the charters had been granted in ignorance of the geography of the country, an ambiguity which occasioned serious disputes. Such was partly the case with that of Penn's, who earnestly contended for his desired line of boundary, as being of the last importance to the future welfare of his colonists. " It was not the love of the land, but the water," and the facility of access and harbouring, that induced him to press his claims, and, as Lord Baltimore affirmed, to encroach within the limits of his own grant. Of the merits of this dispute, which is in truth somewhat obscure, different views have, as might naturally have been expected, been taken by different historians. Doubtless both parties believed themselves to be in the right, and although, after a warm and tmsatisfactory debate, the negotiation was for the present broken off, it was afterwards resumed in England with considerable acrimony, and terminated in the assignment to Penn of half the territory between the banks of the Delaware and the Chesapeake. The memorable interview of Penn with the Indians presents a very differ- ent and far more agreeable picture. At Shackamaxon, in the vicinity of his newly-founded capital, and near the margin of the beautiful river, stood an ancient elm tree of huge girth and spreading branches, — a venerable relic of the primeval forest — which remained till the year 1810, when it was blown down durinar a storm. Under its broad shadow were assembled, on the one hand, the grave sachems of the Delaware tribes, arrayed m then- pic- turesquely barbaric costume, and armed with the bow, the club, and the • tomahawk ; on the other, the simple-hearted progenitors of the state of Penn- sylvania, clothed in their ordinary, although quaint, vestments, and showing 170 FBKK'S FRIEXDSHIP WITH THE INDIANS. [1C82, 83. tlieir confidence by coming to the interview entirely unarmed. Spread in the midst were the presents intended for the Indian chieftains. Penn, dis- tinguished from his brethren by a simple sash of blue silk, and holding in his hand the treaty of amity, addressed the sachems, through an interpreter, in a language which appealed to the common feelings of the children of men, whatever may be their colour or their clime. His whole soul spoke out in his Avords. " We meet," said he, " on the common pathway of good faith and good Avill, no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be open- ness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely ; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship between you and me I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts : we are all one flesh and blood." Such an appeal, backed as it was by the evident confidence and sincerity of him who made it, by the absence of even a single weapon of defence, was ncAV to the children of the forest, who had been taught by many an act of hasty revenge, and many a bloody and exterminating encounter, to regard the Avhite men with a deep-seated feeling of suspicion and of hate. It has been argued, and with reason, that the Delawares were a peaceful and a feeble tribe, and that the older States, who had borne the brunt of the first struggle with the Avilder- ness and its tenants, aflbrded a shelter to the newly- founded colony. But in- dependently of this consideration, it cannot be doubted that had a similar policy been adopted and honestly carried out by the predecessors of Penn, much bloodshed might and would have been avoided, and it is certain that Pennsylvania enjoys the honourable and gratifying reflection, that her early settlement was never distracted by murderous conflicts between its founders and the Indians. The desired purchases were peacefully eflected, the vendors religiously kept up the memory of the transaction on pieces of bark and strings of wampum beads, and pledged themselves to remain in friendship Avith Penn and his descendants " Avhile the sun and moon should endure." On the part of Penn and his friends no shoAV of armed force ever provoked the sus- picions or aroused the hostility of the savages, and thus not a drop of Quaker blood Avas ever shed in quarrels AA^th the original possessors of the soil. The good understanding produced by this intervicAV Avas carefully kept up. During his stay in the country Penn often met the Indians in friendly inter- course, reasoned Avith them on matters of religion, and drew forth from amidst their clouded and superstitious apprehensions the admission of the same fundamental truths of the existence of the Great Spirit, and the immortality of man. He partook of their simple fare and mingled in their athletic games. On one occasion, as he himself informed Oldmixon, his familiarity involved him in a dilemma, which he parried Avith his characteristic prudence. Hav- ing visited an Indian sachem, he had retired for the night, when he Avas startled by the entry of the daughter of his host, aa^io, thus instructed by her father, came and placed herself by his side, in compliance Avith certain ideas of hospitality found also among other uncivilized tribes. Shocked and embar- 1G83.] THE FOUNDATION OF PHILADELPHIA. 171 rassecl as he was, Penn wisely refrained from openly rebuking what he kiicw to be intended as a mark of respect, but contented himself with taking no notice whatever of his visitor, till at length she arose and returned to her own couch. During these events, Penn had already laid the foundations of his capital. A spot between the Delaware and the Schuylkill, then occupied by some Swedish settlers, had appeared to him a most favourable site, unsurpassed by any in the old world ; and having purchased the ground of them, he had, proceeded to draw on it the rude outlines of a city, which he called Phila- delphia, in reference to that spirit of brotherly love which is the funda- mental principle of his sect. Its streets still retain the names of the " pine," " chestnut," or " walnut " trees, upon which their direction was marked ; and its open and rectilinear avenues, laid out by Penn himself, its decorous and comfortable aspect, and its remarkable cleanliness, have merited the half- sarcastic, half-laudatory epithet of " the Paradise of Quakei's." Its buildings rapidly increased ; and during the year numerous vessels arrived with a suc- cession of fresh emigrants, many of whom took ujd their temporary abode in sandy caverns by the river's bank, M'hile they erected more permanent habit- ations. In the midst of this scene of activity, Penn convened his newly-cre- ated assembly, and submitted to them the plan of a legislation already agreed upon, with power to alter or amend it at their discretion. The result of the deliberations was a charter of liberties established as legislative council, and a more numerous assembly than the preceding. The laws proposed by the governor and council were to be ratified by the people at large. The go- vernor was, however, to possess a right to negative any proposed law, a re- servation absolutely essential to the maintenance of his rights. This charter was gratefully received, and acknowledged as conceding an unusual degree of popular liberty, which Penn declared his readiness, if called upon, still further to increase. During his stay in the colony Penn resided at the mansion on Pennsbury manor, built by JNIarkham, in a beautiful situation, about twenty miles above Philadelphia, and where he enjoyed the tranquillity and beauty of virgin nature, and the gratification of beholding the unexamj)led increase of his colony. The news of its prosperity had been carried to Europe, and many settlers from Germany and Holland, of whom he had made converts during his tour in those countries, arrived to seek an asylum from the storms of Eu- rope, while numerous Quakers continued to pour in from England. He might well boast that he " had led the greatest colony into America that ever any man did upon a private credit, and the most prosperous beginnings that ever were in it, are to be found among us." Indeed all concurred to promote the rapid settlement of Pennsylvania — the mildness of the climate, the fertility of the soil — the favour of the Indians — the resources of the proprietor — tlie ab- sence of civil or religious dissension. After a considerable stay, Penn prepared for his departure to England, having firmly planted and organized his pro- vince ; leaving the judicial administration in the hands of five judges chosen from the council, to which body was committed the executive functions of the z 2 172 DISPUTES WITH THE SETTLERS. [1G83-88. state. So rapid had been the increase of his colony, that when he quitted it it contained ah-eady twenty settlements, and seven thousand inhabitants, of which two thousand belonged to the city of Philadelphia alone. Nevertheless, although he never despaired that " all things would work to- gether for good," he Avas doomed, daring his absence, to experience no ordinary measure of vexation and disappointment. The same scene of contention was re- newed in Pennsylvania that had so often taken place where distant proprieta- ries claimed privileges which it was almost impossible to maintain, and popular bodies were dissatisfied with the limited authority that they were constantly aiming to enlarge. Disputed questions arose between the governor and coun- cil on one hand, and the popular assembly on the other, in which Penn ne- cessarily became involved. Besides being subject to continual encroachments upon his authority, he might also complain with reason, that the quit-rents to which he looked as a return for his heavy outlays in founding the colony, were appropriated in part to the public service, for which the assembly refused to vote a suitable provision. He was also dissatisfied with the con- duct of the council, which he superseded by five commissioners, charged w^ith executive functions, but soon after sent out Blackwell, an old officer of Cromwell, who sternly insisted upon the maintenance of proprietary rights ; yet to so little purpose, that after another period of dissension, Penn, anxious, to use his own words, " to settle the government so as to please the generality," determined " to throw all into their hands, that they might see the confidence he had in them, and his desire to give them all possible contentment." Thus did the council, at that time entirely popular in its constitution, become in- vested with the chief authority, subject to the sole proviso of a veto on the part of the proprietor. A territorial schism had also taken place. The old settlers on the Delaware became jealous of the newly-created colony, dissensions and quarrels arose, and ended in the establishment of the old states, by Penn's consent, under a separate government of their own, of which Markham became the head. Such was the state of matters in Pennsylvania about the period of the revolution in England. CHAPTER XV. PROGRESS OF NEW FRANCE. — THE JESUITS. — THEIR DISCOVERIES. — DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPFt. EXPEDITION OF LA SALLE. "While thus along the Atlantic seaboard, from INIaine to Florida, a series of co- lonics had been planted and grown up to maturity, without penetrating to the mountains which divide the waters flowing directly into the Atlantic from those 1615.] THE MISSIONARIES OF THE ORDER OF JES US. 173 which pour into the Mississippi, the French, pushing their explorations far be- yond, had navigated the great hikes, descended the mighty river, and established a post at its mouth ; thus girdling the whole of the British colonies with an outer circle of settlements, and, by their claims to the newly-discovered terri- tory, exposing a barrier to the onward progress of the English, whose grants extended westward on a right line from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific Ocean. The principal agents in this work of discovery were the missionaries of the order of Jesus. Upon this celebrated society have been lavished every term of reproach, and, unfortunately, not without too much occasion. All Christen- dom has been embroiled by their intrigues, and they have been expelled with indignation from state after state as enemies of the public peace. Their fundamental maxim, that the end will justify the means, with which their practice too well coincided, has been stigmatized with deserved abhorrence. Their name has become a by-word. Yet, as observed by Macaulay, "good as well as evil was strongly intermixed in their character, and the intermix- ture was the secret of their gigantic power. That power could never have belonged to mere hypocrites. It could never have belonged to rigid moral- ists. It was to be attained only by men sincerely enthusiastic in the pursuit of a great end, and at the same time unscrupulous as to the choice of means." That end, in the purest votaries of the order, Avas the establishment of the Eoman Catholic faith, which they devoutly believed to be the only salvation for the souls of men ; ^^'hile in minds less elevated, the animating motive was rather the temporal influence of the see of Eome, and the extension of their own privileges and possessions. One of the most remarkable traits of the Jesuits was their Avonderful spirit of discipline, and their implicit obedience to the will of their superior. Whether commanded to use every refinement of in- genuity, and descend to every dishonest artifice, to insinuate themselves into the councils of princes and of statesmen, or, with the devotedness of apostles, carry the religion of the cross to distant barbarians among whom their lives would be in continual peril, and where they often had to seal their testimony with their blood, they obeyed with the same unhesitating simplicity. Of the lat- ter class were the men who followed in the track of the first French discoverers. Never was perseverance more indomitable or fortitude more heroic than theirs. Never did lives more ascetic or self-denying, or a more cheerful endurance of tortures and of death, adorn the roll of Catholic or Christian saints and martyrs. Exposed to every hardship and privation, cutofi'in a horrible wilderness from all intercourse with their civilized brethren, they endured their lot without a murmur. Some perished under the tomahawk of the savage, others were burned and tortured at the stake, or, Avandering alone in the trackless forests, experienced the lingering agonies of starvation. But neither peril nor death itself could damp the cheerful ardour of those devoted spirits ; if one fell in the breach, another was ready to fill his place, and to carry on the conflict until the strongholds of superstition and barbarism were won. Their success was commensurate with their indefatigable zeal. It may be urged indeed 174 SUCCESS OF THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES [1634. that their conversions were more apparent than real, that their savage neo- phytes only exchanged one form of superstition for another, that few, if any, comprehended the doctrines to which they gave their assent, and that the missionaries contented themselves with an outward profession of their converts, and dazzling their senses with a display of pompous rites and ceremonies. It was indeed another characteristic of the Jesuits, and another secret of their won- derful influence, that they knew how to adapt themselves to every class of character, and to suit their instructions to the mental calibre and the social condition of 'those with whom they had to deal. They made it their business to civilize, as well as to Christianize, the savage nations to whom they were sent. They winked at rooted habits, which time and culture alone could eradicate ; in fact, they treated their semi-barbarous converts as children who were to be amused and led gradually forward to a knowledge of the truth, to be fed with milk for babes, until able to digest the strong meat suited only for full- grown men. But their influence was invaluable in taming the rude breast of the savage, substituting to some extent the tenderness of Christian charity and the love of settled industry, for the pride of the warrior and the desolat- ing ravages of sanguinary warfare. The peaceful cross with its touching emblems replaced the post covered with human scalps, the humble chapel arose amidst the gloomy depths of the woods, and happy had it been if the political animosities and sectarian jealousies of Europe had never aroused again into fierce activity the ferocious passions which it had been the first and holiest object of these missionaries to allay. It has been stated in one of the earliest chapters, that the Jesuits had fol- lowed in the wake of Cartier and Champlain, the discoverers of Canada and the fovxnders of New France, that they had endeavoured to form a settlement upon Mount Desert Island, and had planted the Catholic religion on the shores of ISIaine. Le Caron, a Franciscan monk, who accompanied Chamjjlain, explored the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and in 1615 advanced as far as the rivers flowing into Lake Huron, where with his companions he established missions among the Huron tribes. These were followed up by Fathers Brebeuf and Daniel, who, guided by a party of Huron Indians, set out for the far-distant wigwams of their tribe. Paddling up the St. Lawrence, they ascended its great tributary, the Ottawa, surmounting its numerous falls and rapids, and by carrying their canoes through tangled pathways in the forest, as do the " voyageurs" of the present day, and enduring every species of hardship, they reached, after a journey of three hundred miles, the shores of Lake Huron, converted one of the leading chiefs, and succeeded in establishing their missions among the rude but impressible savages on its borders. The news of these remarkable successes being trans- mitted to France, created the greatest excitement, and led to the permanent plantation of the Catholic religion in Canada. Wealthy nobles and delicate women devoted themselves to this pious enterprise. A mission college was established, as was soon after a hospital for the benefit of both French and Indians, and a convent of Ursuline nuns. The island of Montreal, first visited 1G42.] ENMITY OF THE FIVE INDIAN NATIONS. 175 by Carticr at the junction of the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, and in the highway to the newly-established missions, solemnly consecrated to the Virgin Mary, grew up into a religious station and became the nucleus of a future city. Fresh bodies of Jesuit missionaries continued to arrive, and emulate the zeal of their predecessors. Among these Raymbault, and his companion Jogues, crossed Lake Huron, and advanced to the vicinity of Lake Superior, conciliating the chieftains of the Indian tribes. Worn out with hardships, Raymbault again reached Quebec, but only to die ; while his companion, de- scending the St. Lawrence with his Huron converts, was beset by a party of the hostile Mohawks, and forced to run the gauntlet between rows of tormentors, his Indian companions perishing in his sight by the tomahawk or the flames. Jogues, being spared, made his way to the Mohawk Valley, where he was hospitably received by the Dutch settlers. Similar sufferings were inflicted upon such of the missionaries as fell into the power of this savage tribe. The same success that had followed the missions to the Hurons, attended those to the tribes in Maine, which, as before said, had at a very early period been visited by the Jesuits ; and thus these indefatigable and devoted missionaries had estab- lished the Catholic religion, and with it the political influence of France, from the northern boundary of New England to the great lakes of the Far West. With one powerful confederacy, however, they were destined to be alto- gether as unfortunate. The Five Nations, comprising the Senecas, Onondagas, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Mohawks, occupied the country intervening between the banks of the St. Lawrence and the Hudson. Against these warlike tribes, soon after his arrival in Canada, Champlain had joined the Algonquins and Hurons in that expedition already mentioned in an early chapter, an impolitic interference, which was punished by these proud warriors with an inveterate hostility to his country and their allies, but yet with which was mingled a superstitious dread of their religion and influence. They menaced the infant settlement of Quebec, and waylaid, as we have seen, the Jesuit missionaries, un- til the French were compelled to sue for peace. Nothing therefore was so much desired as their conversion. During a temporary pacification, Jogues set out again on this perilous mission, from which, as had been his presentiment, he never again returned, being put to death soon after his arrival at the fort of the Mohawks. The flames of war burst forth fiercer than ever, and the scattered missions were the especial objects of Indian vengeance. The missionaries met their fate with the most heroic constancy, Daniel, surprised by a party of the Mohawks, spent his last moments in administering the consolations of religion to his flock, and serenely advanced to meet his infuriated executioners. To Bre- beuf and Lallemand was reserved a more severe ordeal and a more glorious triumph ; they sustained for hours all the refinements of cruelty with a heroism which transcended the vaunted courage of the Indian brave, but they died forgiving, and not cursing, their pitiless tormentors. The Huron settlements were broken up, while the forts and intrenchments of the French hardly pro- tected them against their insulting enemies, and they were driven to implore 176 MARQUETTE REACHES THE MISSISSIPPI. [1GT3. .the succour of the New Englanders, which, however, was not afforded them. At length another truce took place; which was emhraced as an occasion for fresh efforts by the Jesuits to plant the cross among their implacable adversaries, and this time, happily, with somewhat better success. Some Christian Hurons, who had become captives to the Mohawks, paved the way for the reception of Le Moyne, while Mesnard repaired to the Cayugas, and Chaumont and Dablon visited the other tribes. They were enraptured at their first success, but soon discovered that they had but lulled, not tamed, the jjassions of these ferocious warriors, and that their lives hung by a single thread. Some of the French had ventured to follow the missionaries, collisions took place with the Indians, and a third time the war again burst forth. The distress was now so extreme that the Company of New France, reduced to a mere handful, resigned to the king a colony which they were unable to defend, by whom it was trans- ferred to the new West India Company, then forming by Colbert. The l^rotection implored by the Jesuits was immediately afforded, and a French regiment commanded by Tracy, who was appointed viceroy, repaired to Quebec, a measure which at length effectually restrained the persevering hostility of the Five Nations. New missions were now set on foot. In 1665, Claude Allouez explored Lake Superior, fell in with the tribes of the Chippewa and the Sioux, spread- ing every where the dominion of Catholicism and of France ; and while thus engaged, first heard rumours from the Indians of the existence of a Great River of the West. He returned to Quebec, and with Dablon and Marquette, two fresh associates, repaired again to the scene of his former la- bours to found a permanent mission, while at the same time French influence was still to be further extended by envoys from Quebec, a jDlan which proved entirely successful. During the succeeding years, the idea of exploring the Great River was renewed, and Marquette, who had long meditated the enter- prise, accompanied by Joliet, a Quebec trader, with five Frenchmen, and two Al- gonquin guides, ascended on the 10th of June, 1673, to the head of Fox River, and carrying their canoes across the intervening ground which separates the eastern from the western streams, launched them again upon the waters of the Wisconsin, where their Indian conductors, fearful of advancing any farther, left them to the guidance of Providence alone. For seven days they floated down the stream through a wilderness of which the stillness and re- moteness overawed their spirits, when at length, to their inexpressible joy, their tiny canoes emerged upon the mighty waters of the Mississippi, rolling through vast verdant prairies dotted with herds of buffalo, and its banks overhung with primitive forests. With the feelings of men who have discovered a new world, they passed the mouth of many a noble tributary, and landed to visit the astonished Indians upon the shores, who received them with hospitality, and invited them to form a permanent settlement. As they floated on day after day, they were greeted by richer scenery and by a different climate ; they were fanned by the soft breezes and delighted by the luxuriant vegeta- tion of the south ; the sombre pines of the Canadian forests were exchanged 1675.] LA SALLE SETS OUT ON HIS EXPEDITION. Ill for the cotton wood and the pabnetto of the tropics, and they began to suffer from the oppressive heat, and the legions of musquitoes which haunt the swampy borders of the rivers. Passing through the region discovered two centuries before by the ill-fated Soto and his companions, they descended be- low the mouth of the Arkansas, and being satisfied that the Great River must discharge itself into the Gulf of Mexico, and not into the Pacific or the eastern Atlantic, resolved to retrace their course. Slowly paddling against the power- ful current of the Mississippi until they reached the mouth of the Illinois, they ascended to the upper waters of that river, whence they crossed over to Lake Michigan, and after an absence of less than four months, regained the spot from whence they started on their romantic and surprising expedition. The news of this discovery created great and general excitement, but by no one was this felt more than by Robert Cavalier de la Salle, an adventurer of good family, educated by the Jesuits, and afterwards engaged in the fur trade with the Indians, in prosecuting which he had explored Lakes Ontario and Erie. Frontenac, the French governor, had determined to establish a post called after his own name, at that spot where the citadel of Kingston now overlooks, from its bold eminence, the vast expanse of Ontario, and the outlet of the St. Lawrence, studded with its " thousand isles." The energy and ability of La Salle had attracted the notice and won the favour of the new go- vernor ; a brilliant career seemed opened to him ; he repaired to France, and by the assistance of Frontenac, obtained a patent of nobility, an exclusive right of trade with the Iroquois, and an extensive tract of territory in the neigh- bourhood of the fort, on the condition of his keeping it in an effective state. Around this stronghold soon clustered the huts of the Indians and the dwell- ings of the French traders ; their flocks and herds increased apace ; the wil- derness began to smile with corn-covered clearings opened in the forest ; canoes multiplied upon the borders of the lake ; and La Salle, but yester- day a poor adventurer, found himself suddenly invested with all the power and rustic opulence belonging to a feudal sovereign of the wilderness. But his restless and ambitious spirit was excited by the accounts of the discovery of the Great River, to attempt a bolder career of enterprise, and he hurried over to France with the object of proposing to Colbert the colonization of the Mississippi, a commission still further to exj^lore which he soon re- ceived. Accompanied by Tonti, a veteran Italian, as his lieutenant, he re- turned to Frontenac, built a small bark, with which he ascended the Niagara river to the foot of the rapids, below the great fall ; and above them, near the shore of Lake Erie, began the construction of the first rigged vessel that ever sailed upon the western waters. In this little bark of sixty tons, called the Griffin, accompanied by Tonti and a band of missionaries and fur traders. La Salle traversed Lake Erie, and passed through the " Detroit," or strait which separates it from the limpid sheet to which he gave the appropriate name of St. Clair, and sailing across Lake Huron, and by the straits of Mac- kinaw, into Lake Michigan, at length came to an anchor in Green Bay. From this point, after sending back the vessel for fresh supplies. La SaUe 2 A 178 ADVENTURES AND DEATH OF LA SALLE. [1G85. and his associates proceeded In canoes up Lake Michigan to the mouth of the St. Joseph, where the missionary, Allouez, had estabHshed a station, and to which was now added a trading post, called the Fort of the Miamis. Await- ing in vain the return of the " Griffin," which had been wrecked on her Avay back, La Salle and Tonti, with a body of their followers, crossed over to the Illinois river, where, some distance below Peoria, he erected another fort. There were still no tidings of the missing vessel, and to proceed Avithout sup- plies was Impossible ; murmurs arose among his disheartened followers, and detaching Tontin and the Jesuit Hennepin to continue their explorations, and having named his new fort " Crevecoeur," in memory of his deep and bitter vexation, La Salle set out with only three followers, making his way back across the vast wilderness, which spread between him and Frontenac, to ga- ther fresh materials for the prosecution of his enterprise. His agents, mean- while, were engaged in carrying out his instructions. Hennepin explored the ]\Iississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, and returning afterwards to France, published there an account of his travels. Tonti, less fortunate, who had been directed to establish himself among the Illinois, was driven thence by the hostility of the Iroquois, and was obliged to take refuge at Green Bay. Their indefatigable leader at length returned with provisions and reinforce- ments, collected his scattered men, constructed a capacious barge, in which he descended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and building on his way a fort called St. Louis, set up the arms of France, and claimed possession for her of the newly-discovered territory, to which he gave the title of Louisiana. La Salle now returned in triumph to France, with glowing accounts of the rich soil and genial climate of the Mississippi valley. His plans for coloniza- tion were warmly seconded by the ministry, and four vessels, having on board tv\'o hundred and eighty persons, ecclesiastics, soldiers, mechanics, and emi- grants, soon left La Rochelle for the shores of the new settlement. Among this Ill-assorted company arose jealousies and dissensions, which were aggra- vated by a succession of cruel disasters. Unfortunately they sailed past the entrance of the river and landed to the westward, on the coast of Texas, and while La Salle explored the neighbourhood in a vain attempt to discover the object of their research, the store-ship, upon the safety of which the whole enterprise depended, was wrecked, and the number of the unfortunate ad- venturers was rapidly thinned by privation, misery, and exposure, until there remained a mere handful of desperate and disappointed wretches. La Salle alone, amidst the ruin of all his prospects, but lately so proud and flourishing, remained alone undaunted, he determined to traverse again the Immense space that separated him from his feudal domain of Frontenac, and to bring fresh reinforcements to the help of his perishing colony. On this forlorn enterprise he set out, with a band of sixteen men, two of whom, maddened by disap- pointment and suffering, having already picked a quarrel with and killed his nephew, Moranget, who was one of the party, now lay in wait for his own life. As the unhappy man approached them to inquire after his missing relative, the death-shot passed through his own heart, and his unburied corpse was left 1G8G.] THE FIVE NATIONS' TREATY WITH LA BARRE. 179 to be devoured by the wild beasts of the prairie. His murderers, quarrellino- over the spoils of their leader, met themselves with the same retributive fate at the hands of some of their associates, of whom Joutel, the narrator of these dismal events, with no more than five others, made their way to the banks of the Mississippi, where they fell in with two Frenchmen, left there by Tonti, on his return from a vain research after his old confederate. A handful who had been left behind at Fort St. Louis also perished ; and thus, after the most indefatigable efforts, and the most brilliant prospects of success, came to an end the projected colony of La Salle, who bequeathed to his country a claim to another empire, to the moralist another and a mournful instance of the vanity of ambitious designs, and to posterity the imperishable recollection of his gallant though unsuccessful career of enterprise. The affairs of Canada, meanwhile, were far from being in a flourishing con- dition. The Dutch settlers on the Hudson had formed an alliance with the Five Nations, whom the English had been careful to cultivate from religious and commercial jealousy of the French, who resented the encroachment of the English on the fur trade with the North. Dongan, the governor of New York, although charged by James H. to maintain a good feeHng with the French, was guilty of using his influence secretly to inflame the dissensions between them and their enemies. De La Barre, the governor of New France, after convoking an assembly to take into consideration the perilous condition of the province, and after making some abortive attempts at negociation, marched to attack the Iroquois at the head of a considerable force ; but on the way his troops were so reduced and weakened by sickness, arising from the miasma of the marshes and forests, that he was compelled to negociate a humiliating peace with the foes over whom he had anticipated a signal tri- umph. At his desire the chiefs of the Five Nations repaired to his camp, but his endeavour to overawe them was met by a strain of contemptuous invective, which must have sorely galled the military pride of a veteran French com- mander. One of their chieftains addressed to him the following spirited ora- tion, in which he personifies him as Onondio, and the English governor as Corlear. — " Hear, Onondio, I am not asleep, my eyes are open, and the sun which enlightens me discloses to me a great captain who speaks as if he were dreaming. He says, that he only came to smoke the pipe of peace with the Onondagas. But Garrangula says that he sees the contrary, that it was to knock them on the head, if sickness had not weakened the arms of the French. "We carried the English to our lakes to trade with the Utawawas, as the Adir- ondacks brought the French to our forts to carry on a trade which the Eng- lish say is theirs. We are born free ; we neither depend on Onondio nor Corlear. We may go where we please, and buy and sell what we please. If your allies are your slaves, use them as such — command them to receive no other than your people. Hear, Onondio ! — what I say is the voice of all the Five Nations. When they buried the hatchet m the middle of the fort, they planted the tree of peace in the same place, that instead of a retreat for sol- diers, it might be a meeting-place for merchants. Take care that your soldiers 2 ▲ 2 180 COL ONIES A T THE A CCBSSIOX OF WILLIAM III. [1G85. do not choke the tree of peace, and prevent it from covering your country and ours with its branches. I tell you that our warriors shall dance under its leaves, and never dig up the hatchet to cut it down, till their brother Onon- dio or Corlear shall invade the country which the Great Spii'it has given to our ancestors." De la Barre was compelled to submit to a disgraceful treaty, and was soon after superseded by Denonville, who built a fort at Niagara to cover the route to the Lakes, and also as a check upon the incursions of the Iroquois, a mea- sure which still further increased the jealousy of the English. An incursion into the country of the Senecas followed, but though the Indians retired before their pursuers, no permanent impression could be made, and the French were driven to solicit the mediation of the English, at the expense of abandon- ing their fort, and restoring their captives and spoils. Thus was New France almost at its lowest ebb and struggling for mere existence. Possessing a vast ex- panse of country studded with a few feeble settlements and forts, separated by "immense regions of uncleared wilderness, a military government, a feudal proprietary, and no shadow of popular liberty to awaken the spirit of energy or enterprise, nothing could present a more striking contrast to the English colonies, which occupying a smaller but more compact territory, and in- habited by a population who had already acquired the habit of self-govern- ment, who had entirely subjugated or overawed the Indians, and Avhose position on the sea-board had stimulated to commercial enterprise and facili- tated continual immigrations, were rapidly groM'ing up into a powerful and wealthy confederacy. Such was the position of the rival colonies at the period when the accession of William III. involved North America in the hostilities that broke out between France and Enscland. BOOK II. FROM THE FIRST INTERCOLONIAL WAR TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 1688.] AMBITIOUS DEMANDS OF FRANCE. 183 CHAPTEE I. INCIDENXa OF THE FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD INTERCOLONIAL "WARS. — ■WITCHCRAFT DELUSIOX IN NEW ENGLAND. — FOUNDATION OF GEORGIA. In the former portion of our narrative we have recorded the bloody struggles between the settlers and the aborigines, of which every frontier village and lonely farm could tell some dismal story rife with massacre and incendiarism. A darker and more humiliating spectacle now opens before us — revolting to contemplate, but fraught with a weighty and momentous lesson to posterity. "VVe behold two Christian powers, animated by traditional hatred, by com- mercial jealousy, and, more melancholy still, by theological rancour, not only arming against each other's life, but urging on the barbarous savages, whom it was their duty to convert and civilize, to take part in the unnatural strug- gle. The devoted missionary, whom we have so lately admired for his heroic fortitude in planting religion at the peril of his own life among these savage tribes, is now seen blessing his converts, and signing them with the cross as they go forth on their bloody errand : the chivalrous gentleman and soldier, the mirror of politeness and the ornament of courts, encouraging his savage allies ai the stake of the tortured captive. Such are the fearful influences of religious fiinaticism and international antipathy in perverting even the best and bravest of mankind ! The objects sought to be obtained by France were, the maintenance of her supremacy over that vast region, from Acadia to the Mississippi, which had been discovered by the enterprise of her sons, and the monopoly of that fur trade which had there grown up into great importance, and still constitutes a considerable branch of commerce. The " Coureurs des Bois," and " voy- ageurs," a mongrel race, half French, half Indian, with whose picturesque costume every Canadian traveller must have been struck, had already ascend- ed the great western rivers and lakes in their canoes, in the prosecution of this lucrative traffic,' of which Montreal was then, as now, the principal depot. To keep open this important communication they had erected Forts Frontenac and Niagara, to overawe and eventually subdue their inveterate enemies, the Iroquois. In spite of these forts, however, the English had con- trived to penetrate the region, and participate in the profits of the fur trade. The French also desired the exclusive possession of Newfoundland, which from the earliest times of American discovery had been frequented in com- mon by the fishing boats of the European nations, and particularly by those of the New England states, to whom the cod fishery was indeed a prin- 184 MURDER OF WALDRON BY THE INDIANS. [1688. cipal source of wealth. To carry out designs so vast and ambitious, the means of the French were in inverse proportion to the vastness of their territory — their entire population being but a tenth of that of the English colonists bordering upon the frontiers, and but a twentieth of the entire population of English North America. "When to this we add the continued hostility of the Five Nations, an alliance with whom was carefully kept up by the English, nothing but the utmost skill and energy, it was evident, could enable the Cana- dians to stand their ground against such an overwhelming superiority. Urged by these considerations, the French king had made an offer to William III. that his own colonies, and the British, should remain neutral during the war. This however was rejected, and thus the French and English colonies became involved in bloodshed, not by disputes of their own, but by the hos- tilities of their parent states, who infused into them their own political pas- sions and national animosities, which fell unhappily upon a soil already too well prepared to receive them. As soon as war was openly proclaimed, the Baron Castin, whose house had been plundered by Governor Andros, found it an easy task to urge the In- dians of the eastern states to hostilities. At the close of the war with Philip of Pokanoket some thirteen years before, a body of three hundred Indians had been treacherously seized and sold into slavery, after they had agreed to peace. This transaction took place at the house of Major Waldron, at Dover, and a deep scheme was now laid by the Indians to avenge it. The few houses of that village, exposed as they were in the midst of a frontier wilderness to sudden surprise, were surrounded by wooden Avails, the gates through which were sedulously barred and bolted, but, owing to long security, no watch was kept. Suspicions of some sinister proceeding on the part of the Indians had been thrown out to A^'aldron, which however he only derided, merely telling those who suggested them " to go and plant their pumpkins, for he would tell them when the Indians would break out. On the very eve of the attack, being told with uneasiness that the toAvn was full of them, he replied, " that he knew tlie Indians very well, and there was no danger whatever." It was a common practice during times of peace for the Indians, who traded with the inhabitants, to seek for and obtain a night's lodging. On this even- ing two squaws applied for leave to sleep by the hearth, which was readily granted at "VYaldron's and all the other houses save one. When the house- hold was sunk in sleep they arose, unbarred the gates, and giving an appointed signal, the Indians quietly stole in, set a guard at the door, and rushed into an inner room in which the Major slept. The old man, now aged eighty, aroused by the noise, started up, and seizing his sword bravely drove his assailants back through one or two apartments, vintil stunned by a blow from a hatchet, he was secured and dragged out, and seated in an arm-chair upon the hall table. Who shall judge Indians now ? insultingly asked his captors ; and then each man drawing his knife, and scoring deep gashes across his naked breast, exclaimed — " Thus I cross out my account." His person was then cruelly mangled, and as^ sj)ent with agony and loss of blood, he rolled heavily from the 1689.] INSTANCE OF GRATITUDE IN THE INDIANS. 185 table, one of his tormentors held his OAvn sword under him as he fell, which terminated his cruel agonies. They also killed his son-in-law and twenty other persons, set the village on fire, and carried. off a body of prisoners. Even amidst this scene of Indian revenge occurred a singular instance of their gratitude. The very night of the murder, an English woman wae re- turning with her children to the village in a boat, and knocked at Waldron's house for shelter. No ansAver being returned, one -of the party climbed the wall and found that the place h-ad been surprised by the Indians. The poor woman, transfixed with terror, was unable to fly, but desired her children to make their escape ; and at last found strength to crawl into a covert of bushes. In this situation she saw an Indian coming towards her with a pistol, who, struck with her appearance, scanned her still more closely, and then suddenly returned to his comrades. She watched the burning of the village, and waited until the Indians had retired, when at length venturing forth, what was her astonishment to find her own house had been spared amidst the general con- flagration. Upon that seizure of the Indians, which had now been so dearly avenged, she had concealed one of the fugitives in her house, a service which he had promised never to forget. And he was one of that very party who sur- prised the place, and through him she had become known to the greater part of his companions. Some time previously to the outbreak of hostilities between the French and English colonies, the Marquis de Denonville was governor of Canada. His efforts to reduce the Iroquois had been entirely abortive, and by an act of treachery, no less a blunder than a crime, he had inflamed still further their already bitter hostility. He had employed two influential missionaries to induce the principal Iroquois chiefs to agree to a peaceful interview, when he ordered them to be seized and transported to France as galley slaves. The poor missionaries, who had been unwitting agents in this nefarious plot, were exposed to the greatest danger, but the magnanimity of the Indians refused to make the innocent suffer for the guilty. The sachems called the mis- sionary Lamberville into their presence, and after eloquently setting forth their wrongs, addressed him in these words : " Thou art now our enemy, thou and thy race. We have held counsel, and cannot resolve to treat thee as an enemy. We know thy heart had no share in this treason, though thou wast its tool. We are not unjust : we will not punish thee being innocent, and hating the crime as much as we do ourselves. But depart from, among us: there are some who might seek thy blood, and when our young men sing the war song, we may be no longer able to protect thee." They then dismissed him, with guides who conducted him to a place of safety. Hostilities continued with unabated fury, but the handful of French, unable to contend with the hosts of their Indian enemies, were compelled to a humiliating and uncertain peace, and to restore the captives Avhom he had so treacherously entrapped. Such was the posture of affairs when the war commenced between France and England, and a body of twelve hundred Iroquois burst suddenly like a cloud of locusts upon the island of Montreal. 2 B 186 DESTR UCTION OF MONTREAL BY THE INDIANS. [1690. Their first attack was made at La Chine, where they rdassacred two hundred .people, and burned the village ; and thence advancing to Montreal itself, made themselves masters of the forts, and after marking their destructive inroad with fire and blood, at length re-embarked with their canoes laden with plunder, and carrying off" two hundred captives. In the panic of the moment Forts Niagara and Frontenac were abandoned and razed, and the western lakes were entirely abandon-ed to the Iroquois and their allies. At this critical period Denonville was recalled, and Count Frontenac re- turned from France with the reappointment of Governor, and considerable reinforcements and supplies, together with the Indians who had been so trea- cherously seized by his predecessor, whose good-will he had acquired, and through whose infiuence he hoped to obtain a favourable negotiation with their brethren. His measures savoured rather of the vigour and elasticity of youth, than of a man nearly seventy, and he alarmed the English by a plan for invading New York by land and sea. Finding Montreal in ashes upon his arrival, and the power of the Iroquois, instigated and supported by the English, in the ascendant, he promptly determined upon a bold though cruel diversion of the war into the enemy's country, and forthwith organized three separate expeditions to penetrate and ravage the English territory at as many difierent points. The first expedition, against Schenectady, started from Cagnawaga, nearly opposite to Montreal. It numbered one hundred and ten men, consisting of a body of Frenchmen with a number of Mohawk Indians who had been converted by the Jesuits, and who, as being acquainted with the Dutch settlements, were now sent forth under their auspices, as guides and agents in the work of de- struction. The party was commanded by French officers. They set out in tne depth of winter, to penetrate the long and dreary wilderness intervening between them and their destined victims, toiling through the heavy snows in which the forests were buried, wading through icy streams, and enduring every hardship for two and twenty days, until they reached the vicinity of the Mohawk valley. Spies were now sent forward to reconnoitre the devoted village, who returned in safety, and after an harangue from their chiefs urging them to a deep vengeance upon " the enemies of God," for the wrongs they had suffered from the English and their allies, nursing their fell purpose, they awaited the approach of darkness. Schenectady was then a small village, in form an oblong square, surrounded by a stockade and entered by two gates. Their distance from the French fron- tier, and the severity of the season, had lulled the svispicion of the inhabitants, and they were buried in the sweet and deep sleep of a winter's night, when the horrid war-whoop of their enemies thrilled through every heart. It was too late to think of concerted resistance. The French and Indians had stolen into the town in several bodies, the door of every dwelling was instantly be- set and burst open, and amidst the shrieks of women and children every atrocity was perpetrated that the vengeful cruelty of the Indian savage could suggest. Men, women, and children fell under the tomahawk in a promis- 1690.] CRUELTIES OF THE VICTORIOUS INDIANS. 187 cuous massacre, the village was set on fire, and by the flames of their own homes, a small body of miserable half-naked fugitives hurried away, in the midst of a driving snow-storm, to Albany, spreading terror and confusion among the exposed frontiers of New York. Another party, led by Hertel de Rouville, consisting of but fifty men, made their way by the St. Francis and the Connecticut valley to Salmon Falls in the Piscataqua, which they surprised and burned, killing most of the male inha- bitants, and driving before them into the wilderness a crowd of unhappy pri- soners. Wretched women, dropping from fatigue, had their sufferings ended by the tomahawk ; while others, still more miserable, saw their children mur- dered before their face. — But who save a mother can tell a mother's sufferings ? Let one dark page from the journal of a captive suffice to show the unutterable miseries of this border warfare. " The Indians," says this poor woman, " when they had flogger' me away along with them, took my oldest boy, a lad of about five years of age, along with them, for he was still at the door by my side. My middle little boy, who was about three years of age, had by this time obtained a situation by the fire in the house, and was crying bitterly to me not to go, and making bitter com- plaints of the depredations of the savages. " But these monsters were not willing to let the child remain behind them; they took him by the hand to drag him along with them, but he was so very unwilling to go, and made such a noise by crying, that they took him up by the feet, and dashed his brains out against the threshold of the door. They then scalped and stabbed him, and left him for dead. When I witnessed this inhuman butchery of my own child, I gave a most indescribable and terrific scream, and felt a dimness come over my eyes next to blindness, and my senses were nearly gone. The savage then gave me a blow across my head and face, and brought me to my sight and recollection again. During the whole of this agonizing scene, I kept my infant in my arms. " As soon as their murder was effected, they marched me along to the top of the bank. Here I beheld another hard scene, for as soon as we had landed, my little boy, who was still mourning and lamenting about his little brother, and who complained that he was injured by the fall in descending the bank, was murdered. " One of the Indians ordered me along, probably that I should not see the horrid deed about to be perpetrated. The other then took his tomahawk from his side, and with this instrument of death killed and scalped Mm. When I beheld this second scene of inhuman butchery, I fell to the ground senseless, with my infant in my arms, it being under, and its little hands in the hair of my head. How long I remained in this state of insensibility, I know not. " The first thing I remember was my raising my head from the ground, and my feeling myself exceedingly overcome with sleep. I cast my eyes around, and saw the scalp of my dear little boy, fresh bleeding from his head, in the hand of one of the savages, and sunk down to the earth again, upon 2 B 2 188 THE ENGLISH COL ONIES OPP OSE THE FRENCH. [1 G90. my infant cliild. The first thing I remember after witnessing this spectacle of woe, was the severe blows I was receiving from the hands of the savages, though at this time I was unconscious of the injury I was sustaining. After a severe castigation, they assisted me in getting up, and supported me when up. " In the morning one of them left us, to watch the trail or path we had come, to see if any white people were pursuing us. During the absence of the Indian who was the one that claimed me, the other, who remained with me, and who was the murderer of my last boy, took from his bosom his scalp and prepared a hoop, and stretched the scalp upon it. Those mothers who have not seen the like done by one of the scalps of their own children, (and few, if any, ever had so much misery to endure,) will be able to form but faint ideas of the feelings which then harrowed up my soul ! " Such are the horrors of a successful foray ! Hertel, having entirely carried out his work of destruction, soon after fell in with a third party of his con- federates, in concert with whom he made an attack on Casco, the garrison of which were obliged to surrender as prisoners of war. These daring and successful inroads led the English colonies for the first time to summon a congress, and concert a plan of offensive operations. Massachu- setts, the nearest to the scene of action, issued circulars to all the other States as far as Maryland, inviting them to send deputies to New York, then under the provisional government of the unfortunate Leisler. At this congress two plans were formed for the invasion of Canada. The first was originated by the successes of Sir William Phipps, a native of Pemaquid, who by his enter- prise and good fortune had obtained, together with considerable wealth, the honour of knighthood from King James II. At the outbreak of hostilities he had invaded the French province of Acadia with a small fleet, and made him- self master of Port Royal, which, as already narrated, had been discovered and founded by Poutrincourt. He was now invested with the command of a squadron of thirty-two vessels and two thousand men, destined for the reduc- tion of Quebec, while Winthrop, son of the late governor of Connecticut, was to advance on Montreal by land. Both operations were destined to prove entirely abortive. The land forces, divided into three bodies, were all defeated in detail by Frontenac. Scarcely had he repulsed this formidable attack, than he received the information, brought across the wilderness by an Indian runner, of the meditated attack upon Quebec, and with surprising energy reached that stronghold just three days before the fleet, under Phipps, which had been nine weeks on the difli- cult and dangerous passage, made its appearance before the walls. He had calculated on surprising the place, and found it, almost impregnable by nature, already placed in a posture of defence by the vigour and activity of the veteran Frenchman, Chagrined as he was, he determined to put a bold front upon the business, and imperiously summoned Frontenac to surrender in the name of King William of England, demanding his positive answer within an hour. The British officer who bore the summons was ushered blind- fold into the presence of Frontenac and his fellow nobles in the council-room 1690.] SIR WILLIAM P HIP PS FAILS IN TAKING Q UEBEC, 189 of the "castle of Quebec. Read your message, said the old Irencliman. Having obeyed, the Englishman laid his watch on the table with these words — " It is now ten : I await your answer for an hour." The council started from their seats in wrath, while the old nobleman, scarcely able to speak for the indignation that choked him, replied, I do not acknowledge King William, and I well know that the Prince of Orange is an usurper, who has violated the more sacred rights of blood and religion. — The British officer requested that this answer should be put in writing. — " I will answer your master at the can- non's mouth," replied the irritated Frenchman, " that he may learn that a man of my rank is not to be summoned in this manner." The veteran commandant proved as good as his Avord, and galLantly repulsed the repeated and daring attacks of Phipps, who was at length compelled to retire with shame and dis- appointment ; and after losing several of his ships among the dangerous shoals of the St. Lawrence, arrived at Boston with his damaged fleet. On his arrival the treasury was empty, and as the troops threatened a riot, the colonial govern- ment found it necessary to meet the emergency by issuing the first paper money ever used in America. Frontenac wrote home to France in triumph, and to commemorate his brave defence of Canada, the king ordered a medal to be struck with this inscription : " Francia in novo orbe victrix : Kebeca Liberata. — A. D. M.D.c.x.c," while a church was built in the loAver town, and dedicated to " Notre Dame de la Victoire." Shortly after, a French fleet retook Port Royal, and thus regained possession of Acadia. While the New England colonies were involved in this desolating struggle, they were at the same time convulsed with internal miseries. The belief in witchcraft was at that time almost universal in England, and is by no means extinct there even in the present day, as any one knows who has penetrated the remoter nooks and corners of the island, into which the progress of edu- cation is slow to make its way. This infernal art was rendered a capital offence, particularly by a statute of James I., who had himself written a treatise on the art of detecting witches. During the Long Parliament a vast number of per- sons fell victims to the popular delusion. Shortly after the restoration Sir Matthew Hale, revered no less in the colonies than the mother country for piety and wisdom., had adjudged to death two poor old women in Suffolk, for this imaginary crime. Witch stories and printed narratives were universally current. It cannot excite surprise then that a people like that of New Eng- land, whose temperament was naturally serious, to whom every incident of life "was a special providence, and who were filled with an undoubting faith in every letter of Scripture, should have been predisposed to enter deeply into so congenial an illusion. For some years previously instances of supposed witchcraft had occurred, and one or two persons had been executed. For nearly thirty years, however, no one had suffered death, when in 1685 the excitement was suddenly re- vived by a very circumstantial account of all the previous cases. In 1687, four of the children of Jghn Goodwin, a grave man and a good liver, to the great consternation of the neighbourhood, became suddenly bewitched. The 190 WITCHCRAFT IN NEW ENGLAND. [1688. eldest had accused a laundress of stealing the family linen ; her mother, a ■wild Irishwoman, resented the accusation ; and thereupon the girl with her sisters fell into fits, purred like cats, affected to be deaf and blind, made strange contortions, and uttered fearful screams. "Whether the imagination of these children had been affected by hearing of diabolical possession, or whether they were guilty of a wilful fraud, has been disputed ; we are inclined to lean to the former supposition. Cotton Mather, one of the leading ministers, a learned and good man, but of fanatical temperament, a narrow understanding, and immeasurable vanity, went to prayer with others of his brethren by their side, when they became deaf and blind, and unable to read the Assembly's Cate- chism and Cotton's Milk for Babes, but could read the Oxford Jests, popish and quaker books, and the Common Prayer, without difficulty. By the strenuous efforts of the clergymen, the youngest child was at length delivered, but the rest persevering in their delusion or hypocrisy, the old Irishwoman was appre- hended on the charge of bewitching them. Terrified and bewildered, the poor creature gave such incoherent replies that many deemed her " crazed in her intellectuals," yet as the physicians declared her to be " compos mentis," she was speedily condemned and executed. Cotton Mather now took home the eldest girl to his house, where she continued to exhibit the same extraordinary phenomena, which the credulous minister set himself seriously to study, and then put forth a sermon and narrative under the title of " Memorable Provi- dences relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions." The times, in his idea, were evil, and there was a tendency in many minds to recoil from the ultra rigour of faith and practice into the opposite extreme. " There are multitudes of Sadducees," complains the preface, "in our days, and we shall come, in the opinion of these mighty acute philosophers, to credit nothing but what we can see and feel. How much this fond opinion hath gotten ground in this debauched age is awfully ob- servable. God is therefore pleased, besides his witness borne to this truth in sacred writ, to suffer devils to do such things in the world, as shall stop the mouths of gainsayers and extort a confession from them." And as Mather came forward to throw down the gauntlet to the sceptics, not only as a minister of God, but also an eye-witness of the facts narrated, he declared that he should henceforth consider the " denial of devils, or of witches," as proofs of " ignor- ance, incivility, and dishonest impudence" in any who should be so hardy as to venture it. The bewitched girls at length became restored, and made a public profes- sion of religion on the ground of the trials they had endured ; and we are assured by Hutchinson, who knew one of them many years afterwards, that she never uttered any acknowledgment of fraud in the transaction. Cotton's book made a great noise, being reprinted in England, with a preface by Kichard Baxter, who affirmed that " the evidence was so convincing, he must be a very obstinate Sadducee who would not believe it." Thus a popular infatuation, which might have died away of itself, was, by the fanatical zeal of the ministers, kept alive, and ultimately inflamed to a fearful pitch. Pour years after, a similar scene was renewed in the family of Parris, the 1G92.] THE MINISTERS ADD TO THE EXCITEMENT. 191 minister of Salem, wliose church, as it seems, was at the time rent by bitter disputes. Some of his children exhibited the same symptoms ; and Tituba, an old Indian servant, who had used some superstitious rites to discover the witch, was herself accused by the children, and being well scourged by her master, confessed herself the guilty agent. A fast day was appointed by the neigh- bouring ministers, among whom appeared Cotton Mather, glorying in the con- firmation of his previous statements. The excitement rapidly spread — the girls accused others — the ministers implicitly received their statements. The divisions among the people, if indeed they did not prompt to accusations wilfully false, at least facilitated the belief of them. Parris selected for his Sunday's text the words, " Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" At this a sister of Sarah Cloyce, one of the accused, being of- fended, rose up and left the place, and was herself immediately denounced and. sent to prison as an accomplice. The matter had now grown to such a height, that the magistrates, headed by the deputy governor of the state, held a judicial court in the meeting-house of Salem. Parris, and a fellow-clergyman, Noyes, were active in discovering the witches and suggesting fresh accusations. The afflicted were placed on one hand, and the accused on the other, the latter being held by the arms lest they should inflict torment on the former, Avho declared themselves haunted by their sj^ectres, and solicited to subscribe a covenant with the devil, and on their refusal pricked and injured. The husband of Elizabeth Procter, one of the accused, having boldly accompanied her into court, the possessed cried out upon him also. There is goodman Procter going to take up Mrs. Pope's feet, cries one of them, and her feet are immediately taken up. He is going to Mrs. Pope, cries another, and straightway Mrs. Pope falls into fits. One Bishop, a farmer, had brought round a possessed servant by the application of a horsewhip, and had rashly hinted that he could with the like remedy cure the whole company of the afflicted. For this indecent scoffing he soon found himself in prison. Between fanaticism and terror the minds of the accused became unhinged; many, staggered by the results ascribed to their agency, for a while believed themselves to be what they were called ; and others, finding no safety but in confession, gave fraudulent and circumstantial narratives of interviews with the devil, and of riding throvigh the air on a broomstick ; and these confessions, reacting upon minds already fully per- suaded of the reality of the crime, tended to fortify them still further in their delusion, and to give birth to a still widening circle of accusations and con- fessions. Nearly a hundred persons were already thrown into pjison, and the excitement Avas still rapidly on the increase. It was at this crisis that Sir William Phipps arrived from England with the new charter. He had been a parishioner of Cotton Mather's, and owed his appointment as governor to the favour of Increase Mather, his father, who had been allowed to nominate the officers for the crown. Under such influ- ence, as may be supposed, the new governor, far from taking steps to coun- teract the delusion, and secure an impartial and searching examination, first 192 THE EXECUTION OF GEORGE BURROWS. [1G92. put tlie prisoners In irons, and organized a special court for their trial at Salem, over which presided Stoughton, the lieutenant-governor, a man fully partaking in the popular infatuation. The work was hurried on as vigor- ously as the ministers could have desired, several old women, and others, upon evidence no better than has been cited, being forthwith condemned and hanged. Of these, all died solemnly persisting in their innocence. One woman, Rebecca Nurse, had been declared innocent, but her accuser had cried out at this acquittal. Parris, who had made up his mind as to her guilt, preached and prayed against her, until a fresh verdict was ob- tained; and after being led in chains to the meeting-house, and formally excom- municated, she was hanged with the others. Some few spirits dared to resist the general delusion, and hurl back defiance into the teeth of their accusers. You are a witch, you know you are, said the minister Noyes to Sarah Good. You are a liar, she retorted, and if you take my life, God will give you blood to drink. One wretched man, refusing to plead at all, was pressed to death for his contumacy. But the greater part sought safety in confession, or even in accusing others. Wives denounced their husbands — children their j)arents. The public mind was utterly demoralized with terror. One of the most remarkable victims was George Burrows, himself a minister, but who had for some reason become unpopular both with his flock and his fellow-ministers, whose convictions he had outraged, and whose self-conceit he had wounded, by declaring his entire disbelief even of the possibility of the crime for which they were putting so many to death. Among other things, he Avas accused of displaying preternatural strength — of course through the assist- ance of the devil. He staggered, however, the more reasonable portion of the crowd present at his execution, by solemnly and fervently rej^eating the Lord's Prayer, which it was supposed no wizard could do. The tears of the sjdcc- tators began to flow, and they gave signs of rising to stop the execution, but the dangerous sympathy was arrested by Cotton Mather, who, riding to and fro, carefully reminded them that Burrows had never been properly ordained, and that to deceive the unwary, Satan often put on the appearance of the children of light. Twenty persons had already been executed, others were under sen- tence, and the prisons were full, when the court adjourned until November. Mather proceeded to improve the interval by publishing his " Wonders of the Invisible World ; " in which, although he suggests caution in the dis- crimination of evidence, he glories in the good work which he had been mainly instrumental in promoting, and evidently anticipated its full and satis- factory completion. Here, however, he was destined to be most bitterly mor- tified. A reaction soon after commenced, the circle of accusations had become too sweeping, even ministers and persons in power were not safe, dark hints having been thrown out even against the governor's wife, and one of the first magistrates compelled to fly. Moreover the interval had given time for men's minds to recover some degree of sanity, and to combine for the general safety. Many who had confessed now boldly recanted. Having been 1692, 93.] END OF THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION. 193 suddenly seized as prisoners, as tliey declared, and "by reason of tlie suiden surprisal amazed and affrighted out of their reason, and exhorted by their nearest relatives to confess, as the only means of saving their lives, they were thus persuaded into compliance. And indeed the confession was no other than what was suggested to them by some gentlemen, who, telling them that they were witches and that they knew they were so, made them think it was so ; and their understandings, their reason, their faculties, almost gone, they were incapable of judging of their condition ; and being moreover prevented by hard measures from making their defence, they confessed to any thing and every thing required of them." The scales began to fall from the eyes of a deluded people. Remonstrances now poured in against condemning persons of exemplary lives upon the idle accusations of children ; the evident partiality of the judges, their cruel methods of compelling confessions, their total disre- gard of recantations however sincere, at length appeared in their true light. On the opening of the next court, the grand jury dismissed the greater part of the cases, and those who had already been sentenced to death were re- prieved, and ultimately released. Mather was utterly astonished and con- founded at this so unlooked-for result, and while, in order to meet the altered state of public feeling, in his " Cases of Conscience concerning Witchcraft," he admitted that " the most critical and exquisite caution " was required in discriminating the genuine offenders, inasmuch as the devil might assume the appeai'ance of an innocent person ; yet he stoutly contended for the reality of the crime, and the justice which had been dealt both to those who were really guilty, and also those who, by confessing falsely, had only got Avhat they de- served. He strove hard to discover fresh cases, but received a mortifying check by the publications of one Robert Calef, " a coal sent from hell to blacken him, a malignant, calumnious, and reproachful man," whose stubborn common sense persisted in denying the existence of the crime; he even invited reports of " apparitions, possessions, enchantments, and all extraordinary things." But, alas ! the excitement was over, the " spirits came not at his call," and staggered by the want of answer to his earnest prayers, his OAvn mind was in some danger of realizing that reaction which had taken place in others, and he feelingly bewails "his temptations to atheism, and to the abandonment of all religion as a mere delusion." Meanwhile the frontier warfare continued with unabated cruelty on both sides. In retaliation for Indian incursions. Colonel Church ravaged one of their settlements on the Androscoggen, and made an indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children. Every farm was a fortress, for every forest bore a lurking enemy. Men became cruel in self-defence, and even the temper of woman, tortured from its natural bias by witnessing such unnatural horrors, became tinged with a savage and gloomy heroism. On March 15, 1697, the savages burst xipon Haverhill, destroying all before them. One Dustan, the father of eight young children, caught the alarm, and flew from his la- bours to save them and their mother, who had lain in but a few days, and with her nurse was at that moment within doors. Hurrying away his unpro- 2 c 194 DUN8TAN'8 WIFE ESCAPES FROM THE INDIANS. [1697. tected children, with directions to hasten to a fortified house, he rode towards his home, but before he could gain the threshold, a sudden rush of the In- dians compelled him to fly, and leave his wife at their mercy. In this state of distraction he flew after his children, resolving to save, to use the language of the narrative, " that which in his extremity he should find his affections to pitch most upon, and leave the rest unto the care of the Divine providence." But when he overtook his terrified babes, clinging to him for succour, he felt that to die with all of them were better than escape with one alon?, and placing them before him, he continued to cover their retreat and fire upon his pursuers, until happily he succeeded in making good his escape to a place of safety. " But his house," says the old account, "must in the mean time have more dismal tragedies acted in it." The nurse, trying to escape with the new-born infant, fell into the hands of the savages, who, rushing into the house, bade the mother arise instantly, while they plundered the house and afterwards set it on fire. They then hurried her away before them, together with a number of other captives, but ere they had gone many steps, dashed out the brains of the infant against a tree. The mother's heart would have sunk, but she thought of her surviving children, and summoned up strength to march before the savages towards the Canadian frontier. She saw her companions, as they sunk one by one with exhaustion, brained by the tomahawk of the savages, and their scalps taken as trophies to the Christian governor of Canada. After sojourning, in prayerfulness and anguish of spirit, with the Indian family to which she was allotted, she pursued with them her onward course towards an Indian rendezvous, where, as she was jestingly told, she would have to run the gauntlet through a row of savage tormentors. When they marked the dejec- tion of her spirits they would say to her, " What need you trouble yourself? If your God will have you delivered, you will be so ! " A desperate resolution took possession of her mind — might she not lawfully slay the murderers of her babe, effect thus her own deliverance, and rejoin her husband and chil- dren, if haply they were yet alive ? One night, on an island in the IVIerrimac, a little before daybreak, w^hile the Indians were heavy with sleep, she en- couraged the nurse, and a captive lad who accompanied her, to nerve them- selves to the work of retribution. There was but one fear, lest the softness of their sex should overcome them at the decisive moment, and they should only wound, not kill the Indians. But they had already been familiar with the sight of blood, and knew that their own lives depended upon their success. They armed themselves with tomahawks, and struck, with convulsive energy, blow upon blow, until of the twelve sleepers ten lay dead at their feet, only one squaw, already wounded, and a boy escaping into the forest. They then took the scalps of the ten Indians whom they had slain, threw themselves into a canoe, and descended the stream to the English settlements, where they were received and honoured with the honour due to weak women > who in these fearful times knew how to rise superior to the natural infirmity of their sex. 1707.] THE SECOND INTERCOLONIAL WAR. 195 "With marvellous energy, but witli varying success, Frontenac still continued to struggle against the Iroquois. Although now seventy-four years old, he personally conducted an expedition, and carried the wars into the territory of the Onondagas and Oneidas, cutting up their corn and burning their villages. It was a melancholy spectacle to see a man of noble descent, and of heroic spirit, himself tottering on the brink of the grave, giving his sanction to torture an Indian prisoner, as aged as himself, with all the refinements of savage cruelty ! " A most singular spectacle indeed it was," says the missionary Charlevoix, (whose moral sense seems to have been blinded to the sense of these and other atrocities, Avhen perpetrated in the interest of his own party,) *'to see upwards of four hundred tormentors raging about a decrepit old mah, from whom, by all their tortures, they could not extract a single groan, and who, as long as he lived, did not cease to reproach them with being slaves of the French, of whom he afiected to speak with the utmost disdain. On re- ceiving at last his death-stroke, he exclaimed, " Why shorten my life, better improve this opportunity of learning how to die like a man ! " This first intercolonial war, a desultory and savage struggle, which left matters pretty much as they were, was at length brought to a close in 169T, by the Peace of Kyswick. The temporary repose of North America from the horrors of an inter- colonial warfare, originating in the rivalries of European powers, was soon again disturbed by the war of the Spanish succession, in which William 111. and Queen Anne were opposed to the French and Spaniards. Hostilities first broke out in South Carolina, where Moore, the governor, who strove to enrich himself by kidnapping Indians to sell them for slaves, animated by this motive, and the hope of plunder, assaulted the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine, where, since the foundation of this ancient town by Melandez, the Spaniards had made but little progress in the work of colonizing the country. Moore easily succeeded in taking the town, but the Spanish troops retiring into the fort, and intelligence of the inroad being conveyed to the French at Mobile, two ships of war speedily appeared before St. Augustine, and forced Moore to a hurried retreat ; and this abortive attempt led only to debt and an issue of paper money. Not discouraged, however, Moore undertook a new expedition against Florida, fell suddenly upon the settlements of those Indians who had been half-civilized by the Spaniards, and whose vacated territory was made over to the Seminole allies of the English. On the other hand Charleston, menaced by a French and Spanish squadron, was bravely and successfully defended by the governor. Sir Nathaniel Johnson. The whole weight of the war fell upon the exposed northern frontier of Massachusetts. The Marquis de Vaudreuil, who now succeeded Frontenac in the government of Canada, having conciliated the Five Nations, was at liberty to concentrate his energies against the north-east colonists. Unfortunately, they had already provoked hostilities, by plundering the son of the Baron de Castin on the Penobscot river. A body of French Canadians and Indians, under the command of Hertel de Rouville, making their way across the wide 2 c 2 196 ATROCITIES IN THE NORTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. [1708. wilderness that separated the St. Lawrence from the Connecticut, stole upon the village of Deerfield in the dead of a winter's night, when all the inhabitants were buried in sleep. The frontier village was surrounded by a palisade, but the snow drifts had rendered it useless, the invaders stole into the de- fenceless village and renewed the same horrible scenes that had so lately been enacted at Schenectady. The village was burned, nearly fifty of the inhabitants murdered, and a hundred more driven through the snow-covered forests to Canada, a distance of nearly three hundred miles. As the women and children sunk with fatigue their sufferings were ended by the tomahawk. In reprisal for these atrocities the English offered a premium for the scalps of the Indians, and the whole frontier was a scene of bloody and barbarous re- crimination. Next year Hertel de Rouville set forth on a second predatory expedition, with the view of surprising Portsmouth, but not being able to obtain some expected reinforcements, fell again upon the little village of Haverhill. One dreadful circumstance attending these acts of murder and incendiarism was, that those who perpetrated them, misled by sectarian hatred, believed that they were doing God service. The Frenchman and his con- federates, after piously joining in pi-ayer, entered the village a little before sun-rise, and began the wonted work of destruction. Fifty of the inhabitants Avere killed by the hatchet, or burned in the flames of their own homesteads. The first panic having subsided, a bold defence was made. Davis, an intrepid man, concealed himself behind a barn, and by beating violently on it, and calling out to his imaginary succours, Come on ! Come on ! as if already on the spot, succeeded in alarming the invaders. Here occurred another re- markable instance of female energy and heroism, called forth by the terrible emergencies of the period. One Swan, and his wife, seeing two Indians ap- proach their dwelling, to save themselves and children, planted themselves against the narrow doorway, and maintained it with desperate energy against them, till their strength began to fail. The husband, unable to bear the pressure, cried to his wife that it was useless any longer to resist, but she, seeing but one of the half-naked Indians was already forcing himself into the doorway, seized a sharp-pointed spit, drove it with her whole strength into his body, and thus compelled himself and his fellow savage to retreat. The alarm being given, it was with some difficulty that the invaders contrived to effect their escape from the scene of their barbarous, and as regards the issue of the war, purposeless, and ineffectual outrage. There were yet a few minds who rose superior to the general feeling of mutual revenge. Such was Major Schuyler, who had already used his influence to prevent the Christian Indians from attacking the settlements of New England. In a letter to the governor of Canada, he declared it to be his duty towards God and his neighbour to prevent, if possible, these barbarous and heathen cruelties. " ]\Iy heart swells with indignation," exclaims this gallant man, " when I think that a war be- tween Christian princes, bound to the exactest laws of honour and generosity, which their noble ancestors have illustrated by brilliant examj^les, is de- generating into a savage and boundless butchery. These are not the methods 1711.] THE WAR ENDED BY THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 197 for terminating the "vvar. "Would that all the -world thought with me on this subject." Dudley, the governor of Massachusetts, had made two abortive attempts for the seizure of Port Royal, and the territory of Acadia. An earnest peti- tion was now made to Queen Anne, to terminate this " consuming war " of little less than twenty years' duration, by the final conquest of all the French possessions. All the northern states joined in raising and equipping troops, and agents were sent over to urge the co-operation of the English government. Their application was successful, and a fleet of six English ships appeared in the harbour of Boston, which, with a considerable force raised by the colonists, proceeded, under the command of Nicholson, to invest Port Royal, which was in no condition to ofier a protracted resistance. The French were obliged to capitulate, and the conquered fortress, in honour of the English queen, receiv- ed the name of Annapolis, which it has ever since retained. Nicholson, flushed with success, now returned to England, and was fortunate enough to obtain from government the means for eflecting a more important triumph. A fleet of fifteen ships of the line, conveying five regiments of Marlborough, veteran troops, were shortly afterwards despatched to Boston. The plan originally formed for a simultaneous attack upon Canada by land and sea was now renewed. A body of fifteen hundred men, raised by New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, was assembled at Albany under the command of Nicholson, with five hundred Indian allies, to march on Montreal; while the fleet, with seven thousand men on board, proceeded to invest Quebec. Intelligence of this expected attack soon reached Quebec, where prepara- tions were made for a determined resistance. The inhabitants were daily on the stretch for the appearance of the formidable armament, which however was never destined to arrive. The fleet, commanded by Sir Hovenden Walker, while ascending the St. Lawrence, became entangled ons thick night among some shoals and islands. The pilots advised one course, the obstinate admiral another, and he was yet disputing with an officer on board, when the cry of "breakers" was heard, and it was only by putting his ship about instantly that she narrowly escaped. As soon as daylight appeared, it Avas ascertained that eight of the vessels had been lost, and nearly a thousand men had perished. The admiral hereupon immediately set sail for England, leaving the colonial vessels to return to Boston. The second intercolonial Avar terminated by the Peace of Utrecht, the terms of which were advantageous as regards America, conceding to her entire possession of Hudson Bay and the fur trade, the supremacy in the NeAvfound- land fisheries, and the territory of Acadia, Avhich noAv received the name of Nova Scotia. While the war thus terminated Avas yet in progress, internal disturbances of a serious nature had broken out in Carolina. The Tuscarora Indians, re- senting the advance of a body of German emigrants upon their hunting grounds, seized and burned the smweyor under Avhose authority the lands had been appointed, and commenced an exterminating attack upon the strag- 198 MURDER OF SEBASTIAN RASLES. [1724. gling settlers. The inhabitants of North Carolina, divided among themselves by political feuds, did not at first repel these aggressions with vigour, but Avith the arrival of succours from South Carolina, the war was carried on with in- discriminating revenge, and many Indians, guiltless of participation in the attack upon the whites, were carried off as slaves. The conflict terminated in the usual way, the Tuscaroras were driven from their old forests, and took refuge with the Five Nations, and their vacated lands were thrown open to the onward advance of the whites. Although peace was now established, the uncertainty of the line of frontier kindled disputes with the French and their Indian allies, which led to bloody acts of mutual hostility. The territory between the Kennebec and St. Croix rivers was, in pursuance of the late treaty, claimed by Massachusetts, and New England settlers and traders had re-established themselves within its confines. The Abenaki Indians, on being informed by the governor of Canada that no direct cession of their country had been made by treaty, re- solved to maintain their ground, in which patriotic determination they were encouraged by the Catholic missionaries. The venerable Sebastian Rasles had for more than a quarter of a century laboured among them, display- ing all the best virtues of his order, and a village and chapel had grown up in the midst of the forest. As to his influence over the Indians was attributed their persevering determination to maintain their right to the soil, the seizure of his person accordingly became an object of the English; and after many acts of hostility, an attempt was made to surprise him, but he succeeded in making his escape. Another secret expedition, animated at once by the de- sire of acquiring fresh territory, and of destroying French and Catholic influence, was shortly afterwards organized for the same purpose. A party from New England, emulating the bloody exploits of Hertel de Rouville, stole through the woods to the village of Norridgewock, a village then sur- ' rounded by a stockade, and containing a Catholic chapel and the dwelling- houses of Rasles and his converts. They advanced in profound silence, but one of the Indians having given the alarm, some fifty or sixty ran forward to meet the invaders, and cover the retreat of the aged and defenceless. They hastily discharged their guns at the English, who replied by a murderous volley, which put the Indians to the rout. The village and church were soon wrapt in flames, and an indiscriminate massacre of the Indians took place. The poor priest fell with his slaughtered flock, either shot down as he ran forward to draw upon himself the vengeance of the invaders, or, what is more improba- ble, while defending himself from his own house. As soon as the perpetrators of this outrage had retired, the Indians returned to the desolated village, and their first care, while the women sought plants and herbs proper to heal the wounded, was to shed tears over the corpse of their beloved missionary. They found him pierced with shot, his scalp taken off", his skull fractured with hatchets, his mouth and eyes filled with dirt, the bones of his legs broken, and his body shockingly mutilated. This barbarous spirit was en- couraged by a premium of a hundred pounds for every Indian scalp, and on 1733.] THE THIRD INTERCOLONIAL WAR. 199 sucli terms, one John Lovewell soon succeeded in raising a company of hunt- ers, and carried on his operations with some success, disj^laying in triumphal procession the scalps he had taken, elevated on lofty poles, but at length met with that doom which so often overtakes the shedder of blood. While hunt- ing the Indians, he was himself surprised and shot with several of his con- federate scalp-hunters, among whom was Mr. Fry, the chaplain of Andovcr, who had himself killed and scalped an Indian in the heat of the action. The Indians retorted by burning frontier villages and farms. This dispute, which had well nigh involved all the northern colonies and Indians in a fresh Avar of mutual extermination, was at length found to be so unprofitable to both parties that they gladly agreed to a peace. Every such struggle however had but the same result, that of gradually operating the extermination of the weaker party, and opening their country to the further advance of the white men. The third intercolonial war originated in the endeavour, on the part of Spain, to maintain that jealous system of colonial monopoly, which she had adopted in its utmost rigour, and in which she was imitated, with less stringency, by the French and English. The latter had acquired by the treaty of Utrecht the privilege of transporting a certain number of slaves annually to the Spanish colonies, under cover of which a wide- spread system of smug- gling had been introduced, against which the Sjianiards vainly sought to protect themselves by the establishment of revenue cruisers. Some of these Spanish vessels had attacked English ships engaged in lawful traffic, and had committed several instances of barbarity, which had greatly moved the popu- lar indignation, and excited a clamour for war, to which the minister was reluctantly obliged to consent. Shortly before the breaking out of this war, a new colony had been found- ed in the south, which became speedily involved in hostilities. Carolina had originated in the desire of selfish aggrandizement; the adjacent one of Georgia, the last colony founded before the revolution, had its rise in a feeling of benevolence, and Non sihi sed aliis was appropriately selected for its motto. James Oglethorpe, a young gentleman of family and fortune, a soldier and a scholar, at an age when his class are usually absorbed in the pursuit of pleasure, had already distinguished himself for his zeal against in- carceration for debt, and for mitigating the horrors of imprisonment. To provide an asylum for those whom he had rescued from the jails, as well as other de- stitute persons, he turned his attention to the foundation of a new colony, obtained the co-operation of many persons of rank, from parliament a charter of incorporation together with a pecuniary grant, still further increased by liberal contributions from the nobility and clergy, who had become warmly interested in the success of so benevolent a plan. Statesmen and merchants were attracted by considerations of policy and interest; the new colony would interpose a barrier between Carolina and the Spanish settlements, and its soil was said to be admirably adapted for the production of silk. Oglethorpe determined to superintend the planting of his colony. And 200 FOUNDATION OF GEORGIA BY OGLETHORPE. [1733-36. with thirty-five families, a clergyman, and a silk cultivator, on Nov. 17, 1732, set sail from Deptford, and after touching at Charleston, where he and his company were hospitably entertained and assisted, soon landed on the shores of his new province. On ascending the Savannah river, a pine-covered hill, somewhat elevated above its level shores, was fixed upon as the seat of the capital, which was laid out in broad avenues and open squares. During these operations Oglethorpe pitched his tent under a canopy of lofty pine trees. He found the spot, on his arrival, occupied by a small body of the Creek Indians, who were easily induced to surrender it, and to yield to the settlers an ample ex- tent of territory. A deputy of the Cherokees also made his appearance at Savannah. Fear nothing, but speak freely, said Oglethorpe to him, on his ' entry. I always speak freely, replied the Indian ; why should I fear ? I am now among friends. I never feared even among my enemies. The Choctas also, complaining of French encroachment, shortly afterwards solicited a treaty of commerce with the new settlers. The English settlers, the sweepings of the jails, were not the most favourable class with which to plant a new colony, but as the fame of Oglethorpe and Georgia was spread abroad, it speedily received an accession of a more valu- able character. Among these were a body of German Lutherans, who, ex- posed to persecution at home, obtained the sympathy and assistance of the English parliament, who furnished the means for enabling them to emigrate. Headed by their ministers, they left the home of their fathers on foot and walked to Rotterdam, their place of embarkation, chanting as they went, hymns of thanksgiving for their deliverance. They touched at Dover, where they had an interview with their English patrons ; and on reaching Georgia, formed at a distance above Savannah a settlement, piously called Ebenezer, where they were shortly after joined by other members of their community. To these shortly afterwards were added several Moravians, the disciples of Count Zinzendorf. A company of destitute Jcavs had &lso been furnished by some of their wealthier brethren wdth the means of emigrating to Georgia, where, though discouraged by the trustees, they were allowed to establish themselves in peace. Oglethorpe now returned to England, carrying with him some of the In- dian chiefs, who on his arrival were presented to his Majesty, feasted by the nobility, and loaded with presents to a large amount. They remained four months, and on their embarkation at Gravesend were conveyed to that port in one of the royal carriages. Gratified by the kindness of their entertain- ment, and the general interest they had excited, they swore, on their departure, eternal fidelity to the British nation. By means of a parliamentary grant, another valuaole accession to the colony was made in 1736, consisting of a large body of Scotch Highlanders, who founded a colony called New Inver- ness. Oglethorpe himself returned with these settlers, and was accompanied by two young clergymen, whose names have since become famous wherever the English tongue is spoken. These were John and Charles Wesley, educated at Oxford, and as yet conformists to that church from which, unable to efifect 173G-42.] THE WESLEYS IN GEORGIA. 201 the reformation they desired, they afterwards led away so vast a secession. Charles was appointed secretary to Oglethorpe, while John was chosen the parish minister of Savannah, where however he soon became involved in dif- ficulties, which ultimately drove him from the colony. He had been led into an attachment to a young lady, whose piety at first appeared unquestionable, but proving upon further experiment less ardent than was exacted by the en- thusiastic temper of Wesley and his religious associates, he had been led by principle to break off the connexion, and the lady shortly after married another person. Becoming now more " worldly " than before, she was refused admission to the Lord's supper by her former lover, as rmfit to partake of that solemnity, an exclusion for which her husband brought a suit and obtained damages. Wesley, charged beside with other abuses of authority, and finding the public feeling running high against him, '' shook off the dust of his feet," and re- turned to England, disgusted with a country where his principles were des- tined to acquire a wide-spread influence, but which he never afterwards personally revisited. The towns of Frederica and Augusta were now founded, and the trading part of the English pushed nearer to the frontiers of the Spaniards, with whom hostilities were then pending. Oglethorpe had acquired the veneration of all classes by his benevolent labours, " nobly devoting all his powers to serve the poor, and rescue them from their wretchedness;" and no less was his vigour displayed in the defence of his beloved colony. Though he himself possessed no share of its territory, he determined to shelter it, if needful, with his life. " To me," he said to Charles Wesley, " death is nothing. If separate spirits regard our little concerns, they do it as men regard the follies of their childhood." He returned to England, raised and disciplined a regiment, and returned to Savannah, where he was received with an enthusiastic welcome. Soon afterwards the war, signalized by the voyage of Anson and the disasters of Vernon, broke out. Oglethorpe, after an unsuccessful siege of the neighbouring city of St. Augustine, returned to defend his own colony, which was menaced with invasion by the Spaniards. He succeeded in re- pelling a formidable attack upon Frederica, which had inspired the greatest apprehensions in Charleston. Notwithstanding these successes, Oglethorpe found the government of his newly-founded colony any thing but an easy task, and was destined to experience no small share of meanness and ingratitude. The colonists first sent over Thomas Stevens as their agent to England, laden with complaints against the trustees in general, which having been duly ex- amined by the House of Commons, were pronounced to be " false, scandalous, and malicious." Oglethorpe himself was next cited to aj)pear in England to answer charges brought against his character, which he so effectually suc- ceeded in vindicating, that his accuser, who was his own lieutenant-colonel, was deprived of his commission. He never afterwards returned to Georgia. His name, which no malevolence could ever stain with baseness, will ever stand conspicuous among the noble spirits who have laboured for the ameli- oration of their species. 2 D 202 SURRENDER OF L0UI8BURG TO THE ENGLISH. [1745. The French soon afterwards became involved in the war, and the northern frontier became a third time the scene of hostilities. After the cession of Acadia to the English, the French had expended vast sums in the erection of the fortress of Louisburg, on the island of Cape Breton, which soon became a stronghold for numerous privateers, that inflicted severe injuries on the commerce and fisheries of New England. To effect its reduction was therefore of the most vital importance, yet the attempt might well have appeared all but desperate. The walls of the fortress, surrounded with a moat, were prodigiously strong, and furnished with nearly two hundred pieces of cannon. A body of prisoners, however, who, having been seized at the English settlement of Canso and carried to Louisburg, were allowed to return to Boston on parole, disclosed the important fact that the garrison was both weak and disaffected. Shirley, the governor, proposed to the legislature of Massachusetts to attempt its reduction, a proposal carried by only a single vote. The northern States, invited to co-operate against the common enemy, furnished some small supplies of men and money, but the chief burden fell upon Massachusetts itself. The enthusiasm of her citi- zens was enkindled by religious zeal as well as commercial interest — all classes offered themselves as volunteers, from the hardy woodman of the in- terior, to tlie intrepid fisherman of the coast. Whitefield, tlien on a preaching excursion through the northern colonies, gave as a motto for the flag, " With Christ as a leader, nothing is to be despaired of," and sermons were preached to maintain the popular excitement at the highest pitch. Ten vessels shortly sailed from Boston with a body of more than three thousand men, and after a few days' sail reached Canso, where they were to await the melting of the ice and the arrival of further succours. Most for- tunately they were here joined by four English ships of war, under the com- mand of Captain Warren, who at the solicitation of Shirley had been ordered to co-operate zealously with the expedition. Over the New England arma- ment was William Pepperell, a wealthy merchant of Maine, but who had no further knowledge of military affairs than he had obtained by commanding the militia. On the morning of the last day of April, the squadron arrived off Louisburg, the troops were landed in spite of opposition, and the siege was carried on with all the energy of courage and enthusiasm, though uninstructed and inexperienced in the art of war. Cannon were dragged through morasses, and batteries established in an irregular sort of way, but no impression was made upon the Avorks, and after the first outburst of excitement was spent, the most sanguine were compelled to admit that the place seemed all but impregna- ble, and that the campaign promised to be both long and arduous. Happily the greatest friends of the besiegers were a discontented garrison and embarrassed governor, whose supplies had been already cut off by the vigilance of the Eng- lish fleet, that now succeeded in capturing, under his very eyes, a ship of war sent to his relief. To hold out longer with any chance of success was impossible, and on the 17th, he accordingly surrendered. This important capture was look- ed on by the pious New Englanders as " a remarkable providence," and caused 1747.] KNO WLES IMPRESSES SOME B OSTON CITIZENS. 203 great rejoicings at Boston. The enterprise indeed was all their own, though its success had been materially promoted by succours from the mother coun- try, where their energy and prowess were honourably recognised, not without some slight tincture of jealous apprehensions for the future. Pepperell re- ceived the honour of an English Baronetcy, and Shirley received a commis- sion as Colonel in the British army. The fall of Louisburg was no sooner known in Paris than a formidable armament was despatched from the shores of France for its recapture, as well as that of Acadia itself. It was commanded by M. D'Anville, an able and experienced officer, but was scattered by a succession of disasters, and return- ed home without accomplishing its object. A second fleet which was de- spatched on the same errand, was encountered and captured by a British squadron under Admirals Anson and Warren. This fortress, however, which the arms of France had been unable to retain or recapture, was shortly afterwards restored to its former possessors at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, to the deep mortification of the New Englanders. Some amends however were made by the payment to them of an indemnity by the British government for the expenses they had incurred in the ex- pedition. Shortly before the peace, occurred an incident which conspicuously dis- played the spirit of the people of Boston. Commodore Knowles, then off that city with his fleet, having lost several of his men by desertion, proceeded to fill up their room by a summary and cruel process of impressment, which at that time was universally resorted to in England. Sending some of hjs boats up to Boston, he seized from the wharves, as well as vessels, as many persons, lands- men and seamen, as his necessities happened to require. This proceed- ing, unheard of in the colonies, created an intense excitement. A mob of several thousand people immediately collected, and besieged the tOAvn-house, where the council was then in session, with a storm of stones and brickbats. In vain did Governor Shirley come forth upon the balcony, and with a dis- avowal of the outrage, and a promise to obtain redress, endeavour to calm the exasperated feelings of the populace' — they seized upon the officers of the ship, who happened to be on shore at the time, and detained them as hostages for the ransom of their fellow citizens. The governor earnestly entreated Knowles to give up the impressed seamen, in reply to which he offered to land a body of mariners to support the governor, and threatened to bombard the town unless the tumult was appeased. The excitement continually increased, and the militia, who were called out next day, evincing a sympathy with the mob, Shirley, considering himself in personal danger, retired from the town to the castle, situated on an island in the neighbouring bay, a retreat which the more zealous of the mob began to consider equal to an abdication. As mat- ters had now reached an alarming pitch, the leading members of society, who had fully concurred in the movement, began to think that it was time to check it, and assembling in town meeting, declared their intention, at the same time that they yielded to none in a sense of the outrage committed by Knowles, to 2 i> 2 204 THE IMPRESSED MEN RETURNED. [1747. stand by the governor and executive, and to suppress this threatening tumult, which they attributed to " negroes and persons of vile condition." Meanwhile Knowles, at the earnest solicitation of the governor, consented to return most of the men he had impressed, and shortly afterwards departed with his fleet, while Shirley, returning to Boston, was escorted to his house with every honour by the same militia, who but a day or two before had refused to obey his instructions. In his report of this rebellious insurrection, he ascribes the " mobbish turn of a town inhabited by twenty thousand people, to its constitu- tion, by which the management of it devolves on the populace assembled in their town meetings." Thus, for the present, terminated the struggle between France and Eng- land on the continent of North America. It was however but a temporary truce, for the disputes concerning the boundaries alone contained the seed of future wars, which could only end with the absolute ascendency of the strongest party. The conquest of Canada had become the favourite scheme both of the Englisli government and the northern colonies ; an object not to be accomplished in less than several campaigns, in which the blood and treasure of France and England were freely squandered, and in which success alter- nated with either party, until the disj)ute was finally decided by the memor- able encounter upon the heights of Quebec. CHAPTER 11. GENERAL mOGRESS OF THE COLONIES DURING THE PERIOD OF THE INTERCOLONIAL WARS. — MASSACHUSETTS. — NEW YORK. — PENNSYLVANIA. — VIRGINIA. — THE CAROLINAS. — GEORGIA. — LOUISIANA. We now proceed to give a view of the general progress and political con- dition of the colonies during the intercolonial wars. While the provisional government that followed the deposition of Andros lasted, the mass of the peo- ple in Massachusetts desired the restoration of their original charter, but the council of safety held out, partly for fear of committing themselves with the English government, and partly as secretly desiring to effect certain liberal modifications. Mather had been sent over to England as agent for the colony, and with him Avas associated Sir Henry Ashurst, an English dissenter of influence. On soliciting at court a restoration of the charter, they were at first backed by the parliament itself, but the fulfilment of their desires was baulked by the ascendency of the Tory party. William's sense of jDrerogative was as high as that of his predecessors, and the crown lawyers maintained 1693.] A'^BW CHARTER GRANTED TO MASSACHUSETTS. 205 the absoliite power of the king and parliament to modify at will the govern- ment of the colonies, unless when a special legal provision existed against it. However doubtful might be this pretension in the abstract, it was in the pre- sent instance the cause of the political foundation of the colony being laid more broadly and securely than before. When Sir William Phipps, in 1692, returned as governor bearing with him a new charter, it was found to contain very considerable modifications, of which the most important was the alter- ation of the right of suffrage, Avhich had proved the bone of contention ever since the foundation of the State. This privilege was now no longer to be confined to orthodox church members, but upon all freeholders whatsoever to the annual value of forty shillings. Toleration was also expressly secured to all except Papists. Politically speaking, therefore, the power of the theo- cratic party, under whose stern rule the commonwealth had grown up, was now come to an end, although, as we shall presently see, they long continued to exercise a preponderating influence upon the public mind of the colony. By this charter tbe province acquired a great increase of territory. Its ju- risdiction extended over Plymouth, Maine, and Nova Scotia ; New Hamp- shire being excluded. The people as before were to elect the council of representatives, but the nomination of the governor and chief officers was reserved to the crown. The royal governors of Massachusetts often experienced no little difficulty in dealing M'ith a people so doggedly tenacious of popular rights. Under the administration of Colonel Shute, a quarrel arose between the advocates of a public and private bank, in which the governor sided with the former, and thus exposed himself to the virulent opposition of the advocates of the latter. This party, enjoying a majority, elected their leader, a man par- ticularly obnoxious to Shute, to the post of speaker ; the governor interposed his veto, and, the house persisting in its choice on the ground that the charter gave to the governor no express authority for such an act, he at once dissolved them. The people returned nearly the same men, who, while they chose another speaker, protested boldly against the governor's act, and voted him a diminished salary. The governor then informed them that he was instructed by the king to recommend the appointment of a regular and competent salary, a request which they continued to evade through several sessions, until Shute, finding his situation intolerable, privately returned to England, loud in his complaints against the factious temper of the colonists, and their disposition to encroach upon the royal prerogative until it would become at last no better than nominal. The same controversy was rencAved under the governorship of his successor, Burnet, who had been removed hither from New York. His demand for a permanent salary which should confer on him inde- pendence and dignity was evaded, although the assembly voted liberally for a present supply. The dispute, again prolonged through several sessions, remain- ed unadjusted. A memorial was sent over to the king by the assembly, justi- fying their conduct, and the matter was referred to the Board of Trade, who, after hearing advocates for both parties, condemned the assembly, and in their 206 IMPORT DUTY IMPOSED IN NEW ENGLAND. [1733. 4 concluding report to the king, press upon liim tlie necessity of vigorously- restraining the growing power of the colonists. " The inhabitants," say the Board, " far from making suitable returns to his IMajesty, for the extraordinary privileges they enjoy, are daily endeavouring to wrest the small remains of power out of the hands of the crown, and to be- come independent of the mother kingdom. The nature of the soil and pro- ducts are much the same with Great Britain, the inhabitants upwards of ninety-four thousand, and their militia, consisting of sixteen regiments of foot and fifteen troops of horse, in the year 1718, fifteen thousand men ; and by a medium taken from the naval ofiicers' accounts for three years, from the 24th of June, 1714, to the 24th of June, 1717, for the ports of Boston and Salem only, it appears that the trade of this country employs continually no less than three thousand four hundred and ninety-three sailors, and four hundred and ninety-two ships, making twenty-five thousand four hundred and six tons. Hence your Excellencies Avill be apprized of what importance it is to his Majesty's service, that so powerful a colony should be restrained within due bounds of obedience to the crown ; which, we conceive, cannot effectually be done without the interposition of the British legislature, wherein, in our humble opinion, no time should be lost." The passing of the IMolasses Act, in 1733, is worthy of remark as being the first instance in which the claim of England to regulate the external commerce of the colonies was asserted in a manner similar to that which, but a few years later, produced a general convulsion. The people of New England having established a manufacture of rum from molasses imported from the West Indies, which interfered with the trade of those islands, a duty was imposed by parliament upon imports received thence by the colonists. This measure created great discontent, and an inhabitant of Massachusetts was severely called to account by the general court for the evidence on the subject which he had given before the House of Commons — a proceeding which was warmly resented by that body. Besides its obvious tendency to injure colonial com- merce, it Avas protested against as divesting the colonists of their rights as Englishmen, by levying taxes upon them against their consent, without their possessing any representation in parliament. This act, afterwards regarded as a precedent by English statesmen, was however very generally evaded. As the colonists continued the development of their internal resources, and new channels of foreign commerce opened to their enterprise, it was becoming more and more the general feeling that such restrictions could not much longer be submitted to, although as yet open opposition to them seems not to have been thought of. But the smouldering fire was ready to burst forth on the first occasion of importance. In New York, still divided into the Leislerian and anti-Leislerian factions, the administration of Fletcher, who had succeeded to Slaughter, was intended to carry out the predominance of English influence. Fletcher was active and energetic, and zealous in the service of the colony, but rash and passionate, the firm partisan of the English Church, and disposed to assert the absolute 1692.] FLETCHER'S GOVERNMENT OF NEW YORK. 207 supremacy of royal power. Even the aristocratic party Itself resisted these despotic tendencies, and passed an act declaring that supreme legislative power belonged to the governor and council, and to the people through their representatives, and that no tax could be levied without their consent, enactments which were nevertheless annulled by the English sovereign: A plan warmly cherished by Fletcher was to endow the English Episcopal . Church, in lieu of the Dutch, to which the mass of the inhabitants yet re- mained warmly attached. Having laid the subject before the assembly, they so far complied as to pass an act making provision for certain ministers, the choice of whom was however to be left to the people themselves. The council made an amendment, that the approval or rejection of their candidate should be left with the governor, but the assembly refused to sanction it. Fletcher was highly indignant, and having commanded the attendance of the assembly, prorogued them in a speech curiously characteristic both of the man himself, and of colonial administration in general. " Gentlemen, There is also a bill for settling a ministry in this city and some other countries of the government. In that very thing you have showed a great deal of stiffness. You take upon you, as if you were dictators. I sent down to you an amendment of three or four words in that bill, which, though very immaterial, yet was positively denied ; I must tell you it seems very un- mannerly. There never was an amendment yet desired by the council-board but what was rejected. It is the sign of a stubborn ill temper, and this I have also passed." Proceeding then to remind them that they have but a third share in the government, that the council were a sort of upper house, and that he had the power by his Majesty's letters patent to collate or suspend at his pleasure, he concludes thus sarcastically : " You have sat a long time to little purpose, and have been a great charge to the country. Ten shillings a-day is a large allowance, and you punctually exact it. You have been always forward enough to pull down the fees of other ministers in the govern- ment. Why did you not think it expedient to correct your own? Gentle- men, I shall say no more at present, but that you do withdraw to your private affairs in the countr)'-. I do prorogue you to the tenth of January next, and you are hereby prorogued to the 10th day of January next ensuing." Nor was Fletcher more fortunate with the stubborn citizens of Connecticut, than he had been with the assembly of New York. The English government, bent on a system of centralization, desired to confer the command of the Con- necticut militia upon the governor of New York, a plan which extorted from the inhabitants of the former State a spirited protest against a measure inimical to their freedom and repugnant to their charter. This memorial they despatch- ed to England by the hands of Winthrop, but Fletcher, without awaiting an answer, determined to carry matters with the high hand of power. Repairing therefore to the small town of Hartford, where the Connecticut assembly was then in session, he endeavoured, but in vain, to overawe that body into an immediate compliance with his demands. Declaring that he would not set his foot out of the province till his Majesty's orders had been obeyed, he then 208 POPULARITY OF LORD BELAMONT. [1695. ordered tlie trained bands to be assembled, and his commission to be read to tbem. Captain Wadsworth, the senior captain, walked up and down, ostensibly engaged in exercising his men. " Beat the drums," he exclaim- ed, as Fletcher's officer lifted up his voice to read. The governor commanded silence, and his officer prepared to read. " Drum, drum, I say again," vocifer- ated Wadsworth, and the voice of the reader was a second time drowned in the discordant roll. " Silence," passionately exclaimed Fletcher. " Drum, drum, 1 say," roared Wadsworth in a still louder key; and significantly turn- ing to Fletcher, he exclaimed, " If I am interrupted again I will make the sun shine through you in a moment." The angry governor, astounded at this display of spirit, was compelled to swallow the affront, and shortly afterward Winthrop returned with the royal concession, that on ordinary occasions, at least, the command of the local militia belonged to the respective States. If Fletcher was rash, arbitrary, and unsuccessful in moulding the public mind. Lord Bellamont, who succeeded him after the peace of Byswick, and had a general commission to preside over the northern colonies, by mildness, liberality, and conciliating manners, won golden opinions from all ranks of the people. AVhile in England, he had taken an active jjart in the renewal of Leisler's attainder, and on his arrival the bones of that u.nfortunate man and his son-in-law were taken up, and after lying some days in state, solemnly reinterred in the Dutch church, while an indemnity was also voted to their heirs. Repairing to Boston, Lord Bellamont, although an Episcopalian, by his courteous and respectful treatment of the theocratic clergy, and occa- sionally attending their ministrations, rendered himself exceedingly popular, and freely obtained a larger salary than any preceding governor had been allowed. While he thus became personally acceptable, he was but indifferently successful in the special objects he was sent out to accomplish. Of these the principal was the enforcement of conformity to the acts of trade. The original establishment, by the arbitrary government of the Stuarts, of these obiioxious statutes, together with their successful evasion, has been already described : they were now enforced by a new, and perhaps more formidable authori''^ that of parliament itself, and fortified by a growing commercial jealousy on the part of the English mercantile and manufacturing interest, Avho were now acquiring a powerful influence over the affairs of the nation. At the earnest instances of this body a permanent commission had been formed, denominated "The Board of Trade and Plantations." As the narrow policy of commercial monopoly Avas at that time universal, and the doctrine was asserted that the colonies existed for the purpose of enriching the parent state, it became the business of this commission to adopt every means for discouraging manufoc- tures in the colonics, of checking the freedom of their commerce, and divert- ing its profits into English coffers. In New York all attempts to enforce the restrictions had been vain, and the Boston merchants loudly expressed their indignation at the selfish and oppressive enactments. It AA'as even asserted that the colonists were not bound to obey laws enacted in a country where they had no representatives. Although some temporizing concessions 1698.] SUPPOSED CONSPIRACY AMONG THE NEGROES. 209 were made by Rhode Island. Bellamont soon found himself involved in disputes arising out of this subject, which were only terminated by his sudden death. With a view to the suppression of piracy, which had followed in the train of the late wars, a company was formed in Avhich both the king and the colonial governor were partners, for the recapture of piratical vessels, as well as the second-hand acquisition of their ill-gotten plunder. The command of an armed vessel for this purpose was conferred on William Kidd, a New York shipmaster ; but hardly had he been sent to sea, when he turned pirate himself, contrived to engage the crew in his schemes, and entered vipon an atro- cious career of murder and pillage. One of Bellamont's instructions was, if possible, to capture Kidd, who for three years evaded all pursuit. Strange to say, however, after the expiration of that term, wearied or disappointed, he burned his shi^), buried a considerable amount of treasure on Long Island, and ventured openly to appear in the streets of Boston, where he was recog- nised by the astonished Bellamont, and being sent to England, terminated his career on the gallows. Much odium was naturally attached to everybody implicated in this adventux'C, and a motion Avas made in the House of Com- mons that all concerned in it should be deprived of their employments, but the confession of Kidd conclusively showed the falsity of these suspi- cions, by its denial of any accomplices in his crimes. To the amiable Bellamont succeeded Lord Cornbury, a grandson of Clarendon, sent over to escape his creditors ; a man whose imperious in- solence and unprincipled rapacity disgusted even the aristocratic party who were disposed to welcome him with incense, while his profligate and indecent manners provoked the general contempt. No one could possibly have been selected better fitted to unite all parties in determined resistance to a foreign yoke. Accordingly from the period of his administration the spirit of popular liberty made rapid jirogress in New York. In 1741, this city was frightened from its propriety by a supposed negro conspiracy. Two or three fires happening in quick succession, were at first attributed to accident alone, but when the number increased to nine, in almost as many days, popular suspicion was awakened, and at last rested on the negroes, who formed at that time nearly one-fifth of the population. The supreme court, at its ensuing meeting, strictly enjoined the grand jury to prosecute inquiries as to the incendiaries, when one Mary Burton, servant to a low fellow, at whose house the negroes met to indulge in debauchery, having been apprehended on suspicion, and moreover, stimulated by an oficred reward of £100, made a confession the very absurdity of which would have demonstrated its fiilsehood, had the public prejudices been less deeply rooted. According to her statement, the negroes assembled at her master's house to concert measures for burning the city and exterminating the whites ; no less than twenty of them were accustomed to meet for this purpose, and they had as many as seven or eight guns, and as many swords, wherewith to effect their bloody purposes. Fresh informers now came forward, one of 2 E 210 PENN'S DIFFICULTIES WITH THE COLONISTS. [1699. them being a servant in prison for tlieft, the other a notorious prostitute, and upon the information of this triumvirate, many negroes were thrown into prison, and, like those accused of witchcraft, terrified into false and incoherent confessions. When the trial came on, all the counsel in the city volunteered on behalf of the croAvn, while the accused were left to defend themselves. The issue could hardly be doubtful, out of one hundred and fifty-four negroes committed to prison, fourteen were burned at the stake, eighteen hanged, seventy-one transported, and the rest discharged for want of eve.n such evi- dence, slender as it was, as had sufficed to convict their brethren. Among the victims was a Papist schoolmaster, said to be a priest in disguise, and accused of, stimulating the negroes to this atrocious plot. He had been already committed under the act against Jesuits and Popish priests, and was now condemned and executed, calling upon God to witness his innocence of the crime attributed to him. So confident, however, were the people of its reality, that an inhabitant of New York published at the time a circumstantial account of the conspiracy. After the executions, and when the informers be- gan to inculpate the white citizens, a reaction began to take place, though it was long before the public mind was entirely disabused of this infatuation. The progress of Pennsylvania was in the mean time rapid, and its govern- ment became still more democratic in form. It would neither be easy nor profitable to detail the disputes that arose between the people and Penn ; such as, while human nature is imperfect, must inevitably spring up under similar circumstances. Penn listened favourably to the jealous demands of his people for a still further control over the political affiurs of the province, but their treatment of his proprietary claims occasioned him much vexation and annoyance. He had expended so largely from his private fortune as to have fallen into embarrassment, yet the quit rents to which he looked for a return were found to be extremely difficult of collection. Unselfish himself, he was deeply pained at this exhibition of selfishness on the part of those to whom he had behaved in so liberal a spirit. The fall of his patron, James II., and the accession of William of Orange, naturally exposed him to much suspicion ; he was repeatedly imprisoned on the charge of corresponding with the banished monarch, and deprived of the government of Pennsylvania. His innocence however was so fully established, and his integrity respected, that he was soon restored to his rights, and in 1709, after an absence of fifteen years, revisited his beloved colony. He found it rapidly flourishing, and freely conceded such popular reforms as were required of him. Although he did not lift up his voice against the establishment of negro slavery, which indeed he had no power to prevent, he endeavoured to amend the moral and social condition of the negroes, by proposing a bill to secure to them the rights of legal marriage ; and although he was defeated, he yet persevered in inculcating a spirit which eventually led to the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania in about half a century. Quitting Pennsylvania for the last time, he returned to England, where his latter days were overclouded with embarrassments, and harassed by pecuniary disputes with his distant people. Before his departure 1700-50.] PENN'S COLONY AFTER HIS DEATH, 211 he had proposed the establishment of a new form of government, and in 1701, presented one which was accepted by the assembly, who thereby acquired the right of originating bills, previously vested in the governor alone, and of rejecting or amending any that might be laid before them. He was at length tempted to throw u]d a load too heavy for him. He had been already com- pelled to mortgage his government in order to obtain money, and he now prepared to enter into a contract for ceding the sovereignty of Pennsylvania to Queen Anne, but it was set aside by an attack of paralysis, which eventually, in 1717, terminated his existence. Beyond the reach of calumny and detrac- tion, the clouds that had obscured his fair fame were now dissipated, his great- ness of character and singleness of purpose were universally acknowledged, and his memory regarded with affectionate veneration. After the death of Penn his claims descended to his brother, and the same disputes were kept up between the assembly and proprietaries as before, and which continued to agitate the colony until the Revolution broke out; just before which period, Franklin, who had warmly advocated the popular cause, was despatched to England, to solicit on the part of the people the abolition of the proprietary government. The legislature of the province long remained in the hands of the Quakers, who responded but feebly to the demands for men and money to co-operate in maintaining the wars with the French. "When called upon by the governor to levy a contingent of a hundred and fifty soldiers, they protested "Avith all humility, that they could not in conscience provide money to hire men to kill each other." They went so far however as to tender a present to her jNIajesty of £500, the application of which was left to her own conscience ; but this the governor declined to accept. Is was not until the last inter- colonial war in 1755, that the Quakers, Avho were still in the ascendant, were compelled, in consequence of the general excitement, and the ravage of their frontiers by the Indians, to vote a handsome sum for the avowed purpose of raising a military force, in which Franklin bore a commission. Many of them, upon this enforced violation of their principles, resigned their seats, and from this time their influence no longer preponderated in the colony. They persisted in declaring that the Indians had not been impelled to these attacks by any acts of theirs, but by wrongs and outrages on the part of others, for which pacific negotiation was the proper remedy ; and with this view they opened a conference with the Delawares, appointed Charles Thompson, afterward secretary to the Continental Congress, as assistant secretary to their chief, and succeeded, in some measure at least, in the object of their benevolent exertions. Since Bacon's rebellion nothing had occurred to disturb the tranquillity of Virginia, which continued its rapid increase in wealth and population. Little indeed appeared to a cursory observer to indicate the real importance of this province, which yet retained the appearance of a half-cleared wilderness. Few towns or villages had grown up as centres to the population, which was scattered abroad along the courses of the great rivers, dwelling in lonely log 2 E 2 212 PROGRESS OF THE COLONIES. [1750. liuts or rude cabins, and keeping up intercourse with one another by narrow '•horse paths through swamps and forests, or by boating up and down the numerous streams which intersect the country. The people lived -a rude and joyous pastoral life, principally engaged in cultivating tobacco, and amusing themselves with the rifle in the woods ; hospitality was universal, and the few tavern bills a traveller was called to pay, were liquidated in rolls o'f tobacco. We have already described the general state of society. A few wealthy planters resided in almost feudal pomp, and possessed almost feudal privi- leges over the indented servants and negro slaves who cultivated their vast estates. The favourite policy of Berkeley, that of depressing education, lest it should bring with it a spirit of innovation and discontent, was yielding to the spirit of the age ; yet while the other colonies were acquiring a free press, it was long ere a single newspaper brought tidings of the world to the solitary hut of the Virginian, and when the parishes of the ministry extended over miles of wilderness he did not very often visit the church. Derived from an aristocratic stem, the province was remarkable for its loyalty ; but loyalty to a distant monarch whose smile or frown is never to be hoped or dreaded, soon becomes a merely traditional feeling in the breasts of those who feel them- selves the real sovereigns of the soil. The progress of the Carolinas was rapid, the introduction of the staples of rice and indigo had vastly enriched the colonies, and the planters acquired great wealth. From their central position, they were but little affected by the first intercolonial war. In 1706, Charleston, which had now increased to a considerable town, successfully repulsed an attack by the French and Spani- ards, and was threatened with a more formidable one the following year, by DTberville, which was frustrated by his death in the West Indies. The Church of England had, after some opposition, become established. The settlement of Georgia, the last colony founded before the Revo- lution, has already been briefly narrated. After the return of Oglethorpe to England, the settlers succeeded in their desired object of the establishment of slavery. The progress of the colony was for a long while exceedingly slow and discouraging, and in 1752, the charter was surrendered, and Georgia, like Carolina, received a governor from the crown. Turning from the British colonies, let us now briefly trace the progress made by those of France. The termination of her long-protracted hostilities with the Five Nations, opened to her an uninterrupted egress to the bound- less regions of the Far West. The vivid descriptions given of its green prairies and genial climate, by the unfortunate La Salle, now induced many to resort thither from the colder and more stubborn region of Canada, by the way first traversed by Marquette in 1673, and afterwards by La Salle him- self, and by the straits of INIackinaw, to the mouth of the St. Joseph river of Michigan, and to Chicago creek of Illinois, whence they passed over the dividing ridge to the head branches of the Illinois river. Some of the old companions of La Salle and Tonti had remained there, and small communities had gradually been formed on the Illinois and IMississippi. The missionaries 1G93.J D'IBER VILLE'S EXPEDITION TO THE MISSISSIPPI 213 had pushed their sta,tion as high as Peoria Lake, on the north, and to Red River on the south. Kaskasia had become a populous village, while in 1701, La Motte Cadillac, with a hundred followers, laid the foundation of a new settlement at Detroit. On all sides the French were rapidly extending their establishments and their influence. A bold and successful effort was now made to renew La Salle's project for colonizing the Mississippi by the Canadian, D'Iberville, who had distin- guished himself in the recent war with England, and was greatly regarded as an experienced and distinguished commander. With two frigates, and some smaller vessels carrying about two hundred colonists, for the most part disbanded military, and accompanied by his brothers Sauvolle and Bienville, men of merit akin to his own, on the 24th September, 1698, he sailed from La Rochelle, and touched at St. Domingo, whence he was escorted by an additional ship of war as far as the shores of Louisiana. On arriving in the Bay of Pensacola,' he found himself forestalled by the Spaniards, who, jealous of French encroachments upon a territory to Avhich they still laid claim, had hastened to occupy this advantageous position. Proceeding to the westAvard, he landed on Ship Island, off the mouth of the Pascagoula, and on the 2Tth of February set off in quest of the great river St. Louies, or, as it had been lately called by the French, the " Hidden River." Li two large barges, each carrying twenty-four men, and commanded by himself and his brother Bienville, he moved westward along the coast, passing the Balize ; and on the 22nd of March, entering a wide river flowing into the sea, which Father Athenase, who had accompanied La Salle on his unfortunate voyage, declared to be the true St. Louis. Its deep and turbid flood, bearing on its surface vast quantities of floating timber, the spoils of the western forests, seemed to point it out at once and unmistakeably as the mighty father of the western floods. D'Iberville, who had expected to have found a more expansive out- let, at first had his doubts, but they were entirely dispelled as he proceeded further wp the majestic stream, and beheld in the hands of the Indians the painful traces of his unfortunate predecessors in enterprise. The first was a portion of a Spanish coat of mail, a relic of Soto's expedition ; the second, a letter written by Tonti to La Salle. From this document, which had been carefully preserved by the Indians, it appeared that Tonti with a body of men had descended the Mississippi from Illinois, to meet La Salle on his expected arrival from France, but after long and vain research, had returned disheartened to his post. After exploring the country, D'Iberville returned by the Manipac pass, and through Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain, and rejoined his companions on Ship Island — the first explorer who had ever ascended the Mississippi from the sea. On the sandy and desolate shore of Biloxi, a spot about eighty miles north-east from the present city of New Orleans, exposed to the fierce heat of a tropical sun, he settled his followers, erected a fort with four bastions and twelve cannon, and leaving his brothers in command, returned to France to seek for reinforcements to his successful enterprise. 214 DIFFICULTIES FY COLONIZING LOUISIANA. [1712. In addition to the difficulties arising out of uncongenial soil and climate, the French had to encounter the opposition of the Spanish and English, to what they regarded as an encroachment. But the accession of a Bourbon prince to the throne of Spain set aside the pretensions of the Spaniards, nor were those of the English destined to be effectively asserted. Father Henne- pin, who had accompanied La Salle in his exploration of the Mississipjji, and who had fldsely claimed to have anticipated that adventurer in his descent of the river, had been taken into the pay of William III., who expressed his firm determination to plant a Protestant colony on the spot. The patent for settling the vast province of Carolina, which, as before stated, had been granted by Charles II., had been purchased by one Coxe, a London physician, who had succeeded in getting two armed vessels sent out to assert his visionary claim. As Bienville returned from a visit to the Indians, he encountered one of these hostile ships, a corvette of twelve guns, ascending the Mississippi. He sent a flag on board assuring the British commander that he was within the limits of a country discovered and settled by the French, and that there were strong defences a few miles farther up the river. Overawed by this threat, or, as others assert, deceived by an assurance that the river he was sailing in was not the Mississippi, the English commander tacked about and returned at a spot which, from this incident, still retains the appellation of the " English Turn." But though relieved from this apprehension, and in spite of the most energetic efforts, the colony maintained but a languishing existence. A body of fugitive French Protestants had landed in Carolina from the English vessels, and now requested permission to remove to the Mississippi, and settle under their national flag ; but the French monarch repelled them with the unfeeling de- claration, that he had not expelled the Huguenots from France to allow them to form a republic in Louisiana. They had little cause for regret, as the sickliness of the situation soon cut off the larger portion of the emigrants. The fortress was now transferred from Biloxi to Mobile. DTberville also built a new fort near Poverty Point, where he was joined by the veteran Tonti, with whom he now proceeded on a voyage up the Mississipj^i, and being pleased with his reception by the tribes of Natchez Indians, he founded on a bold eminence above the river, a settlement called Posalie, after the Countess of Pontchartrain, the site of the present city of Natchez. But the health of DTberville was broken with his successive explorations and voyages, and he died at Havana on his return from another voyage to France with a force intended for the reduction of Charleston. Louisiana, as boundless in its ideal limits (Avhich were made to include the Mississippi valley and its tributaries, and all the country westward to the Bio del Norte) as it had hitherto proved unfortunate in actual progress, was soon afterwards assigned to Anthony Crozat, a wealthy French merchant, who established a monopoly of its commerce, so unprofitable both to himself and the settlers, that he speedily resigned his charter. Although some progress had been made by Bienville in conciliating the Natchez Indians, by 1712.] FOUNDATION OF NEW ORLEANS. 215 whose assistance he had erected Fort Rosalie upon the spot marked out Dy D'Iberville, Louisiana still continued in a very depressed state. But while thus struggling for existence, it became, by a singular illusion, the ideal source whence boundless opulence might be derived. The celebrated paper system of -Law had just been established in France, and to the Company of the West, otherwise called the Mississippi Company, which had been established under his auspices, the monopoly of Louisianian enterprise was now transferred. The shares were eagerly bought up, visions of tropical wealth, of gold and silver mines, and boundless territorial acquisitions, agitated and duped the credulous public. This excitement had however the immediate effect of promoting the settlement of the country. By the terms of their grant, the Company were bound to send out a large body of emigrants and negroes, and in August, 1718, two vessels arrived with a body of eight hundred men. Bienville foreseeing the future importance of a commercial capital to the vast valley of the Mississippi, determined to found a city on the borders of the river, though in the midst of a marshy and unhealthy country, which from the regent of France received the name of NEW ORLEANS ; which, to use the words of Bancroft, " was famous at Paris as a beautiful city almost before the cane-brakes were cut down, and which for some years consisted of but a hand- ful of dwellings." Law had reserved for himself the grant of an extensive tract, upon which he located a colony of Germans. During the bubble pros- perity of the paper system, money was lavishly expended in promoting enter- prise in Louisiana ; but with the bursting of the scheme, these foreign re- sources as suddenly ceased, and the settlers, who were dependent upon them, reduced to great distress. Instead of the visionary wealth of which they had dreamed, they now beheld the actual difficulties of their situation, in a low swampy country, exposed to the fierce beams of a tropical sun, and almost entirely indebted to slave labour for the cultivation of the soil. A military and religious establishment was kept up, but the progress of the colony for a long time was but sIoav. Serious difficulties also arose with the neighbouring Indians. The Natchez tribe, who had at first amicably received the French, and in whose territory Fort Rosalie had been erected, now became jealous of their growing demands for territory, and instructed by the Chickasaw tribes, and falling suddenly upon the Fort, massacred all the male inhabitants and carried away the women and children into slavery, but were shortly after- wards successfully repulsed. The Chickasaws, who traded with the English, and were instigated by them, attacked the French boats on the Mississippi, and defied several attempts made for their subjugation. A communication was nevertheless maintained with Canada by way of the Mississippi and Lake Michigan, as also by the Wabash river. 216 GROWIXG DESIHE FOR INDEPENDENCE. [1700-50. CHAPTER III. GENERAL VIEW OF THE COLONIES BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. — POLITICAL CONDITION. — RELIGION* — EDUCATION. — THE PRESS. — SLAVERY.— STATE OF THE TOWNS AND COUNTRY. — MILITIA. — CUR* REXCY. — POST OFFICE, ETC. Before entering upon tlie narrative of the war wliich wrested Canada from the French, let us pause to take a brief survey of the general condition of the different States from that important period up to the revolution. Notwith- standing the widely different origin of the various colonists, the circumstances in which they were placed were so similar, that the same general form of charac- ter must inevitably have developed itself, and produced a growing consciousness of power and impatience of foreign restraint. The giant child of freedom had indeed burst its swaddling-bands, and was ready to walk in its own unassisted strength. The proximate independence of America was already a matter of certainty, although her gradual growth had veiled the truth from the eyes of English statesmen. The causes which were to produce a final rupture were already at work, though their full operation was delayed for a while by the want of union among the different provinces, and by their hereditary at- tachment to the parent country, under whose wings they had grown up, by whose arms they had been sheltered, by whose commerce, in spite of jealous restrictions, they were enriched, whose manners they affectionately cherished, and whose fashions they delighted to copy. This conflicting state of feeling — a growing desire of independence, and a no less warm attachment to the mo- ther country — may still be traced until the period of the declaration of inde- pendence. Not that the hereditary love of England was equally strong in all parts of America — witness the language of an acute observer, Feter Kalm, who visited New York in 1748. " The English colonies in this part of the world," he observes, " have increased so much in wealth and population, that they will vie with European England. But to maintain the commerce and the power of the metropolis, they are forbid to establish new manufactures which might compete Avith the English ; they may dig for gold and silver only on condition of shipping them immediately to England ; they have, with the exception of a fcAV fixed places, no liberty to trade to any parts not be- longing to the English dominions ; and foreigners are not allowed the least commerce with these American colonies. And there are many similar restric- tions. These oppressions have made the inhabitants of the English colonies less tender towards their mother land. This coldness is increased by the many foreigners who are settled among them ; for Dutch, Germans, and French are here blended with English, and have no special love for Old 1700-50.] EFFECTS OF TEE FRENCH COLONIAL WAR. 217 England. Besides, some people are always discontented and love change ; and exceeding freedom and prosperity nurse an untameable spirit. I have been told not only by native Americans, but by English emigrants, publicly, that, within thirty or fifty years, the English colonies in North America may constitute a separate state entirely independent of England. But, as this vfhole country is towards the sea unguarded, and on the frontier is kept un- easy by the French, these dangerous neighbours are the reason why the love of these colonics for their metropolis does not utterly decline. The English government has therefore to regard the French in North America as the chief power that urges their colonies to submission." The same view, as we shall hereafter see, was taken by the French themselves. John Adams, Avlicn a youth not quite twenty, cast a penetrating glance into futurity. " Soon after the Reformation," he says, " a few people came over into this new world for conscience' sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial circumstance may transfer the great seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me, for if we can remove the turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest computa- tions, will in another century become more numerous than England itself. Should this be the case, since we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nation in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas, and then the united force of Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting-up for ourselves is to disunite us." A few quotations from the most philosophical of modern historians — M. Guizot — may serve as a brief recapitulation of the political part of the preced- ing pages, and show the relative position of Britain and America at this period. " It is the honour of England that she had deposited in the cradle of her colonies — the germ of their freedom. Nearly all, at their foundation, or shortly after, received charters which conferred the franchises of the mother country on the colonists." " And these charters were not a vain display or dead letter, for they estab- lished or allowed powerful institutions which impelled the colonists to defend their liberty, and to control power by participating in it — the grant of sup- plies, the election of great public councils, trial by jury, the fight of as- sembling and of discussing the general affairs." " Thus the history of the colonies is only the more practical and laborious development of the spirit of liberty flourishing under the standard of the laws and traditions of the country. It might be considered the history of England herself. A resemblance the more striking, as the colonies of America, at least the greatest number and the most considerable of them, were founded or in- creased the most rapidly at the very epoch when England was getting ready for, or already sustained against the pretensions of absolute power, those fierce conflicts which were to obtain for her the honour of aivincf to the world the first example of a great nation free and well governed. " From 1578 to 1704, under EHzabeth, James I., Charles I., the Long Par- liament, Cromwell, Charles II., James II., WilHam III., and Queen Anne, the charters of Virginia, of Massachusetts, of Maryland, of Carolina, of New 2 F 218 DIVIDED POLICY OF THE STATES, [1700-50. lork, were by turns recognised, disputed, restrained, enlarged, lost, acquirea back again, incessantly exposed to those vicissitudes Avbich are the conditions and even the essence of liberty, for free nations can only pretend to peace in victory." He then well observes, that strife was rendered inevitable by the disorder subsisting between the elements of government. " In the cradle of the English colonies, side by side with their liberties, and consecrated by the same charters, three different powers came into contact : the crown, the proprietary founders, companies or individuals, and the mother coun- try. The crown, by virtue of the monarchical principle, with its tra- ditions flowing from the church and the empire. The proprietary founders, to whom a concession of the territory was made, by virtue of the feudal prin- ciple which attaches to property a considerable portion of sovereignty. The mother country, by virtue of the colonial principle, Avhich, in all times and amongst all nations, by a natural sequence of facts and ideas, has attributed to the metropolis a great empire over the populations sprung from its bosom. " From the beginning, and in events as in charters, the confusion amongst these powers was extreme, by turns dominant or lowered, united or divided, sometimes protecting the colonists and their franchises one agauist the other, sometimes attacking them in concert. In the midst of these confusions and vicissitudes all found titles to invoke, facts to allege in support of their acts and of their pretensions. *'* In the middle of the seventeenth century, when the monarchical principle was in England overcome in the person of Charles I., for awhile it might have been thought that the colonies would use the opportunity to shake off her sway. Indeed, some of them, Massachusetts above all, peopled by haughty Puritans, showed symptoms of a desire, if not to break every tie with the me- tropolis, at least to govern themselves alone and by their own laws. But the Eong Parliament, in the name of the colonial principle, and also in virtue of the rights of the crown which it inherited, maintained with moderation the British supremacy. Cromwell, in his turn, heir of the Long Parliament, exerted its power more signally, and by a skilful and firm protection, prevented or re- pressed in the colonies, whether Royalist or Puritan, those feeble yearnings after independence. " This was an easy task for him. At this epoch the colonies were feeble and divided. ToAvards 1640, Virginia counted only three or four thousand in- habitants, and in 1660, hardly thirty thousand. Maryland had at most twelve thousand. In these two provinces the royalist party was in the ascendency, and welcomed the restoration with joy. In Massachusetts, on the contrary, the general feeling was republican; the fugitive regicides, Goffe and "Whalley, found favour and protection there ; and when at last the local administration found itself obliged to proclaim Charles IE, it interdicted on the same day all uproarious demonstrations, all festivity, even to drink the king's health, " In such a state of things there was not yet either the moral unity or the material force which are necessary to lay the foundations of a state. 1700-50.] DIFFICULTIES OF THE GOVERNORS. 219 "After 1688, when England liacl finally aclileved a free government, its colonies partook but slightly of the benefits. The charters which Charles II and James II. had abolished or mutilated, were only partially restored to them. The same confusion reigned, the same struggle for sway continued. The greater part of the governors, sent from Europe, brief depositories of the royal prerogatives and pretensions, displayed them with more haughtiness than power in an administration in general incoherent, shifty, not very effi- cient, often rapacious, more occupied with selfish quarrels than with the interests of the country. " Besides, it was no longer with the crown alone, but with the crown and the metropolis united, that the colonists had to do. Their real sovereign was no longer the king, but the king and the people of Great Britain, represented and blended in parliament. And the parliament regarded the colonies al- most with the same eye, and held the same language with regard to them, which those kings whom it had vanquished had formerly affected towards the parliament itself. An aristocratic senate is the most difficult of masters. All possess the supreme poAver in it, and no one is responsible for its action." There could be but one solution of this difficult problem, and that — the independence of the colonists. In tracing their political progress, we have constantly before us the collision of two elements alluded to in the outset ; the tendency to self-government natural to men so situated, and the vain endeavour by the mother country to curb this tendency, and to restrict their growth within the limits required by a short-sighted policy. These opposite tendencies, inherently contradictory, could only be har- monized so long as the colonies remained feeble and threatened by French hostilities ; and at the height of wealth and power they had now reached, the difficulty of maintaining them in a state of subserviency became every day more manifest to far-seeing politicians. In this relative position of England and her dependencies the office of governor for the crown, essentially a false and painful one, became more and more embarrassing. Regarding him with jealousy as the asserter of an ill-defined prerogative, which tended to check their own freedom of action, the constant study of the local assemblies was to keep the minister of royal power in a state of humiliating dependence on their own authority, to vote him only a temporary supply, and thus to force him into a compliance with their demands ; and while, on the other hand, the home government were urging him by every means to maintain the royal supremacy, they were generally unwilling or unable to invest him with the necessary power to do so. Under trials such as these, poor Burnet had died of a broken heart ; some sunk into comiDliance with the popular will, " taking every thing and granting every thing ; " while others, irritated at the con- tinual oppositlcn of the colonists, denounced them as factious to the govern- ment, and accused them of a steady design by little and little to tln-ow ofi" the last vestiges of an allegiance that was already merely nominal. Nor can we be surprised that such should have been the uniform tenor, if not the avowed jDur- pose, of the colonial legislators. With the instinct of liberty they struggled 2 r 2 220 GO VERNMENT OF THE COLONIES NEGLECTED. [1700-50. against the imposition of a yoke wliicli was every day becoming more in- tolerable and unsuitable to their circumstances, by labouring in every way to grasp into their own hands the real legislative and executive power of their country, and to reduce the exercise of royal power to an emjjty form. It was in Massachusetts that this stubborn tenacity of purpose, this jealous watch- fulness and persevering agitation against even the slightest encroachment, this subtlety to watch for and improve opportunities of gradually extending its owii influence, and of nullifying that of the English government, was most con- spicuously displayed, because a sense of liberty and a shrewdness of intellect were the peculiar characteristics of her people, and because she had grown up at the first under a system of self-government. But the whole colonies were infected with the same sj)irit long before the breaking out of the Revolution. Looking from the colonists to the home government, it is evident that no regular and systematic plan Avas ever followed, either to remove the restric- tions that were felt to be galling, or to enforce on the other hand a more de- cided dependence on the king and parliament, even had such measiu'es been within the power of England to adopt. Engaged in domestic affairs, she be- stowed comparatively but little attention on her colonies, which were by turns capriciously neglected or oppressed, their giant growth overlooked, and the capacity and courage of their citizens contemptuously underrated. How- ever some might believe that they desired to throw off" the yoke of the mother country, few imagined that they would have the hardihood to try, or should they make the attempt, that it would require more than a slight exhibition of the national power, speedily to reduce them within the limits of dependency. We have already alluded to the establishment of the Board of Trade. This body were continually complaining that " the chartered colonies evaded the force of parliamentary enactments by making by-laws of their own, that they encouraged contraband trade and domestic manufactures, thereby injui"ing the monopoly of the mother country ; and as the only effectual remedy, proposed the resumption of their charters, and the imposition of such a system of ad- ministration as shall make them duly subservient to England;" and a bill was accordingly brought into parliament for this object. But the strenuous opposition made by the colonists to a scheme which would have deprived them of the almost practical independence which they enjoyed, caused it eventually to be laid aside. In 1702, the Jersey proprietors however ceded their rights of sovereignty to the crown. After the accession of the House of Hanover, when the functions of the Board of Trade were almost superseded by the secre- taryship of the colonies, other attempts were made to enact a bill for regulating the chartered governments. The disputes between the proprietaries of South Carolina and their colonists, who invoked the interference of the crown, furn- ished a welcome opportunity for vacating the charter, which was accord- ingly done, and a royal governor appointed, who however soon fovmd that the assembly left to him little more than the shadow of power. The population of the States had reached a million at the accession of the 1700-50.] RESTRICTIONS ON MANUFACTURES, 221 House of Hanover ; and it is remarkable that Pennsylvania, which had ap- peared but so recently on the list of States, owing to the absence of those difficulties with which the other States had to contend, had increased in pro- portion far more rapidly than any other. Although no exact estimate of the value of the colonial trade can be given, owing to the clandestine violation of the laws of trade, no register of which could be expected, it is supposed that the total value of exports must have amounted to not less than ten millions of dollars. Great Britain engrossed the principal share of this trade ; that to the West Indies came next ; that with the Spanish colonies of South America, forbidden both by English and Spanish enactments, was most profitable in proportion to its amount. The restrictions imposed by English jealousy and cupidity upon this vast and increasing commerce and manufactures of the colonies, were -the frequent source of bitter dissatisfaction, and the certain cause of a rupture that could not much longer be delayed. Upon complaint of the Board of Trade, that the colonial manufactures of wool and iron, paper, hats, and leather, were highly prejudicial to the home trade, the most unjust and vexatious restrictions were placed upon them. In regard, therefore, to commercial as to political disabilities, we cannot be surprised that there should have been the same persevering dis- position to evade or ignore them ; that the customs' agents were regarded with such dislike as to have complained that even their lives were not always safe in enforcing obnoxious regulations ; that the colonists, who regarded the English merchants as unjust and grasping, should have been less punctual in the liquidation of their claims, and the protection of their interests, than in the case of their own brethren, and that they should have laid a tax upon British imports and ships. This state of things was becoming insupportable to the Americans ; and the general feeling well appears in a private letter from a citizen of Boston to the Marquis de Montcalm, governor of Canada: " IVe shall soon break with England" he says, " for commercial considerations.'''' It had always been a special instruction given by the Americans to their agents in England, to oppose, by every means in their power, any measure which might tend, however remotely, to impose direct taxation upon the colonies. During the war of 1739, with Spain, such a scheme was proposed to Walpole, who replied as' follows-: — "I will leave that for some of my suc- cessors who may have more courage than I have, and be less a friend to com- merce than I am. Nay," he continued, " it has been necessary to pass over some irregularities of their trade with Europe, for by encoiiraging them to an extensive foreign growing commerce, if they gain £500,000, I am con- vinced that, in two years afterwards, full £ 250,000 of their gains \n\\ be in his Majesty's exchequer, by the labour and product of this kingdom, as im- mense quantities of every kind go thither, and as they increase in their foreign American trade, more of our produce will be Avanted. This is taxing them more agreeably to their own constitution and to ours." But this policy of a liberal and far-seeing minister was contrary to the narrow notions then prevailing with respect to commercial monopoly and colonial dependency. 222 RELIGIO US TO LEE A TION IX NEW ENGLAND. [1700-50. It has been well observed, that America became a place of refuge for the different extremes of sectarianism which were driven from the old world, where their asperities became gradually softened, and their peculiarities mo- dified, and their professors fused together into one great commonwealth. Re- ligious enthusiasm had founded New England, and under the conduct of its theocracy it had been safely nursed through the perils that threatened its chiklhood. But the exclusive influence of the rigid Puritans was much weak- ened by the toleration of other sects, Avhich had been forced upon them by the English government, by a natural reaction against the extreme rigour of their principles and manners, and by the influence of philosophic progress in Europe. Even before the witchcraft delusion, in which the clergy had taken so prominent a part, many were their complaints of the growing Sadduceeism and latitudinarianism of the times, by which not a few even of their own body gradually became infected, until, whilst they still preserved in the pulpit the language of the old system, which the people were accustomed to hear, they secretly put upon it a latitudinarian construction, which it would have been imprudent openly to avow. From this period religion no longer exercised a predominating influence in political aflfairs, nor shaped after its own exclusive fashion the morals and manners of the community, although the mass of the people still retained their serious bias. The growing wealth of New England, and her intercourse with the mother country and foreign states, gradually introduced a more liberal way of thinking, with the arts and elegancies of polished life. The early days of re- ligious persecution were looked back upon with regret, and differing sects were fast learning to live together in harmony. The Quakers were no longer the same fierce and noisy enthusiasts, whose introduction into the colony had oc- casioned such sanguinary scenes ; but while they still retained the broad and distinctive features of their creed, as if ashamed of their former ebullitions, had subsided into that quiet and peaceable demeanour, and that sober respect- ability, of Avhich Penn himself was the type, and which have ever since re- mained the characteristic features of their body. The older divines were fast dropping off". Cotton Mather, whose name has repeatedly occurred in connexion Avith the maintenance of orthodoxy and the prosecutions for witchcraft, died in 1729, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He Avas a pattern of serious piety, a perfect storehouse of school divinity, and his Avritings, quaint and pedantic in style, were proportionally voluminous ; but his confidence and conceit Avere boundless ; and, to use the expressive AA^ords of one of his brethren," Jie believed more and discriminated less" than belongs to a Avriter of history. In 1710, a Quaker meeting-house Avas erected in Boston. Episcopalianism also, once so odious, had noAV acquired a legitimate footing, and inore than one church for that form of worship Avas now erected in Boston. This creed also began to infect even some of the theocratic party, Cullen, principal of Yale college, proving a convert. With a view to check this tendency, no less than " the great and visible decay of piety," the orthodox ministry peti- 1700-50.] REVIVAL UNDER GEORGE WHITFIELD. 223 tionecl for a synod, but, owing to tlie influence of the Episcopalians, were un- able to succeed in their object. An abortive attempt had even been made by the " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts " to introduce an episcopal hierarchy, as in the southern colonies. These attempts to pro- pagate episcopal government gave bitter offence to the theocratic clergy, and in the impending struggle, naturally inclined them to promote the cause of in- dependence. Indeed, among the grievances cited by the Bostonians in their quarrel with England, that of endeavouring to plant Episcopacy in New Eng- gland was afterwards distinctly mentioned. The growing latitudinarianism of the age received, however, a check, by the strenuous exertions of Whitfield and others of his stamp, and a consider- able reaction towards the old system, or, to use the proper word, " a great revival," took place among the churches. It is in connexion with this move- ment we find the name of Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest intellects that America has ever produced. Fervent in his religious feelings, his intel- lectual faculties, which were of the highest order, were occupied in the de- fence of the Calvinistic doctrines, and in reconciling the denial of the moral ability of man with the assertion of his moral accountableness. His " In- quiry into the Freedom of the Will " has been pronounced " one of the greatest efforts of the human mind." Another remarkable divine of the same class was David Brainerd, Avho laboured most devotedly as a missionary among the Indians, and, worn out with toils and privations, died in the floAver of manhood. But the principal agent in promoting this resuscitation of piety, and in laying the foundation of Calvinistic Methodism in America, was Whit- field himself, the contemporary of Wesley, whose visit to Georgia has been al- ready described. Whitfield's purpose in coming over was the foundation of an orphan-house for destitute children in Georgia, for which he had collected con- siderable sums. Having successfully founded this establishment, he proceeded to visit the northern colonies, where the fire and energy of his character pro- duced the greatest excitement. Wesley, notwithstanding his profound enthusi- asm, was calm, grave, and reverend in appearance, rational and persuasive in his manner of discourse. Whitfield was vehement and passionate in his style of preaching, his gestures were striking and animated, his eye flashed with almost supernatural lustre, and the torrent of his eloquence irresistibly carried away all who heard him. Wesley was in tenets an Arminian — Whitfield a Calvinist. Wesley appealed to the judgment — Whitfield to the feelings of his audience. While, rapt out of himself, he triumphantly proclaimed the triumphs of Divine grace over the stubborn heart of man, his hearers, unable to restrain their emotions, would burst forth in sobs of agony or songs of thanksgiving, their frames would become convulsed under the poAverful emotions which had taken possession of their souls. The infection spread rapidly ; itinerant preachers, calling themselves " New Lights," ran every where about the land, singing processions and revivalist meetings were seen on all sides. The orthodox ministers, as in England itself, strenuously opposed themselves to the prevail- ing excitement, and some attempts were made at suppressing it by enactments. 224 BISHOP BERKELEY'S WORK IN AMERICA. [1700-50. but in vain — all sects caught something of the prevailing enthusiasm, and the slumbering churches were quickened into new life and activity. AVhitfield visited the colonies several times, and died and was buried there in 1770. The progress of education was highly satisfactory, being far more generallj' diffused than in the mother country herself At the time of the revolution several colleges had been founded in the colonies. Free-schools were established in Massachusetts soon after the establishment of the colony, and to this measure was in a great extent owing the superior moral and intellectual character of her citizens. The north always took the lead in educational establishments. The foundation of Harvard college was noticed in a previous chapter. In 1701, a school for the education of ministers was established at Saybrook, where a scheme of doctrine and church government had been agreed on, known as the Saybrook platform, which brought the churches of Connecticut into a Presbyterian form. This estab- lishment afterwards received great benefactions from the Hon. Elihu Yale, a distinguished son of Connecticut, who had gone over to England when young, acquired a large fortune in India, when he became governor of Fort St. George, anyl w^s chosen governor of the East India Company. To this college Bishop Berkeley also, notwithstanding his Episcopalian principles, presented his library and estate in America. We should not here omit to notice one who exercised considerable influence in the cause of learning and the humanities. Berkeley has attained universal renown as the author of a celebrated treatise on the non-existence of matter, a theory which nobody believes in, and which nobody, it is said, has ever been able to refute. Visionary as he might be in the region of metapliysical ab- stractions, and, as Swift satirically called him, " an absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and power ; " the simplicity and purity of his charac- ter justified the well-known eulogium of Pope, ascribing to him " every virtue under heaven." Cherished at home in the most refined circles, and wealthy in a deanery worth £ 1100 a year, his expansive benevolence sought for a wide field of action abroad, and he proposed to the ministry a project for founding a college in Bermuda for the education of missionaries, to convert the Indians. Of this college he offered, resigning his preferment, to become rector, on a salary of a hundred a year. Having obtained a vote of £ 10,000 of the House of Commons, he crossed over to Rhode Island, settling in the vicinity of the little town of Newport, afterwards the residence of Channing, where he bought a farm, and resided for two years and a half, with a view of making arrangements for the supply of his projected establishment. Here he often preached in the Episcopal church, to which he presented an organ, and in this rural retirement he penned, it is said, his jNIinute Philosopher. The virtues and accomplishments of such a man had no small effect in diffusing the love of knowledge, and a taste for social refinement, amidst the colonists, with whose unaffected good qualities and calm existence he was charmed. His enthusiasm was awakened by the vigorous freshness of Ainerican society, and 1700-50.] EDUCATION IN THE COLONIES. 225 the boundless prospect opening before it; and he here indited those celebrated verses, which have proved, in some respects at least, remarkably prophetic. " In happy climes, the seat of innocence, Where nature guides, and virtue rules ; Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of courts and schools ; There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts ; The good and great inspiring epic rage, The wisest heads and noblest hearts. Not such as Europe breeds in her decay : Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung. Westward the course of empire takes its way : The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; Time's noblest oflspring is the last." Disappointed of the promised support of government, Berkeley, bestowing his farm and library upon Yale college, though under the exclusive control of a denomination opposed to his own, returned to England, where he was shortly afterwards promoted to the bishopric of Cloyne. A high school was established at Philadeljjhia in 1689, to which a charter was granted by Penn. New York was less active in the work of education ; and it was not till 1748 that a college called "King's" was founded. About the same time Princeton college in New Jersey was established. Maryland had organized county schools about twenty years before. Virginia was always backward in general education ; and a greater laxity of morals prevailed there. The first college in that state owed its origin to the zeal of James Blair, commissary of the bishop of London, who founded it by the assistance of King William, and other patrons, chiefly for the education of a succession of Episcopalian ministers, although many Indians were also taught there, in Avhose behalf the celebrated Eobert Boyle made a liberal donation. Education was sometimes coeval with the first opening of a road or clearing of the forest. Dartmouth college originated just before the revolution, in an Indian mission school at Lebanon, under the care of Dr. "VVheelock, Avhich attracted considerable attention, and drew subscribers even from England. This school was afterwards removed to Hanover, where the doctor resided in a log-hut while teaching his Indian neophytes, half of whom, however, re- turned to the savage life, for which they had an unconquerable bias. En- larging then the number of his white missionaries, and retaining but a few Indians, he founded Dartmouth college. His family, who travelled in a coach 2 c 22G THE FIRST AMERICA]^ NEWSPAPER. [1700-50. which had been presented to him by a London friend, had the greatest dif- ficulty in making their way to the sj)ot, an extensive plain almost covered with lofty pines, with but one or two log-huts, and not another habitation within two miles of dreary forest. The Doctor, having collected his family and scholars, amounting to seventy persons, hastily began to erect habitations to shelter them from the impending winter, which soon overtook them in all its rigour. So tall and thick were the pines around their little clearing, that the sun was invisible for hours, and while still and piercing cold below, the tops of the trees were seen bending under the fury of the tempest, while for four or five months the snow lay five feet deep around, through which they had to cut and keep open paths of communication from hut to hut. There the Doctor passed the long and dreary winter with his pupils,, sustaining his own spirits and theirs by referring to the smile of Heaven that had so evi- dently prospered their labours, and by calling to mind the propbet Elisha, who, by Divine direction, and in circumstances that to his pious mird offered a remarkable analogy, had founded in the wilderness of the Jorda'^ a school for training the prophets of the Lord. The press, that mighty engine of progress, though shackled ev^n in the mother country, was struggling into liberty and influence in the colonies. Their first newspaper Avas published in Boston on April 24th, 1704, by John Campbell, a Scotchman, bookseller and post-master in that city. It bore the title of the " Boston News Letter," and was printed on a small half-sheet of paper, in small type. Its first page contained an extract from the " London Flying Post," respecting the Pretender's sending Popish missionaries from France into Scotland, a project as enormous to the good people of Massnchu- setts as it was to the English themselves. The rest was filled up by the qu'^en's speech, four short local articles with paragraphs of marine intelligence, and one advertisement, being, in fact, that of the proprietor himself. Small as was its size, and meagre its list of contents, it might almost have vied with any then published in the mother country. Its infancy was feeble and Jnn- guishing, but it contrived to exist through many momentous changes, vmtil the year 1776. In New York, Governor Lovelace had been anxious to estab- lish a journal as early as 1668, and even sent, without success, to Bostoi? for a printer ; but James II. had strictly ordered Dorjan to allow no press in the colony. The first paper in New York, called the New York Gaz/^tte, appeared in October, 1725, and fell at length under the entire control of the governor, Cosby. An opposition journal, printed by John Peter Zenger, was started, as it is believed, under the auspices of Van Dam, lately president of the council, between whom and the governor a serious dispute had recf ntly arisen, Cosby demanded half the salary received by his predecessor, in virtue of an instruction from the ministry, during the thirteen months for ■^'rhich he had been commissioned on his arrival. As the governor had received more than this amount in perquisites. Van Dam retorted by demanding the b?lance. The quarrel agitated the legal tribunals, and was warmly taken up by X\e two 1700-50.] HAMILTON'S DEFENCE OF ZENGER. 227 opposition newspapers, which had recently been estaolisned, one devoted to the governor's cause, the other, published by Zenger, to the popular party. The governor, irritated by the charges and lampoons in Zenger's journal, succeeded in obtaining his imprisonment on a charge of publishing seditious libels. As the grand jury would find no bill against him, the at- torney-general filed an information. The counsel of the prisoner persisting in denying the legality of the judges' commission, on the ground that they had been arbitrarily appointed without consent of the council, they were struck off the roll of the advocates. When the trial came on, an aged Quaker lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, speaker of the Pennsylvania assembly, who had been secretly retained for the purpose, appeared to defend Zenger, alleging the justice of the charges as excusing the pretended libel. The truth of a libel, replied the chief justice, cannot be received in evidence. Hamilton, however, boldly appealed to the jury. The question before you, he said, is not tlie cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, it is the best cause, the cause of liberty. Every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery, will bless and honour you as men who, by an impartial verdict, lay a noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbours, that to which nature and the honour of our country have given us a right — the liberty of opposing arbitrary power by speaking and writing truth. The ver- dict of the jury, " Not guilty," was received by the auditors with loud shouts, which, spite of the threats of the court to imprison the leaders of the out- cry, resounded with louder and more deafening echoes through the hall. The triumphant advocate was conducted from the hall to a public entertain- ment, he received the franchises of the city in a gold box for his generous defence of the rights of the j^eople, and a salute of cannon was fired at his departure for his o"\^TnL home. Poor Zenger, however, was left to struggle with costs and difficulties, and appears to have made but a losing affair of his newspaper, if we may judge from a pathetic complaint not unfrequently echoed by modern American journalists. " My country subscribers," he says, " are earnestly desired to pay their arrearages for this journal, Avhich if they don't speedily, I shall leave off sending, and seek my money another way. Some of these kind customers are in arrears upwards of seven years ! Now, as I have served them so long, I think it is time, ay and high time too, that they gave me my outset, for they may verily believe that my every-day clothes are nearly worn out. N. B. Gentlemen, If you have not ready money with you, still think of the printer ; and when you have read this advertisement and con- sidered it, yqu cannot but say. Come, dame, (especially you inquisitive wedded men, let the bachelors take it to themselves,) let us send the poor printer a few gammons, or some meal, some butter, cheese, poultry, &c." The press however had scarcely as yet made a practice of taking up po- litical questions, which were generally discussed in pamphlets, chiefly printed at Boston. In 1740, the number of newspapers had increased to eleven ; one in Carolina, one in Virginia, three in Pennsylvania — one of them in German, 228 EARLY CAREER OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIK. [1700-:0. one in New York, and five in Boston. In 1723, the controversies between the governor and people encouraged James Franklin to set up another newspaper at Boston, styled the " New England Courant," with a view of discussing subjects of popular interest in a liberal spirit of inqu.iry. Its commencement however was any thing but auspicious. The printer Avas shortly committed to prison for an article construed into contempt of the General Court ; and a still more unfortunate mistake was made by the pub- lisher's younger brother, Benjamin Franklin, whom we now first meet with in the humble guise of a spirited and hard-working journeyman printer, who carried about the sheets he had previously been engaged in writing and clothing in type. Some biting articles of the boy compositor, glancing at cer- tain cases of religious hypocrisy, were construed into ^' a tendency to mock reli- gion and bring it into contempt," and the venerable Mather, who sighed over the latitudinarianism of the times, complained that he " remembered the time when the civil government would have effectually suppressed such a cursed libel." Benjamin Franklin was summoned to receive a suitable admonition, and his brother, after being imprisoned, was forbidden to publish any thing until first submitted to a censorship. The paper, thus crijjpled, soon fell for want of support. Benjamin, with a few dollars in his pocket, sought a new field of employment in Philadelphia, where, putting in practice his own maxims of industry and frugality, he speedily laid the foundation of his future fortunes, became printer to the Assembly, and established a newspaper of his own. By twenty years' assiduous diligence he rendered himself independent, acquired a high standing among his fellow-citizens, and was selected to fulfil offices of weight and responsibility in the city of his adoption. The first literary periodical Magazine in America was established at Phila- delphia by his efforts, and he also gave a great impulse to the progress of education by the foundation of an academy and free-school, which afterwards grew up into the University of Pennsylvania ; Avhile his discoveries in elec- tricity rendered his name famous throughout Europe, " At the time when I established myself in Philadelphia," he observes in his Autobiography, " there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia, the printers were indeed stationers, but they sold only paper, almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England — the members of the Junto had each a few. Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to render the benefit more common by commencing a public subscription library." At first there were but few supporters, but at last reading became fashionable ; and having no public amusements to divert their minds from study, the citizens of Phila- delphia were observed to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank elsewhere. We must now turn to an institution, the ultimate consequences of which it is imj)ossible to foresee, pregnant as it is with the seed of perpetual dissension 1 :00-50. ] SLA VE TRADE EN CO URA GED B Y ENGLA ND. 229 between the northern and southern colonies. The first introduction of shives into Virginia occurred in 1620, by a Dutch trading vesseL The Portuguese had originated the practice of buying negroes on the coast of Africa, and sell- ing them in the American colonies, a traffic so gainful that the Spanish Dutch, and English soon followed their example. For some time, however but few slaves Avere introduced. The traders of Massachusetts engaged in the same traffic, disposing of their slaves for the most part in the West India islands. By degrees the introduc- tion of negroes became universal, and as their number increased, the legisla- tion with regard to them became more defined and severe. Slavery was de- clared hereditary, and while the intermarriage of free white women with negroes was declared " shameful," and the offender punished by being held as the slave of her husband's master, the children of black women, by pro- miscuous intercourse with their white masters, followed the fortunes of the mother. Runaways who refused to return to their masters might be la^v^rfully put to death. The conversion of the slave to Christianity, it was decided, occasioned no rupture of his bonds ; though it was indeed at one time sup- posed that no Christian could lawfully be brought into slavery. The number of slaves introduced, though as yet not very numerous, Avas often felt by the planters to be out of proportion to their requirements, especially as it soon became cheaper to breed slaves at home than to purchase them from abroad. The cessation, in 1698, of the monopoly of the Koyal African Company, and the Assiento treaty, by which the South Sea Company obtained the pri- vilege of bringing negroes into the Spanish territories, gave increased impulse to the trade, Avhich was now carried to its height. Henceforth the traffic became extremely lucrative ; all classes, from the highest to the lowest, engaged in it without scruple. " English ships," says Bancroft, " fitted out in English cities, under the special favour of the royal family, of the ministry, and parliament, stole from Africa, in the years from 1700 to 1750, probably a million and a half of souls, of whom one eighth were buried in the Atlantic." It now became the policy of government and the interest of merchants to flood the shores of America with importations of negroes, in spite of the repeated protestations of the colonists themselves, and no less the duty of the royal governors to enforce this policy, and, to use the words of an English statesman of the period, " not to allow the colonies to check or discourage in any degree a traffic so beneficial to the nation." Notwithstanding the deplorable apathy which all classes exhibited as to the atrocious injustice of this system, and the plausible arguments with which even men of the highest reputation contrived to reconcile themselves to its existence, there were never wanting, even from the first, a few clear-sighted and faithful men who denounced it in its real light. When the lawfulness of slavery was first discussed in an English court, and it was alleged that, as " being usually bought and sold among merchandise, and aho being injidels, there might lawfully be a property in them," Chief Justice Holt repeatedly declared that there is no such thing as a slave by the 230 SLAVERY IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. [1700-50. law of England. It is to the honour of Oglethorpe that he steadily set him- self against the introduction of slavery into Georgia, in spite of all the re- quisitions of his colonists, avIio desired to follow the example of their Caro- linian neighbours, and toasted at their banquets the introduction of slavery as the "one thing needful;" nor could it be established until after his de- parture from the country. Yet the great majority were abused, and lent themselves to the traffic without suspicion. Even men like Whitfield, losing sight of the clear principles of human rights in the blaze of religious enthu- siasm, decided, that provided slaves were but taken " in faith, and with the vicAV of conducting them to Ckrist," the action will not be a sin, but prove a benediction. In the northern states, slavery, however, never became part and parcel of the social system, but was a mere excrescence, which only awaited the progress of public opinion to be swept away. In Massachusetts, and the New Eng- land States, the negroes were principally used as domestic servants. INIanu- mission was not unfrequent, and slavery there Avas comparatively mild. In New York, the proportion of slaves was larger, and the code for their government more harsh. In Pennsylvania, Penn had vainly endeavoured to obtain laAVS for the moral improvement of the slaves, but to little purpose, since the instinct of slaveholders teaches them that to ameliorate the moral and religious condition of their slaves is to pave the way for their eventual en- franchisement. Some of the Quakers having proposed abolition, the assembly determined that this measure was neither "just nor convenient," though they laid an import duty on, intended to prevent further importations. The southern States, especially the Carolinas, Avcre the stronghold of the system. Here the negroes amounted to one third of the entire population, and the climate, and staples of cultivation, tended to radicate slavery in the soil. The cultivation of rice and indigo rapidly increased the wealth of the planters, the numbers of the slaves Avas multiplied, and with a cruel contradiction, just in proportion as their labour became the source of wealth, their bonds were rendered more stringent, and their condition more hopeless. In 1740, an act was passed, which still remains in force, by which all " negroes, Indians, and Mestitzoes, and all their issue, shall for ever hereafter be absolute slaves, held as chattels personal ;" an enactment subjecting even the most dis- tant descendant to the same miserable doom. Such, at the period of which we are treating, -was the condition of Ame- rica in regard to slavery; already shaken in the northern colonics, and shortly destined to be abolished, but no less firmly rooted in the south ; partly from local necessity, partly from the cupidity of the settlers themselves, and partly by the commercial avarice of the mother country. Of the two great leaders of the impending revolution, Washington and Franklin, the former was a slaveholder, and the latter was an abolitionist. Before the revolution, as Sullivan observes, the distinctions of society were more marked than at present. The royal goA^crnors often lived in splendid style. 1700-50.] THE CITY AND PEOPLE OF BOSTON, 231 and formed tlie centre of a society composed of " persons in of&ce, the ricTi, and those who had connexions in England, of which they were very proud." These were the gentry of the country, before the war. Modes of life, man- ners, and personal decoration, were the indications of superiority. As most of the gentry embraced the side of government, the commencement of hos- tilities drove a large portion of them from the colony ; but the same indica- tions continued among some who remained, and adhered to the patriot side. There was a class of persons, no longer known, who might be called the gentry of the interior. They held very considerable landed estates, in imita- tion of the landowners in England. These persons were the great men in their respective counties. They held civil and military offices, and were members of the General Court. This sort of personal dignity gradually dis- appeared with the democratic tendency which followed the revolution- ary war. The " wilderness condition," as the Puritan fathers called it, during which they had endeavoured to restrain extravagance and excess by sumptuary regulations, had long since passed a-\vay, and with increasing wealth, display had been gradually creeping in to both the habitations and dress of the people. There is a quaint and old-f;ishioned luxury in such a picture as the following : " In the princij^al houses of Boston," says the writer, " there Avas a great hall, ornamented with pictures, and a great lantern, and a velvet cushion in the window-seat that looked into the garden. A large bowl of punch was often j^laced in the hall, from Avhich visitors might help themselves as they entered. On either side was a great parlour, a little parlour, or studj-. These were furnished with great looking-glasses, Turkey carpets, window curtains and valance, pictures and a map, a brass clock, red leather-back chairs, and a great pair of brass andirons. The chambers Avere well sup- plied with feather-beds, wai-ming-pans, and every other article that would now be thought necessary for comfort or display. The pantry was well filled with substantial fare, and dainties — prunes, marmalade, and Madeira wine. Silver tankards, wine cups, and other articles of plate were not un- common, and the kitchen was completely stocked with pewter, iron, and cop- per utensils. Very many families employed servants, and in one we see a Scotch boy, valued among the property, and invoiced at £14." Negro slaves also often formed part of a New England household of that , day. Even before this period, in the matter of dress, certain of the ladies Avcre eager to copy the London and Paris fashions, as we learn from a splenetic old writer. " INIethinks," he says, " it should break the heart of Englishmen to see so many goodly Englishwomen imprisoned in French cages, peering out of their hood-holes for some men of mercy to help them with a little wit ; " and bitterly complains of their eagerness to learn wJiat dress the queen is in, and to copy it in all haste. As mention is here made of pictures, we may observe that the first portrait painter in America was John Smibert, a Scotch artist, who came over with Berkeley, and painted that picture of the bishop and his family which is preserved at Yale College. An art so pleasing was not long 232 iV^PT YORK BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. [1700-50. in making its way over the colonies, and lias preserved to posterity the youtti- ful appearance of Washington. But though art and literature were making their way, public amusements were still froAvned upon by the New England magistrates. Otway's play of The Orphan was acted in 1750, at a coffee-house in Boston ; but such exhibitions were forthwith prohibited, as " tending to discourage industry and frugality, and greatly to increase impiety and con- tempt of religion." A London company of actors contrived however, shortly afterwards, to gain a footing in New York, Philadelphia, and different towns of the south. Under the Dutch, New York must have presented a curious spectacle, as though some town of the old country, with its quaint architecture and cum- brous costume, had been transplanted bodily across the ocean, and set down in the midst of the swamps and forests of the new world. An old engraving of the Stadt Huis, or Town Hall, with the adjacent buildings, might be taken for a view in Amsterdam. The mayor at the head of the city militia was accus- tomed to parade before it, and every evening at sun-set received from the prin- cipal guard of the fort, which could lodge three hundred soldiers, and mounted forty guns, the keys of the city, and then proceeded with a guard of six men to lock the city gates and place a Burger wagt, or citizen guard, at different posts. Before sun-rise he was again on his rounds to open the said gates, and restore the keys to the officer. Many and high-sounding were the titles of the Dutch officials ; there was the Heer Officier, or high sheriff, De Fiscael, or attorney-general, the Wees INIeisters, or guardians of orphans, and the Koy Meisters, or regulators of fences, the Groot Burgerreicht and the Klein Burgerreicht, or great and small citizenship, which divided society into aris- tocrats and democrats, with more than we can here enumerate. With the cession of the colony to the English, their habits and manners gradually pre- dominated over those of the Dutch. A century -ago the Broadway of New York exhibited all the picturesque fashions of the period. A New York beau then wore a gorgeous coat of red plush, with large cuffs, and huge three- plaited skirts, stiffened with buckram wadding ; the neck was studiously low, to exhibit his plaited stock of fine linen, and the large silver buckle beliind ; ruffles with golden sleeve buttons invested his wrists, his breeches were of the same material as his coat, with sillc stockings, and high-heeled shoes adorned with buckles. The little boys wore nearly the same ponderous costume as their papas. Although the towns along the seaboard were increasing in prosperity, and the country intervening between them was gradually filled up with settlers, hardly a village was to be found at more than a hundred miles from the coast, and a vast wilderness interposed between the outj)osts of the English and the forts of the French on the western waters. The Blue Eidge long con- tinued to be the boundary of Virginia, and it was not until ITIO that Lieutenant-Governor Spotswood, Avith a large retinue, penetrated its defiles, and first laid open the mountains and vales of the Alleghany district to the enterprise of pioneers. 1700-50.] THE AMERICAN BACKWOODSMEN. 233; As the population of Virginia and Carolina j)ressed eagerly across the tracks thus formed, a new form of character, the American backwoodsman, began to spring up among the western forests. As none but the most vigorous and athletic ventured to establish themselves in the vicinity of hostile Indians, these new settlers were generally men of extraordinary physical strength, and nerved into tenfold hardihood by a continual struggle with the wilder- ness and its Indian tenants, who resented this intrusion upon their imme- morial hunting grounds. The character of such men was necessarily half savage and half civilized, and they adopted a costume greatly resembling that of the aborigines themselves. A fur cap, buck-skin pantaloons, or leggings of dressed deer-skin, ornamented after the Indian fashion, with a loose hunting shirt, in the capacious bosom of which were stowed away a store of jerked beef and bread, with other hunter requisites, girt round the waist with a belt, to which were fastened the tomahawk and the scalping knife, with Indian mocassins, or leathern sandals for the feet, and the invariable rifle over his shoulder — such was the dress of one of these western pioneers. Their habitations were log-huts surrounded by a stockade, made bullet proof for protection against their Indian foes. The furniture was of the rudest description, and the shaggy skins of the bear, buffalo, and deer furnished the stock of bedding. Their food con- sisted principally of the rich variety of game furnished by the chase, among which the flesh of the bear was highly prized. As the clearing around his hut began to exj)and its boundaries, many were the farinaceous delicacies that covered the settler's board ; \he Johnny-cake, made of corn meal, Jiom- mony, or pounded corn thoroughly boiled, and other savoury preparations of flour and milk. Hunting was the j)rincipal winter occupation of the back- woodsman, and " as soon as the leaves were pretty well down, and the weather became rainy, he began to feel uneasy at home. Every thing about him became disagreeable. The house Avas too warm, the bed was too soft, and even the good wife for the time was not thought a good companion." A j)arty was soon formed, and on the ajjpointed day the little cavalcade, with horses carrying flour, meal, blankets, and other requisites, were on their way to the hunting camp. This was always formed in some sheltered and sequestered spot, and consisted of a rude cabin, with the log-fire in front, and moss and skins for the couches. It was to the spoils of the chase that the backwoods- men trusted for the skins and furs to barter for the few necessaries they re- quired from the eastern states, to which a caravan was usually despatched for the purpose. As the settlements increased, every neighbourhood was furn- ished with a strong timber fort, to which the inhabitants might return in case of attack, some of which were so strong as to resist the most formidable Indian army. Beyond the limits of civilization, and untrammeled by law or gospel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Yet the moral feeling of society was often a greater terror to the delinquent than judge or jury, for if he offended it he was liable to be "hated from the place" or in grave cases, subjected to the summary process of Lynch law, which, though some- 234 UNCIVILIZED CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE. [1700-rO. times abused, was no doubt, upon the whole, a salutary terror to offenders. A body of citizens, calling themselves regulators, would repair to the dwelling of the culprit, who being tied to a tree, Chief-justice " Birch^' forthwith established his tribunal and pronounced the sentence, which was carried into execution with no gentle hand. If the conduct of any individual was im- peached by another, the matter was decided by an appeal to fisticuffs, or *' rough and tumble," with fists, feet, and teeth, but knives and fire-arms were not allowed to be used. The contest decided, both parties would shake hands and be better friends than ever. A kindred, but still more lawless, race were the hardy hoatmev, who now began to explore and navigate the western waters, propelling their rafts, or flat boats, with incredible toil against the current for thousands of miles together. Kejoicing to exhibit the strength they acquired in these Herculean labours, they delighted in pugilistic encounters ; keel-boatmen and flat-boatmen regarded each other as their np^ural enemies, and their meeting was always signalized by a general encounter, and their riotous and lawless assemblages set at defiance the feeble arm of the civil power. These western people, in visiting the old cities on the sea-board, were re- garded by the inhabitants as a sort of barbarians, whom they in their turn despised for their effeminate habits. " Children who had been raised on the frontiers," says Doddridge, "when they reached the settlements east of the mountains, were surprised to find that all houses were not made of logs and chinked with mud, that all dishes and table ware were not of pewter and wood. To them the luxuries of tea and coffee were nauseous or unknown, and they ' wondered how people could show a fondness for such slops,' which had neither gust to the palate, nor stuck to the ribs.' The cups and saucers from which it was drunk were themselves but emblems of a depraved taste and unmanly luxury, or, at most, were adapted to the effeminate or the sick." No settlement was effected in Vermont until the year 1724, when the government of Massachusetts built Fort Dummer, on the Upper Connecticut. This was the western outpost of civilization in this direction, and the rich lands of this district remained unsettled until after the French war, when a road was cut by the New England troops from Charlestown in New Hamp- shire, to the French fort at Crown Point on Lake Champlain, thus discover- ing the fertility of these lands, which after the peace were eagerly coveted and rapidly settled. The town of Albany, at that time on the edge of a boundless uncleared wilderness, was the western outpost of civilization, and must have presented a singularly curious and picturesque appearance. Originally founded by the Dutch, it had successively received the name of Fort Orange, Bevcrwyk, and Williamstadt, until, after the English conquest, it received the name which it has ever since retained. It was surrounded by a stockade of pine logs. The fort, a post of no small importance on the frontier of a country full of wild Indians, was massive and strong ; just below it was the English church, and the old Dutch church, of quaint and antique appearance. The architecture 1700-50.] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN ALBANY. 235 was like that of Delft, or Leyden ; all the houses stood with their angular zigzag gables turned to the street, with long projecting gutter pipes, which, like those of the towns of continental Europe at the present day, discharge their unsavoury current of dirty water or melted snows upon the heads of the unwary passengers. The sfoopes, or porches, were furnished with side-seats, well filled in the evening with the inmates, old and young, of both sexes, who met to gossip or to court, while the cattle wandered almost at will about the streets of the half-rustic city. In the interior of the dwellings, Dutch cleanliness and economy were established ; the women, as at the present day in Holland, were considered over-nice in scrubbing their floors, and burnishing their brass and pewter vessels into an intensity of lustre. From the dawn of day until late at night they were engaged in the work of purifi- cation. They lived too with exemplary sobriety ; breakfasting on tea without milk and sweetened by a small bit of sugar passed round from one to the other ; they dined on butter-milk and bread, and if to that they added sugar, it was esteemed delicious, though sometimes tliey indulged in broiled and roasted meats. The use of stoves was unknown, and the huge fire-places, through which one might have driven a waggon, furnished with ample logs, were grand and cozy nestling-places during the long winter evenings, which the Avail of the snow storm and the roar of the forest trees rendered more deliciously secure. Under the English the same simplicity of manners long prevailed. Albany was the grand depot for the Avestern fur trade, for more than a cen- tury. Ciu-iously contrasted Avith the quaint and prim costume of its Dutch inhabitants, were constantly seen, in those days, the dusky face and savage finery of the Indian chiefs. Here, glorious in all the refinement of paint and feathers, and armed Avith the boAV and the tomahaAvk, assembled the grave and dignified Sachems of the once poAverful Five Nations. Here the pipe of peace Avas smoked, and treaties of peace entered into, Avith these redoubtable chieftains. Here, too, often assembled, with a rude display of military pomp, the militia, destined to act against the French in Canada, betAveen AAdiich country and the Hudson there extended a A'ast wilderness, Avhere the Indians yet roamed unmolested, and intersected only by one or tAvo roads leading through interminable morasses and forests. These provincial militia Avere " strong of limb, swift of foot, and excellent marksmen, the hatchet Avas as familiar to them as the rifle ; in short, Avhen means and arguments could be used poAverful enough to collect a people so uncontrolled and so uncontrollable, and Avhen, headed by a leader Avhom they loved and trusted, a well-armed body of New York prcTincials had nothing to dread but an ague or an ambuscade." To the fo^aier they Avere far better acclimated than the British regulars, and in the latter dilemma displayed greater readiness and presence of mind. The provincial troops are contemptuously described by an English authority as "a poor, mean, ragged set of men of all ages, and sizes, and costumes," but their officers as slirewd and sensible, making " a decent appearance in blue uniforms faced with scarlet, gilt buttons, with laced Avaistcoats and hats. The active and enter- 233 CONDITION OF THE PROVINCIAL MILITIA. [1700-50. prising corps of Rangers, whose exploits are so often heard of during the succeeding wars, adopted a costume better suited for bush-fighting, something resembhng that of the Iliglilanders. Their uniform was made of black frieze, faced with blue, and consisted of a waistcoat, with a jacket without sleeves, canvass drawers, and long leggings, buttoning like spatterdashes, and blue bonnets. To these provincials were shortly after added large detachments of the English troops, which rendezvoused at Albany, and whose gay and gallant officers were received here and elsewhere with frank hospitality by the admiring colonists. When John Adams was a young lawyer at Worcester in Massachu- setts, then a little village containing fifteen hundred inhabitants, the British army destined for Canada, with Lord Londoun, the hopeless procrastinator, the youthful Lord Howe, of whose fate we shall shortly have to speak, and Sir Geoffrey, afterwards Lord Amherst, passed through the place. " Here," says Mr. Adams, " we had an opportunity of seeing the officers and army. The officers were social, spent their evenings and took their suppers with such of the inhabitants as were able to invite them, and entertained us with their music and dances. Many of them were Scotchmen in their j)laids, and their music was delightful, even the bagpipe was not disagreeable. General Amherst lodged with Colonel Chandler the elder, and was very inquisitive concerning his farm, insisting on rambling over the whole of it. The excellent order and discipline observed by these troops revived the hopes of the country, which were viltimately fully satisfied by the entire conquest of Canada with the half of the militia of the country, which were sent on to their assistance with great confidence." The British troops were regarded with pride and emulation by the colonial militia, although the latter often felt their proud and untamed spii-its swell at the airs of superiority assumed by their better appointed and disciplined, but not braver, fellow-soldiers, and they sometimes refused to serve under any but their own officers, who knew and valued their spirit. It was in the ensuing wars, and in serving with the royal troops, that these colonial officers acquired that military experience which they afterwards turned to such dear account in their struggle with the mother country. Li this school were trained not only Gates, and Montgomery, and others, who, though they took the j^art of the colonists, were themselves natives of Britain, but those brave sons of the soil, who afterwards became conspicuous in the annals of the revolutionary struggle, Putnam, Willett, Stark, Wooster, Schuyler, and a host of other chiefs, whose exploits, although less prominent in the general outline of his- tory, contrib -ted not a little to the ultimate independence of their country. It may be well imagined that the intercourse between colonies separated by wide intervals of country, few parts more than half settled, and in many places almost a profound wilderness, was of course very imperfect. The postal communication of America seems to have originated in Virginia soon after the arrival of Andros, who succeeded Lord Howard of Effingham as governor. By royal patent Thomas Neale was authorized to establish a post for the de- 1700-50.] THE POST-OFFICE IN THE DIFFERENT STA TES. 237 spatcli of letters and parcels, and this example was slowly followed m the other States, altliougli it was not until the revolution, when Franklin became post- master-general, and the colonies were more vitally united, that any great improvement took place in this important establishment. At the period of Franklin's first appointment, the following advertisemen was put forth. " Oct. 2Tth, 1737. Notice is hereby given, that the post- office of Philadelphia is now kept at B. Franklin's, in Market Street, and that Henry Pratt is appointed riding postmaster for all the stages between Philadelphia and Newport in Virginia, who sets out about the hegimring of eacli month, and returns in tiventy-four days, by whom gentlemen, merchants, and others may have their letters carefully conveyed, and business faithfully transacted, he having given good security for the same to the Honourable Colonel Spotswood, postmaster-general of all his Majesty's dominions in America." Improvement was not very rapid. Six years afterwards the post to New York went once a week, and that into Virginia once a fortnight. Even in England, where the roads are now brought to such perfection, they were at that time generally in a very bad condition. In America they are still bad enough, and were then doubtless so bad as at times to be all but impassable for carriages, and even for horsemen. The journey from Worcester to Praintree, a distance of about seventy miles, took John Adams no less than five days to accomplish. The settlers of the New England colonies first effected their transactions by barter, and afterwards made use of beaver-skins, musket-balls, and wampum beads, as a circulating medium, three of these beads passing for a penny. In Virginia, tobacco was long the only currency of the colonists. By degrees, necessity led to the introduction of coin and paper money. The first coin was struck in New England in about the year 1650. Much bidlion was brought to that province by the buccaneers, and it was thought advisable, in order to prevent fraud, to erect a mint for shillings, sixpences, and three- pences, with no other impression at first than NE. on one side, and XII., VI., or III. on the other; brit in October, 1651, it was decreed by the court, that the coinage should have on one side a pine tree in the centre, with MASSACHU- SETTS around it, and NEW ENGLAND, with the year of our Lord, upon the other. Little notice seems to have been taken of this measure by the home government, and this currency does not appear to have been much circulated beyond the bounds of the colony itself. It is said that the mint-master, Jolin Hull, received one shilling in every twenty for his labours, by which contract he became so Avealthy as to give his daughter, upon her marriage, her own weight in these pine-tree shillings, as her portion. The expense of the inter- colonial wars occasioned the first emission of paper money. The troops were mutinous for their pay, and would not wait until a tax could be raised for them in specie ; and their claims were therefore satisfied by these new-coined notes, which in spite of the governor's exchanging a large number of them at par, soon sunk far below their nominal value, but were raised in value by an 238 THE FIRST ISSUE OF PAPER MONEY. [1700-50. expedient of the government allowing five per cent._ to tliose who paid the taxes in notes. Hereafter the creation of paper money upon any emergency became a favourite expedient of the assembly, who generally forced the go- vernor to accede to it. What necessity had first created, was now continued, partly from the ab- sence of a sufficiency of metallic currency, which was drawn off for payments to the mother country, and partly out of the spirit of speculation inherent in a new colony, where capital has not yet had time to accumulate. In spite of the strenuous opposition of the home government, successive emissions of paper money became the favourite expedient of the colonial assemblies, and though its immediate effect was to give an impulse to trade, it was not long before the enormous evils and abuses incident to its unlimited use developed themselves to an alarming extent. In sj)ite of every legislative contrivance, the value of the paper rapidly sank, debtors availed themselves of it as legal- ized tender to escape from the claims of their creditors, persons with fixed incomes were almost ruined, and commerce became unsettled by the very ex- pedient designed for its promotion. At length, in 1751, the evil became so intolerable in Massachusetts, that it was decided, though not without great opposition from interested parties, to redeem the paper at a little less than its current value^ while an act of parliament was obtained, prohibiting the future issue of any bills of credit for which provision was not made within the tAvelvemonth. These restrictions were among the causes that tended to produce a feeling of ill-will to the mother country. Having thus taken a general though imperfect survey of the condition of the colonies at the close of the intercolonial wars, we next j^roceed to narrate the conquest of Canada; which, by delivering the colonists from any further apprehension of the French, tended to remove the principal check upon their aspirations for independence, and to bring about, almost immediately after- ward, the memorable revolution by which it was successfully achieved. 1747.] PROSPECT OF WAR WITH THE FRENCH. 239 CHAPTER IV. nXAL STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH, TERMINATING IN THE CONQUEST OP CANADA, AND THE CESSION OF NORTH AMERICA TO THE BRITISH CROWN. The designs of the Frencli had long given serious anxiety to the English government. The discovery of the Mississippi and the great lakes by the former has been aheady described^ and to this vast region, including even the tributaries of the great river which extended to the very frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia, they now laid claim. They had already estab- lished numerous military -and trading posts, from the frontiers of Canada to the recently founded city of New Orleans, and where they had been unable thus to take formal possession of the soil, they had endeavoured to found a right of pre-occupation, by sinking plates of metal in the ground, or carving the lilies of Prance upon the bark of the forest trees. On the other hand, the different English grants had extended in theory on a line direct westward to the Pacific Ocean, thus setting up a counter-pretension to the same lands to which the French asserted a right by the more direct title of discovery. It is hardly necessary to say, that to this disputed territory neither party had any fair title whatsoever, since the lands had never been ceded by the natives, who, when appealed to as arbiters of a dispute, are said to have inquired by way of reply, " where lay the Indian lands, for the French claimed all on one side of the river, and the English all on the other." So long as the latter confined themselves to the sea-board, their claims attracted comparatively but little attention from their rivals, but as they began to push their settlements across the Alleghany mountains, and to encroach upon what the French re- garded as their rightful limits, it became evident that a collision could not be much longer deferred. Soon after the peace, a body of London merchants and Virginian land speculators had been incorporated as the " Comj^any of the Ohio," for settling the borders of that stream, which, from the fertility of its shores and the beauty of its scenery, had justly obtained from the French the appellation of " La Belle Pivitre." As the great object was to obtain a footing in the soil, this Company forthwith proceeded to establish the post of Hedstone, on the Monongahela river — a step, of course, regarded as an aggression by the French, who built a new fort on the shores of Lake Erie, and were evidently preparing to drive out the competitors, and take possession of the disputed territory. In anticipation of this step. Governor Dinwiddie had already sent out a messenger in the guise of a trader, to ascertain the temper of the 240 SCHOOL-DAYS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. [1749. Indians, and to sj^y out the proceedings of the French. The English go- vernment, in anticipation of a war, had urged him to lose no time in building two forts, for which purpose artillery and munitions were sent over ; bu^t the French had been beforehand with them, and both from the north and the south, bodies of men had already been concentrated upon the beautiful banks of the Ohio. It is in connexion with these transactions, that we for the first time meet with the illustrious father of American liberty. In a former chapter allusion has been made to John Washington, who had then recently emigrated from England, and settled down among the planters of Virginia. The family of which he was a scion, were established at Sulgrave, in Northamptonshii-e, and numbered many personagcv of rank and consequence. GEORGE AVASHINGTON, the great-grandson of the above-named settler, was born on the 22nd of February, 1732, being the first offspring of his father's, Augustine Washington's, marriage with Mary Ball, his second wife. George was but a lad of eleven when his father died, leaving him with five brothers and sisters, all however tolerably well provided for. His mother, on whom alone now devolved the serious charge of shaj)ing the character and managing the interests of her children, Avas a woman of remarkable mental and bodily energy, in whom may be seen the same qualities which Avere more conspicuously manifested in her illustrious son. Although she lived to wit- ness his translation from the sphere of a private citizen to that of the de- liverer and first magistrate of his country, it worked no alteration in the sim- plicity of her habits, and when all around her eagerly sounded his praises in her ear, she was accustomed only to reply, that he had been a good son and had performed his duty as a man. Under her strict, but not severe discipline, young Washington grew up towards manhood with but little assistance from scholastic training. Virginia had always been behind the northern colonies in the means of education. Latin and Greek were untaught in the common schools to which he was compelled to resort, nor is it probable, from the turn of his mind, that he would ever have been a proficient in classical accomplish- ments. But the more severe and practical cast of his intellect was exempli- fied by the progress he made in arithmetic and the elements of geometry, his methodical and regular habits, and the singular satisfaction he appears to have derived from writing oxit forms and abstracts of business proceedings. Not less characteristic of his early sense of moral responsibility is a system of maxims, which, strange indeed at such an age, he had drawn up for his be- haviour, and which, stranger still, he ever afterwards carried into practice, terminating with the solemn memento, " Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience." This thoughtful, elevated cast of mind, and a certain dignity of manner and appearance, gave to him, even in school, a moral ascendency over the minds of his fellows, who looked up to him as the impartial arbiter of their disputes. But with these character- istics, young Washington combined others of a nature directly opposite. Robust in frame, and Avith Virginian fire and daring in his blood he de- 1749.] WASHINGTON BECOMES LAND-SURVEYOR. 241 liglited ia athletic and military exercises. Like T\apolcon at Brienne, he would form his schoobnates into companies, and engage in mimic battles. After he left school this military turn of mind grew upon him, he continued the studies of mathematics and trigonometry, associated with officers who had served in the recent wars, studied tactics and perused treatises, and became expert in the use of the sword. Such was the remarkable balance of qualities rarely united in the same individual — prudence, self-possession, and conscientiousness, with ardour, energy, and the love of active enterprise. The destination of young Washington was now an object of interest to his relatives, and looking to his desire for active service, one of them obtained for him a birth as midshipman on board a British man-of-war ; but this scheme, to which he is said to have looked forAvard with all the buoyancy of youthful enterprise, was set aside by the authority of his mother. How many instances are there in which the disappointment of early plans has proved to be the source of future greatness ! Had Washington gone to sea, what a diiference would it have made to his own glory, and to the future fortunes of his country ! The occupation which he now took up, though both useful and lucrative in a new country, where vast tracts of land were to be opened and settled, bore in it no promise of future greatness, being simply that of land- surveyor and agent to a wealthy nobleman. Lord Fairfax, to whose family he had become distantly related. This nobleman, who had been edu- cated at Oxford, and had even written pajDers in the Spectator, on a visit to some estates in America he had acquired by inheritance, took such a liking to the free and wild life of the country, as to fix his residence there for the remainder of his days. His lands, a principality in themselves, were ex- tended over the Alleghany and its ridges, then covered with primitive forests, in which, as the population increased, a few squatters had set themselves down without law or warrant. To check these encroachments, and facilitate immi- gration, it was necessary to parcel out this territory into saleable jiortions, and upon George Washington this task was now devolved. Even in a country where children, by being early thrown uj^on their own resources, acquire precocious energy of character, this enterprise of the young surveyor Avas more than commonly remarkable. He was just sixteen, when, accompanied by George Fairfax, the eldest son of a relative, he set off at the head of a party, compass and chain in hand, to penetrate and map out an almost unbroken wilderness. This was precisely the sort of discipline, if it did not kill a youth outright, to give him dauntless hardihood of character, and robust vigour of constitution. Young Washington was soon accus- tomed to clamber precipices and wade morasses, to swim his horse over swollen streams, to sleep for nights under the canopy of heaven, wrapped up in a bear-skin, and deem a seat by a blazing log-fire a place of luxury, to live hard and to work hard, to cook his own rough meal with a wooden fork, and to cope betimes with the wild forests and their Avildcr tenants. Amidst hardships such as these, he fulfilled his task so successfully, as to obtain the post of public surveyor, which he continued to discharge for three years with 2 I 242 WASHINGTON'S EXPEDITION TO LAKE ERIE. [1753. the greatest credit. The confidence he had inspired soon led to his pro- motion to a post of stiU higher responsibihty, and when only nineteen he was appointed to take charge of one of the districts then threatened by the encroachments of the French, to call out and review the militia, and organize matters for the defence of the frontier. From these active duties he was called away for a Avhile to accompany his brother Laurence to the West Indies, in the vain hope that a warmer climate woidd check the progress of a consumption, of which he shortly afterwards died. The management of his deceased brother's estates now devolved upon him, with which his time and attention were for some months wholly absorbed. With the arrival of Governor Dinwiddle came a fresh accession to his responsibilities, in an ex- tension of the district over which he was appointed adjutant. His admirable character and efficient training had already conferred upon the youthful Washington, in the narrow theatre to which he had hitherto been confined, the reputation of one to whom much might be trusted, and from whom great things might be expected, should any .wider field of action be in store to develope his remarkable qualities. That opportunity was now in some measure afforded by the pending hostilities. As a preliminary measure to check the further progress of the French, Go- vernor Dinwiddle resolved to send a commissioner to confer with their officers on the Ohio, respecting their alleged encroachment on his Majesty's terri- tories, and at the same time to ascertain their plans and estimate their force. The experience that Washington had acquired, and the courage and sagacity that he had displayed, pointed him out as the fittest person for tills responsible office. To seek out the objects of this delicate diplomacy, he was compelled to traverse a distance of nearly six hundred miles of wild country, half of it in a state of nature, but these were difficulties which his previous training rendered comparatively trivial. With but eight followers, he made his way to Logstown, about twenty miles beyond the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers, where he had a conference with the Indian chiefs, who at his request gave him an escort to Venango, about fifteen miles from Lake Erie, the nearest outpost of the French. Here, after forty-one days' travel through an almost impassable wilderness, the French commandant received him Avlth characteristic politeness, but respectfully replied that it would be contrary to his instructions to evacuate the fort, or abandon the territory. Washington had nothing, therefore, to do but retrace his steps to Virginia, with this unpromising reply. He had however so improved this opportunity of obtaining the desired information, that his journal was deemed worthy of being printed, not only in the colonies, but also in London; and thus, by giving assurance of the enemy's plans, of leading to' immediate and vigorous efl^orts to counteract them, Dinwiddle's next object was to provide the sinews of war, and he lost no time in appealing to the Virginian legislature to vote the necessary supplies, while he despatched pressing entreaties to the other colonics to affi3rd him their assistance in repelling the common enemy. In both instances, he met 1754] DE JUMONVILLE KILLED IN A SKIRMISH. 243 witli but very partial success. Even in the Virginia legislature, doubts were expressed as to tlie king's claim over the disputed lands, and though the sura of ten thousand pounds was ultimately voted for " the protection of the settlers in the Mississippi," it was clogged with the proviso that commissioners should be appointed to watch over its appropriation. The other colonies received the appeal with great apathy, and held out but little hope of assistance. "With the means at his disposal, the governor, however, increased the military establishment, which was placed under Colonel Fry, an Englishman, Washing- ton being appointed second in command, with the title of Lieutenant-Colonel. To stimulate the zeal of his troops, and to form a body of military settlers, Dinwiddie issued a proclamation, granting to them two hundred thousand acres on the Ohio — a measure received with little approbation by the legisla- ture of Pennsylvania, who laid counter-claims to the lands in question. Although no declaration of war had been yet published, hostilities could no longer be delayed. A small party of English were engaged in building a fort at the junction of the Ohio and Monongahela, when their labours were interriTpted by the sudden apparition of a large force of French troops, who had descended the river from Venango, provided with ammunition, and who de- manded their immediate surrender. Unable to resist, they were compelled to comply with their requisition, and fell back to Wells Creek with intelligence of the disaster. The French now completed and strengthened the fort^ which they called Duquesne, after the nobleman who then held the govern- ment of Canada, and which has since gro-v\Ti uj? into Pittsburg, the Birming- ham of North America. The position of Washington now became critical by his superior in command hot having yet arrived ; he despatched messengers to entreat reinforcements, and held a council of war, at which it was resolved, as the best of two risks, to advance at once in the direction of the Ohio. Opening a road before them through forests and morasses, his troops had reached a spot to which Wash- ington gave the name of Great INIeadows, and where he proposed to erect a fort, when his scouts reported the approach of a body of hostile French. Under the conduct of the Indians, he came suddenly upon them, and the French ran to their arms ; a smart skirmish ensued, which ended in the death of the French leader, M. de Jumonville, and several of his men, upon which the remainder surrendered, and were sent under guard to the governor of Vir- ginia. As it afterwards ajjpcared that Jumonville was the bearer of a summons to evacuate the territory, this transaction was represented in France as an act of treachery on the part of Washington ; but even had he been aware of the purpose of the French officer, yet, as the latter was approaching with an armed body and a threatening message, and as the French themselves had already commenced hostilities, it is evident that he would have had no alter- native but to treat them as enemies. No sooner had the French learned of the death of M. Jumonville and the surrender of his detachment, than they prepared to fivenge it ; and having heard that large reinforcements had arrived at Fort Duquesne, Washington 2 I 2 244 ARRIVAL OF FRENCH TROOPS AT CANADA. [1755. waj. compelled to retreat. Painfully dragging their artillerj^ across the half- opened road, and enduring the severest hardsliips, his men at length reached Great Meadows. Where it had not been at first intended that they should halt, but they were incapable of continuing the retreat, and it was accordingly deter- mined to proceed with the construction of Fort Necessity while awaiting the arrival of provisions and reinforcements. But while thus engaged, they were in their turn surprised by the approach of a superior French force, and after a conflict of some hours, obliged to surrender on honourable terms. Although untoward, the issue of this camj^aign did not detract from the credit bestowed upon Washington for the conduct and bravery that he had displayed under very trying circumstances. He received the thanks of the House of Assem- bly, and made rapid progress in the esteem and confidence of liis fellow colonists. Hostilities between England and France being imminent, applications were made by the royal governors in the colonies for a levy of militia, which was warmly responded to by the northern colonies, the southern disj)laying far less zeal. As it was known that a French squadron, destined to carry out four thousand troojis, under Baron Dieskau, was preparing to sail from Brest, Admiral Boscawen was sent to intercept it ; but the greater part of the ships succeeded in throwing their forces into Canada and Louisburg, although one or two fell into the hands of the English, No formal declaration of war had as yet been issued, but each party was using its utmost efibrts to injure and annoy the other. The French had lately endeavoured to regain possession of Acadia, which had been originally discovered and settled by them, and where a large popu- lation of French origin had gradually grown up. With this view they had lately erected, besides the strong fortress of Louisburg, others at Beau Sejour, and Gaspereau, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy. To dislodge them thence, a large body of provincial troops was sent, raised and com- manded by John Winslow, grandson of the leader ^\\\o stormed the Indian stronghold in the war with Philip of Pokanoket, together with a small force of British regulars under the command of Colonel Monkton. The forts were easily reduced to a capitulation, with the express condition, however, that the inhabitants of the neighboixring district, a body of whom had been found among the garrison, should not be molested for the part they had taken in the defence. The situation of these poor people was very trying, and the treatment pursued towards them illustrates, as nothing else can, the atrocities involved in this intercolonial and frontier warfare. Their forefathers had crossed the ocean, and having struggled with the hardships of the wilderness, had be- queathed to their descendants the lands which they had thus colonised. In this remote spot they lived a quiet and a harmless life in the midst of much abundance, maintaining their old French customs and worshijjping God after their hereditary fashion. All this however could not prevent their countrv from becoming the object of contention between rival powers. 1755.] THE ACADIANS LEAVE THEIR HOMES. 245 but when conquered by tlie English, it had been expressly stipulated that they should be allowed to retain their lands, on condition of never assisting their own countrymen to recover possession of the territory. But it is mani- fest, that however they might have been disposed to remain in an obscure neu- trality, the strict observance of such a condition was ahnost impossible in their case, urged as they were by the intrigues of their priests to assist in throwing off the English yoke, and unable to restrain the impetuous ebullitions of their more adventurous and patriotic members. As it became evident to the English commanders that no reliance could be placed upon the professions of these unfortunates, it next became a question what treatment to adopt towards them. To allow them to remain where they were would entail the expense of watching them ; and if allowed to retire wherever they pleased, they would probably retire to Canada or Cape Breton, and swell the number of the enemy. There remained but one hideous alternative, namely, to transport them fi-om their ancient homes, and disperse them, like the captive Jews, among the territories of their conquerors, by whom, aliens as they were in blood, religion, and manners, they were re- garded with intense and hereditary hatred. The inhuman cruelty of such a scheme was only equalled by the miserable treachery with which it was carried into execution. Concealing their pur- pose until the unsuspecting people had ended the labours of a harvest, the English, convened them to assemble in the temples of their religion, where being suddenly surrounded with troops, the doom of expatriation was pro- nounced, and they were told to prepare for immediate embarkation. In vain did they protest that the great majority had not involved themselves in the offence, the military council were inexorable in their purpose. On the tenth of September, the day fixed for the embarkation, the prisoners M^ere drawn up six deep, and the young men, one hundred and sixty-one in nimiber, were ordered to go first on board of the vessels. This they instantly and peremptorily refused to do, declaring that they would not leave their parents ; but expressed a willingness to comply with the order, provided they were permitted to embark with their families. Their request was immediately re- jected, and the troops were ordered to fix bayonets and advance toward the prisoners, a motion which had the effect of producing obedience on the part of the young men, who forthwith commenced their march. The road from the chapel to the shore, just one mile in length, was crowded with women and childi-en, who on their knees greeted them as they passed with their tears and their blessings; while the prisoners advanced with slow and reluctant steps, weeping, praying, and singing hjanns. This detachment was followed by the seniors, who passed through the same scene of sorrow and distress. In this manner was the whole male population of Minas put on board of five transports, stationed in the river Gaspereau, each vessel being guarded by six non-commissioned officers and eighty privates. As soon as the other vessels arrived, their wives and children followed, and the whole were transported from Nova Scotia. 243 FATE OF THE MAJORITY OF THE ACADIA N8. [1755. Hutcliiiison, in speaking of tlie distresses of these peo^^le, says — " In several instances, the husbands, who happened to be at a distance from home, were put on board vessels bound to one of the English colonies, and their wives and children on board other vessels, bound to other colonics, remote from the first. One of the most sensible of them, describing his case, said, ' It was the hardest which had happened since our Saviour was upon earth.' " On the first alarm a few had succeeded in escaping to the "woods, but the council had taken effectual precautions against their re-occupation of their desolated hearths. As they looked out of the dreary forests upon the scene so lately the abode of peace and happiness, the flames of two hundred houses warned them that they had no longer a home to look for ; and when they beheld their village church involved in the same fate, they rushed with the courage of despair upon their inhuman spoilers, and after killing several of them, made their escape to the woods to perish of cold and famine. To the unliappy exiles, the bitterness of death passed not with their first expulsion, their ago,ny was long and lingering. By far the largest body of them were sent to Massachusetts, where the very exercise of their religion v/as forbidden to console their despair, while others were transported to the different colonies. Every where their maintenance was regarded as a burden, and they were thence hurried off to a still greater distance. Some sought out their fellow countrpnen in Louisiana, a few succeeded in reaching France, wliile some of the more energetic endeavoured to retrace their steps to the country with which every recollection of vanished haj^piness was con- nected. Few however succeeded in this attempt, and the great majority died broken-hearted exiles in a foreign land. Meanwhile the commissioners for the plantations had addressed a circular to the colonies, advising them to send delegates to hold a conference with the Six Nations, whose alKance at this ci'isis was felt to be of great importance, and also to organize a union for the general protection. Accordingly the delegates met at Albany, and, after settling the desired treaty with the Indians, took into consideration the plan of a general convention for the colonies, drawn up by the pen of Franklin, himself a delegate from Penn- sylvania. It was to consist of a council of forty-eight members, to be elected by the colonics, with a president-general, to be nominated by the crown. The functions of the council were, to undertake the levying, paying, and managing the colonial armies, to defend the frontier from the Indians, and to obtain from them new grants of land, and take other measures for the security and prosperity of the colonies ; and to secure these objects they were to be em- . powered to levy such taxes as might be expedient. The legislative power was to reside in the council, subject to a veto on the part of the royal governor, or even if passed in concert with that functionary, to the further ajiprobation of the king himself. Civil officers were to be nominated by the council, and apj^roved by the president, while military or naval ones, by the president, subject to the approbation of the council. Tliis scheme ap- peared so well balanced to the assembled delegates, that they 2:)asscd it 1755.] DIFFICULTIES IN RAISING MONEY FOR THE WAR. 247 imanimously, Avith tlie exception of those of Connecticut, and copies of it were sent to tlie different colonial legislatures, as well as to tlie home govern- ment. Both however rejected it ; the latter, because it conceded too large a share of power to the colonies ; the former, because it conferred too much upon the croAvn. The levying of taxes, even by a colonial assembly thus con- stituted, was protested against as " a very extraordinary thing, and against the rights and privileges of Englishmen." The English government sug- . gested a general council, composed of colonial governors and members of the council, who should adopt such measures as were deemed advisable, drawing on the British treasury for the sums necessary to carry them out, to be after- wards reimbursed by taxes imposed on the colonies by act of parliament. This scheme, as might have been expected, proved still more unpalatable than the former. Earnest instructions were sent over to the agents for Mas- sachusetts to oppose it; while Franklin, on being privily consulted, exposed with great energy the reasons why it would produce an universal ferment- ation ; and thus the idea was for the present set aside by the English ministry. Governor Dinwiddle, zealous as he was in the service of the colony, and desirous of maintaining the honour of the king's prerogative, Avas deeply mortified at the uncompliant temper of the Virginian assembly, and the indiffer- ence of the other colonies. He addressed repeated letters to the home govern- ment, complaining of the factious and repuohcan tendencies of the assemblies, and urging for an act of parliament to compel the different colonists to contribute to the common cause, independently of the local legislature. But though stub- bornly tenacious of their local rights, the Virginians at last voted a sum which enabled Dinwiddle to place the military force upon a respectable footing, Avhile, to insure unity of action and dependence on the croAvn, he put the ncAv forces under the command of the king's ofhcers, alloAving no native-born officer to take higher rank than a captain. Proudly sensible of an affront so degrading both to himself and his brave felloAV citizens, Washington resigned his com- mission, and retired to the management of his estates. He Avas destined hoAv- CA^er to but a brief repose, for shortly afterwards. General Braddock arrlA'ed fi-om England Avith fresh regiments, to take the command of the army, and being informed of Washington's experience and energy, offered him the post of aide-de-camp, in Avhich he Avould retain his former rank. With this request his public spirit, and his desire to engage in active serA-ice, engaged him to comply. " The sole motiA^e AA^hich invites me to the field," (he thus Avrote to one of his friends,) " is the laudable ambition of serA'ing my country, not the gratification of any ambitious or lucrative plans. This, I flatter myself, will appear by my going as a volunteer, AA'ithout expectation of rcAvard, or prospect of obtaining a command, as I am confidently assured it is not in General Braddock's poAver to give me a commission that I Avould accept." After arranging a plan of operations Avith the governors of fiA'e of the colonies, at which conference Washington Avas received Avith much distinc- tion, Braddock advanced to Fort Cumberland, AA'here he expected to meet 248 BRADDOCK DELA YED FOR WANT OF WAGGONS. [1755. with a collection of horses and waggons to transport his artillery and stores. Owing to the indifference and tardiness of the colonists, and the mal2)ractices of the contractors, he found hunself suddenly checked in his onward progress, and loudly exclaimed against the faithlessness and incapacity of the local assemblies, and the apathy of the people at large. His temper, naturally proud and stubborn, was inflamed by this neglect, and his contempt for the colonists and theu* counsel became more inflexibly rooted. It was while Braddock was thus detained at Fredericton in Maryland, for the want of carriages, that Franklin, as postmaster, was deputed to wait on him to arrange his correspondence with the provincial governors. He found the general indignant at the ministry for ignorantly sending him into a country where no means of conveyance were to be procured, only five and twenty Avaggons being forthcoming, instead of the hundred and fifty required. Franklin, who dined with Braddock every day, hap2:)ening to say, it was a pity he had not landed in Philadelphia, where every farmer has his waggon : " TA\e general," he remarks, " eagerly laid hold of my words, and said, * Then you, sir, who are a man of interest there, can probably procure them for us, and I beg you will imdertake it.'" Franklin did so, giving his personal security to the farmers, and by his exertions the requisite number of waggons was collected, an act which Braddock commended in his letters home, as the only instance of address and integrity he had witnessed in the colonics. Franklin also kindly induced the assembly to make a handsome present of camp necessaries to the subalterns, who could ill aflbrd to procure them. " One day, in conversing with him, Braddock observed, ' After taking Fort Duquesne, I am to proceed to Niagara; and having taken that, to Fron- tenac, if the season will allow time, and I suj^pose it will ; for Duquesne can hardly detain me three or four days ; and then I see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara.' Having before revolved in my mind," says Franklin, " the long line his army must take in their march by a very narrow road, to be cut for them through the woods and bushes, and also what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen hundred French, who invaded the Illinois country, I had conceived some doubts and some fears for the event of the campaign. But I ventured only to say, ' To be sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with these fine troops, so well provided with artillery, the fort, though completely fortified, and assisted with a very strong garrison, can pro- bably make but a short resistance. The only danger I apprehend of obstruc- tion to your march, is from the ambuscades of the Indians, who, by constant practice, are dcxtcrovis in laying and executing them, and the slender Ime, near four miles long, which your army must make, may exjDose it to be at- tacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a thread into several pieces^ which, from their distance, cannot come up in time to support each other.' " He smiled at my ignorance, and replied, ' Thc»e savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia; but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible they should make any impression.' 1755.] THE TROOPS START FOR FORT DUQUESNE. 249 1 was conscious of an impropriety in my disputing with a military man m matters of his profession, and said no more." The event however proved that the " raw militia " were better at bush-fightmg than the regular troops. No sooner was this obstacle removed than another no less formidable arose, in the tediousness of transporting the cumbrous materials of a large force, who, provided after the European fashion, and accustomed to meet with no ob- structions on their march, were obliged to proceed single file across the half-made roads of a rugged and mountainous country, destitute of supplies and covered with impenetrable forests. Braddock, appalled at these delays, which threatened to consume the whole season, sought the advice of Wash- ington, who advised him to push forward -with a light-armed division, and seize Fort Duquesne before the French could throw in reinforcements, leaving the rest of the troops to follow under the command of Colonel Dunbar. This advice was adopted by the general, but as he prepared to push on with his division, AVashington, who was to have accompanied him, was seized with a violent fever, and obliged to remain behind. Eager to rejoin the army before it should encounter the enemy, he hurried on while yet in a weak condition, suffering much from the jolting of the waggon in which he was transported over the rugged and broken roads, and overtook Braddock on the evening of July 8, when only fifteen miles distant from Fort Duquesne. Although he found the army were now much excited at the near vicinity to the enemy, over whom they anticipated a signal triumph, there was much in the management of matters that gave deep uneasiness to the mind of Washington, practised as he was in the wiles of Indian warfare. Fully alive to the necessity of watching against surprise, he viewed with alarm the infatuated indifference of Braddock, who, confident in the bravery of his troops, and rootedly attached to the European mode of discipline, disdained to give heed to any remonstrance, that the experience of others dictated. Durmg the march he had remained obstinately deaf to the advice repeatedly press- ed upon him even by his own officers, that h§ should observe more caution in his progress, and send out a body of provincials and Indians to scour the woods in the flank of his advancing troops. The very night before the battle, several Indians repaired to the commander's tent, and offered their ser- vice for this very purpose ; an offer which Washington used every effort to induce the general to accept, but he persisted in a peremptory and contemp- tuous refusal. The most beautiful spectacle he had ever beheld, as Washington was often heard to say, was the departure of the British troops the following morning. They advanced in perfect order, the sun was reflected back from their polished arms, and gave kistre to their brilliant scarlet regimentals in con- trast with the solemn obscurity of the virgin forest. The drum and fife struck up their thrilling strains, and in the highest spirits and most perfect dis- cipline the troops continued their march upon Fort Duquesne, then but a few miles distant. In front was an advanced guard of three hundred men, with guides and flanking parties ; a little behind followed a second division, and 2 K 250 DEFEAT OF THE ENGLISH UNDER BRADDOCN. [1755. next came tlie main body under Braddock liimself^ \Yliile tlie Virginian militia brouglit up the rear. In this order the army forded the Monongahela, advanced across an open plain, and about one o'clock began to ascend a hill beyond, the road beir.g every where closely hemmed in with forests and encumbered with brushwood, when on a sudden a heavy volley of musketry was poured upon the foremost body from an invisible foe — a small body of French with a considerable number of Indians detached by the commandant of Fort Duqucsne, who had concealed themselves in some sunken ravines which closely bordered the road. Staggered and terrified, the vanguard, after losing half their number, and firing at random into the forest, fell back, just as Braddock, alarmed at the noise, hastened forward with the rest of the troops. The terrific yells of the Indians, the volleys incessantly poured in by the ambushed French, the im- possibiHty of making head against an invisible enemy, soon threw the English regulars into hopeless confusion, which Braddock, now too late conscious of his infatuation, vainly sought, for three terrible hours, to retrieve by displaying the most desperate bravery. Four horses had been killed under him, and he was still urging on his men, when he received a shot in the lungs, and, though anxious to be left to die upon the scene of his discomfiture, was car- ried ofi" into the rear. Two of his aide-de-camps were already disabled. Sir Peter Halkct and his son fell together mortally wounded, and Washington, who displayed the utmost courage and presence of mind, as he hurried to and fro with Braddock's orders, was a repeated mark for the enemy's buUets, four of which passed through his coat, while two horses were shot imder him. Horatio Gates, the future conqueror of Saratoga, was also severely wounded. Washington's escape might well have seemed miraculous, and there is a well-attested tradition, that many years afterwards he was visited by an aged and venerable Indian chief, who declared that during the battle he had repeatedly taken aim at him, and directed several of his warriors to do the same, but finding that none of these balls took effect, he concluded that the young hero was under the special guardianship of the Great Sjoirit, and could never perish in battle, and reverentially ceased from further attempts to cut him off. The Virginians fought most bravely, and in a manner which, if generally adopted, would probably have given a different turn to the day — dashing among the brushwood, and firing like the Indians from behind the trees. But all was in vain, and at length, having lost half their number from a handful of the ambushed foes, Avhich, face to face, a single column would have sufficed to annihilate, the British army, covered by Washington and his Virginians, retreated in panic and confusion across the Monongahela, and never halted night and day until they had rejoined the rear-guard, under Colonel Dunbar, after a retreat of fifty miles. The artillery and baggage fell into the power of the enemy, but the Indians were so busy in plundering and scalping the Avounded and the dead, that no attempt was made to follow the fugitive army. The un- happy commander, borne along in their hurried rout, suffered the intensest 1755.] GREAT POPULARITY OF WASHINGTON. 251 tortures both of mind and body. As liis end approaclied, he dictated a de spatcli acquitting his officers of blame, and his last words were, " Who wouW have thought it ? — we shall know better how to deal with them another time.' Thus perished General Braddock, the victim of military pedantry. With his death vanished the last remains of discipline, and the wretched remains of the army hurried with frantic precipitation to Fort Cumberland, without a solitary foe in pursuit. Hence the commanding officer, in spite of the protestations of the exposed Virginian colonists, shortly after returned with his forces to Philadelphia. It is impossible to describe the sensation occasioned both in England and the colonies by this deplorable and disgraceful defeat. In the former the memory of the unfortunate chief was covered with obloquy ; in the latter, the prestige of British invincibility was at an end. Washington alone gained laurels for his conduct amidst disasters which his counsel, had ;it not been despised, would have prevented altogether, and rapidly rose in the estimation of his grateful fellow citizens. On one occasion Samuel Davies propheti- cally exclaimed, while preaching a sermon to the militia of Virginia, "T must give you a glorious example — that heroic young man. Colonel Washington, whom Providence his preserved in so remarkable a manner, doubtless for some important service which he is called upon to render his country." " Your health and good fortune," wrote Colonel Fairfax to him in 1756, " are the toast of aU the tables." When, in 1759, he was elected for the first time to the house of representatives, at the moment when he entered the hall, the speaker, ]\Ir. Pobinson, warmly expressed to him the gratitude of the as- sembly for the services he had rendered to the province. Washington arose to return thanks, but was so overcome with agitation that he was unable to utter a syllable. The speaker came to his assistance. " Be seated, Mr. Washington," he said, " your modesty equals your valour, and that surpasses all the powers of expression at my command." Plis further exertions were now required to check the incursions of the Indians, who, stimulated by French iniluence, kept the now unprotected frontiers in such a state of alarm, that the outlying farms were abandoned, and scalping parties advanced even within thirty miles of Philadelphia. T^Hiile these disasters were occasioned by contcmj)t for the services of the Indians, some important advantages were gained in the north by the adop- tion of an ojjposite system, under the guidance of an individual, whose flex- ibility of character curiously contrasted with the stubborn obstinacy of the unfortunate Braddock. William Johnson was a native of Ireland, and nephew of Sir Peter Warren, who, after distinguishing himself at Louisburg, married a lady of New York, and bought large estates upon the Mohawk river, at that time on the outlying verge of civilization. Young Johnson was invited over to take charge of his uncle's affiiirs. The territory" acquired was on the edge of the vast wilderness occupied by the Five Nations ; to gain their good will, and to obtain still larger concessions from them, was there- fore the prime object of solicitude, and for this young Johnson soon displayed 2 K 2 252 JOHNSON'S POLICY WITH THE INDIANS. [1755. extraordinary aptitude. For this lie was fitted alike by a natm-al taste for half-wild life, and by physical and mental qualities. His person was tall and imposing, his countenance sedate and somewhat melancholy, and while in general he affected the taciturn gravity of the Indians, he could burst forth on occasion into strains of stirring eloquence. He was perfect master of his temper and countenance, plausible in his manners, and, though strictly a man of his word in dealing with his Indian neighbours, super-subtle in his transactions beyond the measure of even Indian craft. To add to his in- fluence he adopted their dress, and formed a left-handed connexion with some of their dusky beauties. He built two large and substantial residences in the midst of this romantic but half-savage tract, where, being wisely appointed British agent with the Five Nations, he lived in a sort of rude and feudal pomp. Around his board were to be seen sometimes the aristocratic British officer, whom his duty might lead into these remote wilds, the sturdy provincials and farmers of the neighbourhood, and the rude fur-trader of the distant west. Above all, his chateau became the great rendezvous for the Indian sachems from the neighbouring forests, who here indulged in luxuries which their wig- wams could not aflbrd. In these rude revelries, Johnson freely participated, sleeping for nights together on the floor, the only Vk^hite man in a house filled with valuable property, amidst a horde of five hundred Indians who had intoxicated themselves upon his liquors. By arts such as these he had acquired extraordinary influence over the Indians, which he had sense and sagacity to turn to account, not only for his private advaiitage, but for the conduct of those wars in which his country was then engaged. Sensible that a campaign amidst morasses and forests filled with savages required a totally different system of tactics from that pursued in an open country, he not only succeeded in gaining the assistance of the Indians, but put them prominently forward in all his military operations ; and to this wholesome tact, rather than to any extraordinary skill or bravery, he owed the suc- cesses which acquired for him both fame and honours, and in some measure redeemed the disasters which had befallen the English troops. Among his half-savage confederates was one Hendrich, commonly called king Hendrich, a famous old sachem of the MohaAvks, distinguished for his shrewdness and bravery. Hendrich had been sent over to England and pre- sented to the king, who had bestowed upon him a full court suit. He had adopted in some measure the costume of a British officer, and was smitten with the love of military finery, for which he was destined to pay somewhat too dearly. Of the two men the following characteristic anecdote is related Having seen at Johnson's castle, one morning, a richly embroidered coat, he determined upon a cunning expedient to gain possession of it. " Brother,' he said to Sir William, as he entered one morning, "me dream last night.' *' Indeed," answered Sir William, "what did my red brother dream?' " Me dream that coat be mine," " It is yours," frankly replied Johnson Soon after he was visited by the baronet, who looking abroad upon the wide- spread landscape, calmly observed to Hendi'ich, " Brother, I had a dream 1755.] THE SCENE OF HOSTILITIES. 253 last niglit." " What did my English brother dream," rejoined the sachem. " I dreamed that all this tract of land was mine," pointing to a district some twenty miles square in extent. Hendrich looked very grave, but, determined not to be outdone in generosity, replied, " Brother, the land is yours, but you must not dream again." Such were the men who, with a force of militia and Indians, now went forward together to the encounter of the French. The scene of pending hostilities, one which afterwards became still more famous in the annals of the revolutionary war, is among the wildest and most romantic on the continent of North America. Between the outposts of the English on the upper waters of the Hudson, and the French settlements on the St. Lawrence, extended a wilderness two hundred miles in depth, covered with dense forests, the secret tracks of which were then only known to the In- dians, who were its exclusive tenants. In the centre of this tract were set two beautiful lakes, communicating with one another by a short inlet. The northern, and more extensive, was Lake Champlain, so called after the famous French explorer by whom it was first discovered. This lake was of considerable extent, its waters in some places some miles across, its shores were open and undulating, and graceful. The other, called by the French St. Sacrament, from the exquisite purity of its waters, and afterwards by the English denominated Lake George, was but thirty-five miles long, and rarely more than half a mile in width ; and sunk as it was among lofty mountains, whose leafy forests nodded over its silent waters, and studded with a maze of wooded islets, it presented, as it presents at the present day, a scene of romantic loveliness and fairy beauty, which it might be supposed had never been visited by the foot of man, still less selected as the scene of his angry and blood-stained encounters. From the southern extremity of this beautiful lake, and from the southern extremity of Lake Champlain, it was but a few miles to the shores of the Hudson river, which then formed the uttermost out- posts of civilization in the state of New York. Beyond Albany, which, as before stated, was the rendezvous of the English and colonial troops, a few settlements extended westward up the valley of the Mohawk river, past the little town of Schenectady, with a few more northward up the valley of the Hudson itself; but beyond this all was a region of dense and almost im- penetrable forests. The French had been the first to establish themselves in the heart of this region by the erection of the fortress of Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, to which they afterwards added that of Ticonderoga, on a promontory commanding the junction of the two lakes ; and at the period of which we are treating, these were the only ones erected within this immense extent of wilderness. Johnson having joined the northern militia at Albany, he sent a large body forward under the command of Major-General Lyman, to establish a strong fort, called Fort Edavard, in an advantageous situation on the Hudson, at the commencement of the carrying-place from that river to Lake George. Having completed his preparations, he joined his forces at this spot, and 2o4 DEFEAT OF WILLIA2IS AT ROCKY BROOK. [1755. leaving a garrison' in the newly-erected fort, advanced to tlie southern edge of Lake George, where he prepared to advance to Ticonderoga, now scarcely finished by the French, on the narrow interval between Lakes George and Champlain. Plis onward progress Avas however checked by learning the advance of Baron Dieskau froni Canada with a body of French troops, and thus while he despatched urgent requests for reinforcements, he prepared to act on the defensive. Hearing by his scouts that the French commander was at hand with his forces, a council of war was called, when it Avas deter- mnied to send out a small force to check, if possible, the enemy's advance. Johnson now asked the opinion of Hendrich, who had joined the militia with a body of his Indians. Referring to the smallness of the detachment the sachem shrewdly observed, " if they are to fight, they are too few, if they are to be killed, they are too many ; " and the folly of a proposal to divide them into three bodies, he illustrated after the fashion of the old fable, by taking tluree sticks in his hand : " Put them together," he said, " and you can't break them ; take them one by one, and they are easily snapped." His laconic ad- vice was adopted, and a body of twelve hundred men under Colonel Wil- liams immediately ordered out. As they AAcre about to start, Hendrich leaped on a gun carriage, and harangued his Indians, Avho listened to him with the deepest veneration. His long Avhite hair flowed down in elf-locks over his dusky face and aged shoulders, and heightened the Avildness of his flashing eye; and such Avas the loftiness of his manner, and the vehemence of his dis- course, that the British commanders, Avho understood not a word of Avhat he said, Avere no less deeply affected than the Indians themselves. MeanAvhile the French Avere advancing toAvards Johnson's encampment with as much haste as the density of the forest, Avhich concealed all but what was immediately before them, would alloAv. The same obstacle entirely prevented Williams and his force from a knoAvledge of the enemy's position; thus, just Avhere the road passed a stream called Rocky Brook, about four miles from the lake, they suddenly found themselves in the centre of the French line, which Avas spread out around them in the shape of a half moon. A murder- ous fire Avas instantly opened upon them both in front and flank, Williams fell mortally wounded near a huge fragment of rock, which still retains his name, and the gallant Hendrich received a ball through his back from the ex- treme wing, only regretting in his death that this circumstance might lead to a behef that he had been shot while endeavouring to fly. After the first discharge, Captain Whity succeeded in cfl^ecting his retreat with little loss toward the camp. Johnson, A>dio had been alarmed by the firing, sent out an additional force, Avho, meeting their flying countrymen, fell back upon the camp, Avhich Johnson began hastily to fortify. The memory of this disaster was long preserved. At a short distance from the spot where Williams fell, is a small and gloomy pool, overmantled Avith the broad leaves of the water lily, into Avhich the bodies of the slaughtered English Avore throAA^. The spot Avas long regarded with fear. From the dark tinge AA'hich its waters were believed to take from the deadly burden they 1755.] JOHNSON DEFEATS THE FRENCH. 255 concealed, it was called "the Bloody Pond," and in tlie gloom of twilight the belated wanderer fancied that the ghostly forms of the slaughtered soldiers might be seen hovering about its brink. The advantage gained by the French was but temporary. Ignorant of the strength of Johnson's position, they eagerly pressed on to attack him, before the English should recover from the panic caused by their recent defeat. Johnson, however, had been busily engaged in strengthening his intrenchments, upon which he had planted two pieces of artillery, with which his assailants were totally unprovided. About noon they were seen emerging from the forest upon the little clearing in good order, the regulars in the centre, and flanked by the Canadians and Indians. Their fire however took little effect, while as soon as they rushed in to storm the place, the English opened upon them with their artillery, and a heavy and well-directed stream of musketry. A bomb-shell bursting in their midst completed the rout of the militia and savages. The regular troops stood their ground bravely for some time, but at length turned their backs, closely pursued by the English, Avho, leaping over the breastAVork, drove back their enemies into the cover of the forest. Dieskau received a mortal wound. Johnson himself was disabled, and the command devolved on Lyman, who heavily avenged the death of Williams- upon the fugitives. The Canadians and Indians Avho had fled at the com- mencement of the repulse, halted on the battle-ground of the morning, and were debating whether to renew the attack, when Captain Macginnis, who had been sent with a small body from Fort Edward, suddenly found himself close upon them, and after sustaining their attack for two hours, made his way to Johnson's camp, where he died three days after of a mortal wound. The remainder of the discomfited French made their way tln-ough the forests to their newly erected fort at Ticonderoga. Johnson at the time was strongly urged by Lyman to pursue them to this rallying place, a request afterwards enforced by General Shiidey, who had succeeded to the command of Braddock. He had not however sufiicient con- fidence in his troops, or was not adequately provided with artillery and stores, to venture on this measure, but contented himself with building a fort on the spot whence he had repulsed the French, on which he bestowed the name of "William Hexry, and leaving a small garrison, returned to Albany, where he disbanded his forces for the winter. In pursuance of a plan agreed upon in the conference at Alexandria with Braddock, Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, had marched through the wilderness with a small force, destined for the reduction of the French forts Niagara and Frontenac. Arrived at Oswego, he received the news of Brad- dock's disaster, by which the chief command devolved upon hunself. His first measure was to strengthen Oswego by the erection of two new forts of good and solid construction, and to build vessels in order to convey his troops to Niagara ; but although he was warmly seconded by the colonists, he was unable to assume the offensive before the end of the season cut short his operations, and the militia returned to their homes for the winter. 2oG ENGAGEMENT ON THE ONONDAGA, [175G. With these operations terminated the campaign of 1755. On the whole it was rather disastrous than favourable to the colonists, who responded but faintly to a further call made upon them by Shirley, to whose inexperience in war the unfortunate result was attributed. During the interval of winter some ineffectual attempts at negociation had taken place ; but these having failed, war Avas formally declared by England in the spring of 1756. General Abercrombie, who had acquired some reputation on the continent, was shortly after sent out with an additional force, but the Earl of Loudon, the new commander-in-chief, did not arrive till about the end of July. A garrison having been left in Oswego, to reinforce this became the immediate object of solicitude. Lieutenant-Colonel Bradstreet was detached thither with a small body of forces, and succeeded in making his way across the wide intervening wilderness to the Onondaga, at the influx of wdiich river into Lake Ontario the fort was situated. A large body of French were sent to intercept him, but he succeeded in effecting his passage before they could reach the banks of the stream. Nevertheless, as they were aware he must return by the same route, with but a very slender force, they resolved to lay in wait and inter- cept him. Few scenes could be more wild, or at the same time better adapted for such, a purpose, than the solitary banks of the Onondaga. In some places huge trees, undermined by the flood, hang over its darkened waters, which en- countering some pebbly shoal, suddenly break into rapids and eddy round the angle of some woody islet which intercepts their flow. • All around was unbroken forest, and it was impossible to penetrate any distance along the tangled banks of the stream, intersected with tributary torrents, or broken by weedy SAvamps. Bradstreet cautiously ascended the river, wisely dis- tribiiting his canoes in tlii-ee divisions, of Avhich he led the foremost, his eye intently fixed upon every angle which might conceal a lurking foe. Just where the stream broke round a woody islet, a sudden volley flashed out from the trees, accompanied by the wild yells of the Indians. Bradstreet instantly made for the islet, where a party, dashing through the shallows, had arrived before him to cut off his retreat. With resolute valour he drove them into the water, and some more of the canoes hurrying up, his little band was noAv in- creased to twenty men. A second and third time did the French with treble numbers dash across the stream, only to meet with a repulse ; and the rest of the boatmen now coming up, together with fresh bodies of the enemy, a run- ning bush-fight was maintained on both sides with desperate fury, till the French at length fled into the Avoods, having lost a hundred of theu" nmnber, leaA'ing numerous prisoners and a large quantity of arms as the prize of their intre- pid victors. Scarcely Avas the fight concluded, when the latter Avere joined by a fresh body of troops, who descended the river to Oswego, Avhicli by these successiA'e reinforcements was placed in a temporary posture of defence. Bradstreet, on joining Abercrombie, warned him of the intentions of the French to seize OsAvcgo, and fresh trooj)s were accordingly despatched thither; but so long was their departure delayed by the jealousy and fears of the 1757.] MONTCALM ARRIVES IX QUEBEC. 257 colonists, that before it had arrived, the fort had ah-eady fallen into the hands of the enemy. For in the mean while a new governor, and more enterprising commander-in- chief, had been sent over to Canada from France. Louis Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm de St. Veran, was born at the Chateau de Candiac, near Nismes, in 1712, of a family illustrious not only for its extraction, but for its prowess. Though destined for the profession of arms, he had received so excellent an education, that, like his competitor Wolfe, he ever afterwards retained a taste for scientific and literary pursuits, and had his career not been suddenly terminated, would have been chosen a member of the French Academy. Like the English commander too, he was not chosen as commander-in-chief of the French armies in North America until he had previously distinguished him- self in many a gallant encounter. Such was the general who now arrived at Quebec with a large reinforcement of troops, and who, after sustaining the honoiu- of the French arms with unexampled success, fell gloriously in the field of battle, and is associated with his victor in an enduring monument of their common fame. His first exploit was the seizure of Forts Ontario and Oswego, where vast magazines had been assembled without any adequate protection, which having learned, he stole a march upon them, and surprised them before any succour could be obtained. Thus had passed another season of hostilities, which left matters, if any thing, in a position still less favourable to the English, During the winter, a military council was held at Boston, by liOudon, in which it was resolved, next year, merely to defend the frontiers, and to undertake an expedition to Louisburg, which had been ceded again to the French. It was not until July that Loudon sailed, just a little too late to prevent a French fleet from entering the harbour, and he sailed back to Boston from this abortive expedition, only to learn that serious disasters had befallen the defenders of the frontier, owing to the unaccountable dilatoriness and want of decision with which all the civil and military affairs appear to have been conducted at this period. During the absence of Loudon, Montcalm determined on striking a vigor- ous blow at Fort William Henry, which had, as before said, been built by Johnson at the southern extremity of Lake George. The fort, which was far from strong, was garrisoned by two thousand men under Colonel Moiu'O ; while Colonel Webb was stationed at Fort Edward, with a force of double that amount. While Webb remained thus inactive, Montcalm was concentrating his troops at Fort Ticonderoga, at the northern extremity of Lake George. He had succeeded in gaining over a large body of Indian allies, which with his regular trooj)s formed a body of eight thousand men, well provided with artillery for the siege of Fort William Henry, Descending the lake, he encamped on the shore in the immediate vicinity of the fort, which rested its bastions on the limpid waters, and Avith the exception of a small clearing, seemed buried among a region of lofty mountains and ravines clothed with trackless forests. 258 MA SSA CEE OF THE ENGLISH OF FOR T ED WA ED. [1 757. Having reconnoitred the fort, Montcalm pushed his trenches close to the ram- parts and opened a heavy cannonade upon the body of the fort; while the woods around swarmed with his sharp-shooters and Indians, Avho kept up a gall- ing fire on the defenders as they manned the batteries. Unable to offer any protracted resistance, Monro sent repeated and pressing messages to Webb, who had already examined the place, and though pressed by the daring Rogers to allow him to attack the enemy with his Rangers, seemed to have made up his mind that it could not be successfully defended. The French commander issued a peremptory summons to surrender, but Monro declared he would defend his trust to the uttermost extremity. At length his artillery failed, and when Montcalm sent in an intercepted letter, in which Webb affirmed his inability to offer any succour, and desired him to make the best terms in his power, the brave commandant reluctantly signed a capitulation, by which he was to march out with all the honours of war, and to be es- corted to Fort Edward by a body of French soldiers. The Indian allies of Montcalm, deprived of their promised plunder by the terms of this capitulation, could hardly be kept in restraint, a fact of which Montcalm had already informed the English conunander. To the chivalrous officers, accustomed to the conduct of European warfare, the necessity of em- ploying these savage allies must have been degrading, and the impossibility of restraining their atrocities without provoking their hostility has often exposed their reputation to unmerited obloquy. It proved so on this occasion. The British soldiers, still armed, and escorted by a small French force, with their wives and children marched with heavy hearts out of the Avorks to take their way towards Fort Edward, and scarcely had the head of the column en- tered the forest, and become entangled in a narrow pass, which still retains the name of the " Bloody Defile," than a body of two thousand savages, con- cealed in the surrounding thickets, raised the dreadful and thrilling war- whoop, and bursting upon them, commenced an indiscriminate massacre. Seized with sudden panic, the English fell almost without resistance, and the French escort was either unable cr unwilling to offer them any effectual aid. It is said Montcalm with several of his officers rushed into the midst, and vainly endeavoured to stay the butchery; he bared his breast and called upon the savages to slay himself rather than his prisoners, and urged the latter to defend themselves ; but all his efforts were in vain. The terrified fugitives were pursued into the forest, where many fell victims to the toma- hawk or were carried away into slavery ; the rest, after much difficiilty, suc- ceeded in reaching Fort Edward. The fort was then destroyed by the French, who had hardly embarked, when Major Rogers, who had been hovering with his Rangers about their track, descended to the spot, and has vividly described the scene of desolation and horror before him. " The fort was entirely demolished, the barracks, and outhouses, and buildings were a heap of ruins, the cannon stores, boats, and vessels were all carried away. The fu'es were still burning ; the smoke and stench offensive and suffocating Innumerable fragments, human skvdls, and bones and carcasses half con- 1758.] MINISTRY OF WILLIAM PITT. 259 sumecl, were still frying and broiling in the decaying fires. Dead bodies man- gled witli scalping knives and tomahawks, in all the wantonness of Indian fierceness and barbarity, were every where to be seen. More than one hun- dred women butchered and shockingly mangled lay upon the ground, still weltering in their gore. Devastation, barbarity, and horror every where ap- peared, and the spectacle presented was too diabolical and awful either ta be endured or described." This affair created the greatest consternation throughout the northern pro- vinces. Twenty thousand militia were called out in Massachusetts in the apprehension of a further blow; but Montcalm, satisfied with the advantages he had gained and the terror he had occasioned, withdrew his forces into Canada for the winter. As it is darkest just before the coming of the day, so the termination of the campaign of 1757 left matters in a more gloomy state than any of the preceding. The French retained Louisburg, had mastered Oswego, and com- manded not only Lake Champlain, btit Lake George, threatening even the settlements on the Hudson. The Six Nations had been obliged to enter into a treaty of neutrality. By the possession of Fort Duquesne, the French menaced the frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania, which were continually ravaged by their Indian allies. In the mother country, no less than in the colonies, the bitterest discontent prevailed. The Newcastle ministry was declared to be venal and incapable, and a change imperiously demanded by the nation. It was by this current of popular feeling, more than by the desire of the king, that a new minister now appeared on the scene of action, gifted with a grasp of mind and energy of purpose that equalled the emergency which called him into notice. This was William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, who now assumed the entire control of foreign and colonial affairs. Conscious that he alone could save the country if any man could, his measures were characterized by a vigour commensurate to the necessity, while the agents appointed to carry them into execution were selected with the wisest dis- crimination. His plans for the conquest of Canada infused new life into the colonists, and as they were besides to be repaid for the expense of their levies, large forces of provincials were soon collected, while, by the arrival of fresh reinforcements from England, Abercrombie, who remained commander-in- chief, soon found himself at the head of a splendid army, destined to advance upon Canada by way of the lakes, and also to wrest Fort Duquesne out of the hands of the French. Among the leading officers of Abercrombie, was the young Lord Howe, who although in the foremost ranks of the British aristocracy, had endeared himself to the whole army by the courtesy and gentleness of his manners, no less to the provincials than the British, and by the manner in which he shared every hardship in common with the rest of the troops. Disregarding the pomp of military display to which the major part of the army tenaciously clung, he was even among the first to set an example of wearing a suitable 2 L 2 260 JO URNEY OF THE TR OPS TO TICONDER GA . [1 758. dress, and submitting to the regulations required by a campaign in the forests. He cropped his long powdered hair, wore a short jacket and leggings, and ordered the -barrels of the men's muskets to be blackened, that they might not attract the watchful eye of the enemy. Unlike most disciplinarians and innovators, he had the art of making himself tenderly beloved by the whole army, and he was regarded with no less attachment by the Americans among whom he was quartered at Albany. Aunt Schuyler, as he familiarly called his maternal friend, a lady whose hospitable house was always open to the English officers, took the deepest interest in him, and watched the prepar-" ations for his departure with an unaccountable presentiment of evil. On the morning he left, he was surprised at finding her, though so early, already up, having prepared his breakfast for him. He playfully remarked that he would not disappoint her, " as it might be hard to say when he might again break- fast with a lady." Urging upon him the precautions which her knowledge of the country suggested to her anxious mind, she embraced him with all the tenderness of a mother, and wept bitterly as he took what proved indeed to be a lasting and a sad farewell. The army which now advanced to Lake George was the finest ever seen in America, amounting to seven thousand regulars and nine thousand provin- cials, including the regiment of the Royal Americans, and was furnished with a fine train of artillery and abundance of military stores ; more than a thousand boats were required for their conveyance, and the artillery was mounted upon rafts. On the 5th of July they embarked on the lake, and threading its ro- mantic maze of islets, advanced as far as a projecting point, more than half- way towards their destination, to give a few hours' refreshment to the troops, and make final arrangements for the morrow. To this spot, from their quit- ting it on Sunday morning, Abcrcrombie gave the name of Sabbath-day Point, which it has ever since retained. The eve of the attack was dark and sultry, and it was determined to proceed under cover of the night, while the glare of the watch-fires deceived the enemy by the appearance of a nocturnal bivouac. It was a moment of intense anxiety. Lord HoAve in particular, as with a presentiment of some pending calamity, invited the provincial Captain Stark, afterwards distinguished in the revolutionary war, to sup with him, and closely que'stioncd him as to the position of Ticonderoga and its defences. Soon after midnight the whole fleet was again in movement, Howe leading the van, accompanied by a guard of E angers and boatmen. It was a strange spectacle, that noc- turnal passage of so large an army along the solitar}^ waters of the lake. The boats conveying the regulars occupied the centre, those of the provincials the wings, and in this order, with muffled oars, they slowly swept across the un- ruffled expanse, under the solemn shadows of the overhanging mountains, and o'er-canopied by the starlit sky. Their progress was unobserved by the French scouts until dawn, when, on suddenly sweeping round the point where they were to effect a landing, the glitter of arms, and the blaze of scarlet uniforms, betrayed their vicinity to the fortress. At a spot called Howe's landing. Brad- 1758.] UNTIMELY DEATH OF LORD HOWE. 261 street first jumped ashore, with an advanced guard of two thousand men under Lord Howe ; but no opposition was offered, and the rest of the forces were soon landed, Avith a distance of but four miles intervening between them and the object of attack. Short as was this interval, however, it was covered at that time, like the whole region around, with tangled and almost trackless forest, bewildering alike to the besiegers and besieged. Rogers and Stark pushed through the woods with their Rangers to flank the advance of the regulars, who, destitute of guides,, were soon thrown into considerable disorder ; but Abercrombie, who knew that reinforcements were to be thrown into the fort, pressed forward as rapidly as possible, without carrying his artillery with him. As the army struggled on in this confused fashion, the advanced guard under Lord Howe, soon after passing a bridge over the stream uniting the two lakes, suddenly came upon the abandoned outposts of the French. Major Putnam, with a scouting party, advanced to reconnoitre, and Howe eagerly desired to accom- pany him, and reap the glory of the first attack. Putnam urged the young nobleman to remain behind, observing to him, " My Lord, if I am killed my life will be of little consequence, but the preservation of yours is cf infinite importance to this army." Howe rejoined, " Putnam, your life is as dear to you as mine is to me. I am determined to go." As they made their way through the thick woods, the yell of the Indians struck upon their ears, and they were suddenly confronted by five hundred Frenchmen and their savage allies, who had lost their way while endeavouring to fall back upon the fortress. A fierce encounter ensued, and almost at the first discharge, Howe received a musket-shot in the breast, and instantly fell dead. The French defended themselves with extraordinary courage, and four-fifths of them were slain .before they yielded the battle-ground to the infuriated and disheartened English. The loss of Lord Howe fell like an ominous cloud over the sj^irits of the army, by whom he was universally beloved. The news fiew rapidly to Albany, and cast a gloom over the place. A few days after his departure, in the afternoon, a courier was seen galloping violently from the north without his hat. One of the Schuyler's family ran out to inquire, when the man hastily rode on, crying out that Lord Howe was killed, and shrieks and sobs for his untimely death re-echoed through the house so lately enlivened by his gentle and graceful presence. No death was more regretted during the seven years' war than that of this unfortunate young nobleman, and the State of Massa- chusetts voted a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey. At dawn the next day, in consequence of the general confusion and alarm, Abercrombie marched back his forces to the landing-place, while Bradstreet was sent forward to seize some sawmills Avhich formed a French outpost, in which enterprise he was entirely successful ; and the ground being now clear, on the following night the army ad\'anced and took up a position close under the walls of Ticonderosra. This fort, so celebrated in both the intercolonial and revolutionary wars, and 2C3 ABERCROMBIE FAILS IN TAKING TICONDEROGA. [1758. the crumbling and picturesque ruins of which now attract the interest of the tourist, stood upon a bold point of land above the stream which unites Lakes George and Champlain, the navigation of which it thus commanded. It took its name from the Indian word cheonderoga, signifying *'the sounding water," and from the noisy rapidity of the stream that flowed beneath its walls, the French, who erected the place in 1776, conferred on it the appellation of Fort Carillon. It was strongly and solidly built, and within was Montcalm with a garrison of three thousand men. On three sides it was surrounded by water, and the other was defended by a swamp. Here intrenchments were thrown up for nearly a mile in front, there was a breastwork nine feet high ; but the most formidable obstacle was an abattis, or barrier, one hundred yards deep, composed of felled forest trees, with their jagged branches pointing outward towards the foe, and so entangled as to be almost impenetrable. Abercrombie was anxious to attack the fort without delay, having heard that a large force under M. de Levi was approaching to join Montcalm, the num- ber of whose forces was exaggerated by the accounts of prisoners. Engineers immediately proceeded to reconnoitre the works, but from the width of the intervening swamp and brushwood, were unable to come to any decided conclusion. Some reported them as trifling, others as formidable ; and under the pressure of the emergency, the general either inclined to the latter opinion, or determined to trust all to the bravery of his troops, without waiting for his artillery, the arrival of which must have insiu'cd to him a certain triumph. Had success been the result of this rash measure, Abercrombie, whose good services on the continent had led to his promotion, would have obtained the reputation of a hero — its disastrous issue has covered his memory with shame. On the morning of the fatal 8th of July, the army was formed for the attack. The provincials formed the wings ; and the centre, upon whom the brunt of the onset devolved, was composed of the British regulars, with the brave 42nd Highlanders, and the 55th, which had been commanded by Lord Howe. At one o'clock, under a burning sun, those regiments received the order to attack, and to reserve their fire until they had surmounted the sum- mit of the breastwork. The order was strictly obeyed, and though the French opened a galling discharge upon them as they made their way across the tangled morass, not a shot had been fired, when they reached the outermost extremity of the abattis, which now developed itself in all its unsuspected extent and formidable strength. Nothing daunted, however, the trooj)s, leaping upon the prostrate trunks, endeavoured to surmount the obstacle, but soon became hope- lessly entangled amidst the wilderness of jagged branches, entwined together into inextricable confusion. While thus endeavouring to force their way, the French, sheltered by the breastwork, picked them off one by one, without the slightest difficulty, and though a few of the more active and lightly clad Highlanders contrived to clamber over the abattis, and to force their way over the breastwork, they were instantly despatched with the bayonet. It seems al- most incredible, though true, that this hopeless struggle should have continued 1758.] CAPTURE OF FORT FRONTENA C B Y BR AD STREET. 263 for four liourSj until nearly two thousand men had fallen victims to a struggle, which for dogged perseverance against insuperable obstacles, has scarcely a parallel in history. At length an English detachment having by mistake fired upon their own countrymen, a general panic took place, and the rout became universal. Abercrombie having issued an order for retreat to the landing-place, the troops crowded down towards the boats, but were j^re- vented from rushing into them by the presence of mind of Bradstrcet, who occupied the landing-place with a small force, and here accordingly the army encamped after this most terrible reverse. Stupified by this disaster, Abercrombie, who appears to have been unequal to the emergency, remained inactive, although his army was still far superior to that of the enemy. Some indemnification for his defeat was found in the capture of Fort Frontenac by Colonel Bradstreet, an active and energetic officer, formerly lieutenant-governor of St. John's, Newfoundland, and lately appointed commissary-general, with the onerous charge of keeping up a com- munication across the wilderness from Albany to Oswego. Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, has been already described as on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, commanding the descent of the St. Lawrence, and menacing the fron- tiers of New York. It was built in 1673, by the enterprising governor whose name it bears, and hence La Salle departed to discover the INIississippi. The capture of the place had been pressed upon General Abercrombie by Brad- street, who received his permission to make the attempt, which, owing to his vigour and foresight, was crowned with entire success. Leaving a small gar- rison behind, he returned to erect Fort Stanwix, commanding the important passage between the Mohawk river and "Wood Creek, which communicated with Oneida Lake and the passage of the Onandaga river to Oswego. This fort on the southern shore of Ontario, immediately opposite to Fron- tenac, had been built by Governor Burnet in 1722, in order to establish English influence on the lake. At this encroachment, as they deemed it, the French took great ofience, and after vainly endeavouring to compel Burnet to retire, built, as a countercheck, a fort commanding the waters of Lake Champlain, which they called Fort St. Frederick, afterwards kno^via as Crown Point. For the reduction of Fort Duquesne, which continued to be the centre of French influence on the Ohio, and whence they continued to instigate the Indians to disturb the English frontiers, an army of seven thousand men had now assembled under the command of General Forbes, who disregarding the advice of Washington to advance by the road already opened by Braddock, ordered a new one to be cut from Eaystown. The vanguard to whom this work was committed, had' been nearly cut off, like Braddock's, by a sudden surprise, having lost two hundred men, when Forbes came up with the re- mainder of the forces. W^ith fifty miles of road to open across the forests, the winter rapidly approaching, and the disheartened troops beginning to desert, it was resolved to retrace their steps, and abandon the enterprise, Avhen, by the acci- dental captui-e of some prisoners, they learned the weakness and distress of the 284 SEA R CH FOR REMAINS OF BR ADD CK 'S A RMY. [1758. French garrison, and nerved by tliis intelligence determined on making a vigorous effort to gain possession of the place ere it could be reinforced. Leaving their artillery behind, and pushing into the trackless forest, through which with their utmost efforts they were not able to advance more than a few miles a day, they had advanced within a few hours' march of the place, when the French garrison, having set fire to the works, retreated down the Ohio. The abandoned fort noAV received an English garrison, and its name was changed from Duquesne to Pitt : the rest of the army retraced their stejjs, and the harassed frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania were now freed from the incursions of the Indians. Three years had elapsed since the dreadful defeat of Braddock near the spot, and the scene of his disaster had remained unvisited. It Avas now for the first time sought out. Nothing perhaps in the annals of history or the pages of romance can surpass the following description, which is taken from the pages of Gait's " Life of West." " After the successfid expedition against Fort du Qucsne in 1758, General Forbes resolved to search for the relics of Braddock's army. As the Euro- pean soldiers were not so well qualified to explore the forest. Captain West, the elder brother of Benjamin West the painter, was appointed, Avith his company of American Sharpshooters, to assist in the execution of this duty ; and a party of Indians were requested to conduct him to the places where the bones of the slain were likely to be found. In this solemn and affecting duty several officers belonging to the 42nd regiment accompanied the de- tachment, and with them Major Sir Peter Halkct, who had lost his father and brother in the fatal destruction of the army. It might have been thought a hopeless task that he should be able to discriminate their remains from the common relics of the other soldiers, but he was induced to think otherAvise, as one of the Indian Avarriors assured him that he had seen an officer fall near a remarkable tree, Avhich he thought he could still discover ; informing him at the same time that the incident Avas impressed on his memory by observing a young subaltern, who, in running to the officer's assistance, Avas also shot dead on his reaching the spot, and fell across the other's body. The Major had a mournful conviction in his oavu mind that these tAvo officers Avere his father and brother; and, indeed, it Avas chiefly oAving to his anxiety on the subject that this pious expedition, the second of the kind that is on record, Avas undertaken. " Captain West and his companions proceeded through the woods and along the banks of the river, toAvard*; the scene of the battle. The Indians resrarded the expedition as a religious service, and guided the troops with aw^ and in profound silence. The soldiers Avere affected with sentiments not less serious ; and as they explored the bcAvildering labyrinths of these vast forests, their hearts Avere often melted Avith inexpressible sorrow, for they frequently found skeletons lying across the trunks of fallen trees, a mournful proof to their imaginations that the men AA'ho sat there had perished Avith hunger in vainly attempting to find theh way to the plantation. Sometimes their feelings Avere 1758.] WOLFE MADE BRIGADIER-GENERAL BY PITT. 265 raised to the utmost amount of horror by the sight of bones and skulls scattered on the ground, a certain indication that the bodies had been devoured by wild beasts ; and in other places they saw the blackness of ashes amid the relics, the tremendous evidence of atrocious rites. At length they reached a turn of the river not far from the principal scene of destruction, and the Indian who remembered the death of the two officers stopped : the detachment imme- diately halted. He then looked round in quest of some object which might re- call dis-tinctlyhis recollection of the ground, and suddenly darted into the wood. The soldiers rested their arms without speaking, a shrill cry was soon after heard, and the other guides made signs for the troops to follow them towards the spot from which it came. In a short time they reached the Indian war- rior, who, by his cry, announced to his companions that he had found the place where he Avas posted on the day of battle. As the troops approached he pointed to the tree under which the officers had fallen. Captain West halted his men round the spot, and with Sir Peter Halket and the other officers forined a circle, while the Indians removed the leaves which thickly covered the ground (the leaves of three seasons). The skeletons were found as the Indian expected, lying across each other. The officers having looked at them for some time, the Major said that, as his Hither had an artificial tooth, he thought he might be able to ascertain if they were indeed his bones, and those of his brother. The Indians were therefore ordered to remove the skeleton of the youth, and to bring to view that of the old officer. This was done, and after a short examination Major. Halket exclaimed, It is my father ! and fell back in the arms of his companions. The pioneers then dug a grave, and the bones being laid in it together, a Highland plaid was spread over them, and they were interred with the customary honours." While Abercrombie, defeated and disgraced, was wasting the season in in- action upon Lake George, Louisburg had fallen before a well-concerted expe- dition under General Amherst, associated with whom was the youthful chief who shortly afterwards cffi;cted what so many of his predecessors had failed to accomplish, the capture of Quebec, and the consequent reduction of Ca- nada. This was James Wolfe, the second son of a colonel who had served under Marlborough, and born at the vicarage of Westeiham in Kent, on the 2nd of January, 1727. Wliisn first he entered the army in his father's company, he was a lad of fourteen, and so delicate that he was obliged to be landed at Portsmouth. On his recovery he joined the troops, was engaged at Dettingen and Fontenoy, and at the engagement of La Peldt was publicly thanked by the Duke of Cumberland on the battle-field. His re- markable merit soon attracted the eye of Pitt, who, overleaping the ordinary rules of the service, made him a brigadier-general, and associated him with Amherst in the command of the army destined against Louisburg. His natural character displayed a union of qualities but seldom united ; deli- cate in frame, excitable in temperament, refined in tastes, and with a love of domestic enjoyments, he was no less daring, energetic, and desirous of obtain- ing distinction in the service of his country. It was his own opinion that his 2 M 2G3 LOUISBURG TAKEN BY AMHERST AND WOLFE. [1759. character was only to be called forth by remarkable emergencies, that it was his faculty to triumph over obstacles that would drive an ordinary mind to despair ; and the issue proved that this confidence in his own powers was not unduly great. The fleet arrived at Cape Breton on the morning of the 2nd of June, while a thick mist shrouded the surrounding shores. Every j)i'ecaution had been adopted for landing unobserved, but as the fog cleared off it disclosed a line of formidable breakers, that for several days prevented all attempt to land. The boats at length put off, but as they neared the awful surf, through which it seemed impossible to pass and live, "Wolfe waved his hat as a signal to put back again to the ships. Three young subalterns mistaking the order, pushed tlii-ough the breakers, and though some of their boat's crew were sucked back by the roaring surf never to rise again, succeeded in making good their landing. "Wolfe and the rest now followed, exposed to a galling fire as they neared the shore. It was some days before the sea was calm enough to admit of the artillery being landed ; when the town was closely invested, and a heavy fire directed upon the works, Avhich were in very bad repair. Drucour, the French commandant, protracted the defence with skill and bravery, but most of the French ships of war in the harbour being set on fire by a shell, and the remaining two being boarded and destroyed by the English boats, (an exploit in which the celebrated Cook, then a petty officer, co-operated,) he was at length obliged to capitulate. This brilliant achievement strengthened the hands of the ministry, and gained laurels for all engaged in it, of which "Wolfe de- servedly obtained a considerable share. A painful duty was now devolved upon him, that of expelling the French from the different settlements they had formed in Acadia and on the St. Lawrence. The wretched inhabitants were driven from their farms and fisheries into the wilderness. Such are the ohronicles of war. The exploits of the hero are written in brass and marble, the miseries involved by them forgotten in the blaze of national exultation. After executing this cruel order with as much humanity as possible, "Wolfe repaired to Halifax to winter with the troops ; while Amherst hastened to Boston, to carry reinforcements to the discomfited Abercrombie. Next year the fleet left Louisburg with eight thousand men on board, under the command of "Wolfe. Towards the end of June, it ascended the St. Lawrence, and on the 25th, anchored ofl^ the beautiful Isle of Orleans, witliin sight of the castled crag of Quebec, the object of the expedition. This city, magnificent in position as it is heroic in associations, was founded by the first French settlers in the fifteenth century. The river that bathes its walls — the mighty St. Lawrence — is the outlet of a chain of fresh-water lakes, whose extent imagination almost labours to grasp — the inland seas of a vast continent, rapidly passing from the wildness of primeval nature into the cultured dwelling-place ai civilized millions of British blood and British hearts. The noble stream which expands before the crested heights of Quebec has been churned into foam over the rocks of Niagara, and threaded its mazy course among the romantic intricacies of "the Thousand Isles." It 1759.] THE APPROACH TO QUEBEC, 267 has yet a course of some hundreds of miles to fulfil before it pours into the Atlantic its immense accumulation of waters, the drainage of half a continent. The rock on which Quebec is built is provided, as it were, expressly by nature to guard and sentinel the passage of the river, and to command the surrounding territory, as from a throne. Viewed from below, nothing can be more striking than its black and perpendicular ridges, crested with frown- ing battlements and quaint foreign-looking steeples, covered with tin. Crouching at the foot of these embattled bulwarks is a singular mass of antique constructions, resembling some dilapidated feudal town on the Euro- pean continent, with pointed roofs and curious gables, and so completely French in style as to carry us at once from the remote banks of the St. Law- rence to those of the Loire or the Garonne. It consists of wharfs, warehouses, and a maze of dark and narrow streets, perilously overhung by the perpendi- cular rock, of which an avalanche of mighty fragments has more than once fallen and crushed all beneath into a heap of ruins. The whole of this part of the city has been gradually won, by piles and embankments, from the bed of the river, which formerly washed the base of the precipice. All sorts of craft are grouped about the bustling quays, from the hollow " dug out," or bark canoe of the Indian, and light market boats, conveying hay or provisions to vessels of large burden from Europe, and the noble ships of war which guard the passage, and which, huge as is their bulk, seem almost insignificant from the immensity of the stream on which they are anchored. In the midst of the river, in the distance, appears the Isle of Orleans, where Jacques Cartier, the first explorer of the St. Lawrence, and founder of Quebec, first anchored his roving bark, and where Wolfe nov/ landed with his troops. The main channel of the river appears between this and the village of Point Le-vi, on the right of the picture, while on the opposite shore is seen a long suburb of wliite cottages, leading to the Falls of Montmorenci. A range of dusky mountains encloses the whole scene as with a magnificent frame. The city, which is not of any great extent, is exceedingly irregular, with steep and winding streets, break -neck flights of steps, and the most picturesque and fantastic variety of dwellings. Nothing here of the " Jack of the Bean- stalk " towns of the United States, as Mrs. Trollope calls them, all bran new and shining, and looking as if built in a night, or chopped off" per mile to order, with churches, hotels, and museums ready made to hand. Quebec has a dingy old-world look about it, particularly refreshing to the lover of the" picturesque, as we come from the gay but formal cities of New York and Pliiladelphia. The population is equally curious and mixed; here are few or none of the spruce and active American citizens, but a motley collection of Indians, now submissive to the faith whose first apostles they tortured and ate ; half-breeds and voyageurs, who cut and conduct the rafts of timber from the distant recesses of the forests, in fantastic variety of costume ; Canadian " habitans," descendants of the original French settlers, the very counterpart of the peasants of some remote corner of France, haters of innovation and in- vincible in their prejudices; while groups of hardy Scotch or squalid Irish 2 M 2 2G3 APPEARAXCE OF QUEBEC IX WINTER. [1759. emigrants linger about the quays, wliose forlorn appearance might well excite our pity, did we not know that a few years will witness a change in their condition, from pauperism to competence; from the saddening consciousness that they are the miserable outcasts of an overburdened land, to the proud feeling that they are become the founders of future states. Among this min- gling crowd are seen the more aristocratic inhabitants, traders or merchants. Catholic priests in long black robes, the noblesse of French origin, and espe- cially the military, w^ho move among the denizens of the land to which they are for a while exiled, with jDroud independence, like the Roman legionaries upon a distant and barbarous frontier. But one should see Quebec in winter, fully to appreciate its picturesque peculiarities. From the heights of the citadel, the eye then rests upon what seems one boundless lake of milk ; all irregularities of ground, fences, bounda- ries, and copsewoods are obliterated ; the tops of villages, with their Catholic steeples, from which the bell booms plaintive and solitary through the wintry air, and scattered farms, j)cep up like islets in an ocean, with here and there dark lines of pine-forest, the mast of some ice-locked schooner, or the curling smoke of a solitary Indian wigwam. The town has its strange dark gables and pointed roofs all relieved with the lustrous white snow ; its rugged streets are one day choked with heaped-up ice and di'ift, and, upon a slight thaw, flooded with dirty kennels and miniature cascades, which the next frost con- verts into a dangerous and slippery surface. Cloth or carpet boots, goloshes with spikes to their heels, iron-pointed walking sticks, are the only weapons defensive a,gainst broken limbs and necks. All the world are muffled in furs and skins : the Indian is seen with his singu.lar snow-shoes, and the gay sledging parties dash about to the merry music of the jingling bells upon their horses, over the glittering and frosty Avaste. That branch of the river to the north of the Isle of Orleans is always frozen over, and sometimes, but rarely, the main channel, when produce of all sorts is conveyed across the river to the city from the surrounding country, and groups of habitans and Indians are seen tracking their way across the far-stretching expanse of snow-covered ice. In general, however, the main channel remains open, and encumbered with vast masses of ice ; and a strange sight it is, to see the dexterous and fear- less boatmen striving with iron-pointed j)oles to raise their vessels upon the surface of these floating ice-bergs, and thus descend the stream with them, till they find open water on which to launch their barks anew upon the troubled and perilous flood. Quebec, as the bulwark of British America, is, as may be supposed, forti- fied with the greatest care. About forty acres of the level table-land which crowns the precipice are covered with works, carried to its edge, and con- nected by massive w^alls and batteries with the other defences of the place. Both the vipper town and the steep streets of the lower are abundantly de- fended, and the place may be pronounced almost impregnable. Such are the features of the scene at the present day, and in all essential respects they were the same when Wolfe stood on the shore of the Isle of 1759.] WOLFE TAKES POSSESSION OF POINT LEVI. 269 Orleans and surveyed the tremendous strength of the fortress, which he had staked his reputation on reducing. The lilies of France waved from the crest of the citadel, to the west of the place was an inaccessible precipice, on the north-east it was covered by the river St. Charles, while every spot where the invader might attempt to land was fortified with all the skill of INIontcalm, who awaited the attack with a force of twelve thousand men. Nothing had been heard of Gage or Amherst, who Avere to have fallen down the St, Law- rence, and assisted in the reduction of the city, and but four or five short months remained before frost and snow must compel the besiegers to retreat. Such a prospect might well have appalled a less determined spirit, but Wolfe was one whose courage and resources only rose with the emergency, and he determined to lose no time in striking a decisive blow. The day had been wild and stormy, but the night fell serene, though some- what overcast. About midnight a crashing discharge of artillery disturbed the bivouac of the British army, and the sudden glare of several exploding fire-ships lighted up the river, the city, the fleet, and the anxious faces of the soldiery. The terrible missives of destruction were seen to drift down upon the English ships, when suddenly a fleet of boats jDut ofl", with daring courage approached .the burning vessels, and towed them to the distant shore, beyond the power of inflicting any injury. The first measure adopted by Wolfe was to detach a force to take possession of Point Levi, a village on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence, immedi- ately opposite to Quebec, an operation which was performed with entire success ; and here batteries were commenced for the purpose of bombarding the city. It was with feelings of deep vexation that Montcalm beheld the enemy establish themselves in this threatening position, which he had pro- posed to occupy with a strong force, but had been overruled by the inter- ference of the ]\Iarquis of Vandrcuil, the French governor of Canada. Meanwhile the English general endeavoured to effect a landing to the eastward of the town, whence he might carry on operations against the city. This plan presented, however, many formidable difficulties. Three miles from Quebec, the rapid river INIontmorency intersects the lofty plain, and suddenly throwing itself headlong over its precipitous edge, forms one of the most magnificent cascades in North America. "V^'liile the fleet drew as near the shore as possible, and, to mask the real design, opened a fire on Mont- calm's defences, Wolfe crossed over from the Isle of Orleans, and landed his forces near the foot of this fall. At the present day the river is spanned by a bridge close above it, but at that time there was no ford nearer than three miles, through a woody country, and the enemy's Hangers picked ofl" the parties sent to reconnoitre. The prospect in tliig quarter was very dis- couraging, nor was any decisive effect produced by the batteries of Point Levi, which, though they inflicted great injury upon the lower toAvn, fell harmless ujDon the lofty embattled crags of the citadel. Wolfe now deter- mined to examine the ground above the town. A little before midnight a few ships of war sailed past the walls, and Avcre not discovered until too late 270 A M HER ST PRE VENTED FR 031 JOINING WOLFE. [1 759. to point the guns at them, though "Wolfe nearly fell a victun to his temerity, the mast of the barge in Avhich he was reconnoitring being shot away. The difficulties of the ground were so great in this quarter also, that he con- tented himself with ordering Carleton to take possession of Point aux Trembles, a short distance above the city, and thence to keep up a harassing warfare upon the surrounding neighbourhood. Time was now fast slipj)ing away, and yet no sensible effect had been pro- duced, and in his situation, Wolfe well knew that inaction must be fatal. Nor was the anxiety of Montcalm less harassing ; the place was short of provisions, the discontented provincials with difficulty kept together, while with the forces of Amherst on the west, and the English fleet blockading the river, all hope of succour was impossible. But winter, even more than its impregnable po- sition, had always been the great defence of Quebec, and could he but hold out until its advent, the enemy, he well knew, must be forced to an igno- minious retreat, and this attempt to gain possession of the stronghold of the French power in America prove equally abortive with the former. Strong as were the intrenchments of the French army between the INIont- morency and St. Charles, Wolfe determined on the desperate attempt to storm them. The vigilance of INIontcalm had not overlooked a single point where attack was practicable. Wolfe selected, however, what appeared the weakest, to penetrate the lines of his indefatigable opponent. He accord- ingly moved over a large force to the vicinity of the Falls of Montmorency, on the eastern side of which he had already established his batteries. The attempt was most gallantly made, but a succession of unforeseen disasters concurred to render it entirely unsuccessful. "V\niilst Wolfe was anxiously looking for the arrival of Amherst, the lat- ter had been vainly endeavouring to repair to his assistance. Having as- sembled his forces, among whom was a body of Rangers under Major Rogers, at Fort Edward, he passed up Lake George, and on the 26th of July appeared before the walls of Ticonderoga, the siege of which was rapidly urged forward. The garrison however did not await the issue, bvit having blown up the fort, retreated upon Crown Point, whither Amherst lost no time in following them. This fort, of which the remains are still preserved with care, was, as already observed, built by the French, and before the erection of Ticonderoga was the frontier stronghold of their power on the south. Its position on a peninsula in Lake Cham]Dlain was exceedingly well chosen, but the works were in a very dilapidated state, and when Amherst approached it with his forces, he found that the French had evacuated it and fallen back upon Isle aux Noix in the river Sorel, where they resolved to make a final stand, to prevent the English general penetrating to the St. Lawrence and advancing to the assistance of Wolfe. Amherst made every effiart to overcome the difficulties of his posi- tion, but without success. Some delay was occasioned by the construction of vessels to carry his munitions and troops to attack the French, but a succes- sion of storms and disasters rendered all liis plans abortive, and he was re- duced to the alternative of risking the loss of his army from the severity of 1759.] TEE EXPEDITION UNDER GENERAL PRIDEAUX. 271 winter in a wild and hostile country, or of remaining in a state of mgionous inaction till tlie next season. Accordingly he laid up his army at Crown Point, where he had already begun the construction of a new fortress, which was afterwards completed by the English government, at an expense of two millions sterling. Neither could the third detachment of the army, destined to co-operate in the siege of Quebec, succeed in effecting a junction with Wolfe. Its com- mand devolved on General Prideaux, who, accompanied by a large force of Indians, brought together by the influence of Johnson, and commanded by him, sailed from Oswego, to besiege Fort Niagara, already so often alluded to as being built by the French to command the passage to the upper lakes. Prideaux being killed by the bursting of a gun soon after the opening of the siege, the command next fell upon Johnson, who learning that a body of tAvelve hundred French troops and as many Indians Avere advancing to raise the siege, took up a well-chosen position to intercept them, and put them to an entire rout, taking a large body of prisoners ; which compelled the garri- son shortly afterwards to surrender. Having accomplished this first object, he was to have descended Lake Ontario and the river St. Lawrence to Quebec, for the purpose of assisting Wolfe, but was prevented from doing so by shortness of provisions and the want of suitable shipping. The failure of these joint expeditions, which looked so plausible upon paper, not from incapacity on the part of the military commanders, but from the ob- stacles inherent to a campaign in a wild country, where vast distances must be traversed, and where munitions of every sort must be carried by an army, and where the season for operations is extremely short, fully justified the earnest en- treaty of Walpole to Pitt, that he would look chiefly to the enterprise by way of the St. Lawrence, as the only reliable means of reducing the Canadian capital within the twelvemonth. Meanwhile, the bitter disappointments he had experienced, acting upon the already enfeebled constitution of Wolfe, produced an attack of fever, which for some weeks laid him entirely prostrate. During his gradual recovery, he re- ceived intelligence of the successes of Amherst and Johnson, but learned that no co-operation was to be looked for at their hands during the present season. Upon this co-operation the ministry had fully calculated for the reduction of Quebec, and thus no disgrace could fairly have befallen Wolfe, because un- able to accomplish it singlehandcd. Determined nevertheless to leave no stone unturned that could afford a hope of success, though unable to leave his bed, he called a council of war to deliberate upon the anxious position of affairs, and the best mode of attacking the enemy, still himself suggesting various j)lans for storming their intrenchments to the eastward of the town, . convinced that the defeat of the French army must inevitably lead to the sur- render of the city. The brigadiers, however, after mature deliberation, adopted, at the suggestion of Colonel Townsend, a plan for attacking the city on its west- ern side ; and to this plan, daring as it was, Wolfe at once acceded. His confi- dence in the result, if we may judge by his last despatch to the ministry at home. 272 LANDING OF WOLFE AND HIS ARMY. [1759. was very far from implicit; yet, while the plan itself was kept a profound secret, he issued his orders for carrying it into immediate execution. On the night of the 12th of September the remaining ships of war sailed up the river past the city, and rejoined those already assembled at Cape Rouge, while Brigadiers Monkton and Murray advanced from Point Levi up the southern side of the St. Lawrence, until they were abreast of the fleet. A number of flat-bottomed boats had been prepared, in which the first divisions of the army were now embarked. Although their immediate destination was unknown, general orders had been issued to hold themselves in readiness to attack the enemy, and they took their places in the boats Avith a glow of courageous anticipation. As the tide ebbed, about an hour before daylight, the boats fell down the river, keeping in the dark shadow of its lofty and pre- cipitous banks, for some miles abjve Quebec penetrated but by one solitary cove which afforded a practicable landing. Orders had been given to main- tain profound silence, and the soldiers sat still as statues in the boats. The weather was calm, and the stars were reflected in the broad bosom of the majestic river. The circumstances were exciting, the aspect of nature solemn and serene. The heart of AVolfe was peculiarly alive to such influences, and the tide of his feelings sought vent in the pathetic verses of Gray. As the muffled oars broke di'owsily, he repeated in a low trembling voice the Elegy in a Country Church-yard, and carried away Avith enthusiasm, exclaimed to his companions, " Now, gentlemen, I had rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec." Soon afterwards the boats swept into the shadoAvy coA'e, the thread of emotion Avas rudely snapped, and Wolfe leaped ashore Avith the determination to conquer or to die. The coA'e, AAdaich still retains, and Avill ever retain, his name, is about two miles from Quebec, and though a fsAV houses are now gathered around its semicircular basin, is still a romantic and solitary-looking spot. It is a nook in the long and perpendicular line of cliffs Avhich extends unbroken and inac- cessible for miles together. Its little round basin is OA='erhung Avith steep precipices, coA^ered Avith tall trees, through which a rough steep jDath ascended then, as it noAV ascends, from the margin of the water to the IcaxI of the plain above. The boats containing the 78th Plighlandcrs were SAvept by the tide a little beyond the cove, and landed at a point Avhere the steej:) precipice, some tAvo hundred feet high, was thickly covered Avith a groAvth of forest trees and brusliAvood, AAdiich till that hour had ncA'cr been disturbed by the foot of man. Up they scrambled neA'erthclcss, by aid of the boughs, and concealed from observation by the impenetrable darkness of the foliage. As they neared the top, hoAvever, the rustle of the leaA-es betrayed the Adcinity of a human foot to the Avatchful sentinel AA'ho paraded at the summit. " Qui a-Ia-c," he instantly exclaimed — " La France," Avas the ready ansAver ; and the sentinel paced on as before. At length, alarmed by the increasing noise, he called the guard, A\ho, after firing a volley doAvn into the trees, fled, Avith exception of M. Verger, their captain, Avho refused to sui-rendcr, but was almost instantly overpoAvcred. 1759.] THE BATTLE ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM. 273 Meanwhile the first division under "Wolfe, INIonckton, and Murray had land- ed, the others rapidly followed, and clambered up the narrow and rugged path which ascended from the cove below to the plain above, laboriously dragging after them a single piece of artillery, and as the morning dawned the whole force stood ready for action upon the Plains of Abraham. As the French outpost hurried back with the news to Quebec, INIontcalm could scarcely credit it, so completely had he been deceived by the feigned attacks of the English below the town. He had been heard to say that he had no fears for the place unless Wolfe should gain the heights on a level with the city, and attack him from thence, a contingency which he had deemed almost impossible. When however he beheld the enemy in this position, he either felt or affected to feel a confidence that Wolfe had taken a false and perilous step, " I see them," he said, " where they ought not to be ; if we must fight, I will crush them." Probably he thought that with a strong effort he could succeed in driving them over the precipice into the St. Lawrence before they could get up their artillery and invest the city. Whatever might be his motive, which has been much criticized by military men, and indeed regarded as a sort of infatuation, instead of remaining quietly within the walls, he gave orders for the immediate advance of his troops. While Montcalm was preparing for the attack, Wolfe, after a rapid survey of the Plains of Abraham, was engaged in forming his line of battle, which extended from the inaccessible precipices above the St. La^vrence on the right to the valley of the St. Charles on the left, with a reserve in the rear. The entire English force consisted of somewhat less than five thousand trained soldiers, while that of Montcalm amounted to seven thousand five hundred, but of these only a portion were regulars, the rest militia, upon whom no re- liance could be placed. The battle began with an attempt to turn the English left, which Townsend parried by adopting another disposition of the line. The two generals Avere now almost in presence of each other, AVolfe commanding the right and Montcalm the centre, where he had placed his veteran regi- ments. INIontcalm by throwing forward his light troops succeeded in prodvicing some confusion in the British ranks, to whom a retrograde movement must inevitably have been fatal ; but this dangerous tendency was checked by Wolfe, who ran to and fro, and exhorted his men to stand firm. This desultory sort of attack not succeeding, jSIontcalm directed a more formidable advance of his regulars against the British right. As they delivered their volley, Wolfe was struck in the wrist, but wrapping a handkerchief around it, hastened from rank to rank, urging his men to reserve their fire until the enemy were close upon them. Then indeed it was poured in with deadly and destructive effect, fairly shattering the heads of the advancing columns, and carrying dismay among the raw Canadian militia, who, panic-struck, broke and fled on all sides. Montcalm's presence of mind did not desert him in this terrible emergency, for availing himself of a small redoubt, he succeeded in presenting a second front to the enemy. On seeing this Wolfe, without the loss of a moment, 2 N 274 DEATH OF WOLFE AND MONTCALM. [1759. ordered the wliole British line to advance, which they did with such simultaneous impetuosity, that in spite of a fierce resistance at certain points, the French and Canadians were swept away like chaff before the Avhirlwind, m spite of repeated attempts made to rally them by their chivalrous commander, who falling, at length, mortally wounded, was carried within the city. An attempt made by Bougainville, who arrived with his forces on the field when the fite of the battle was decided, to retrieve the fortunes of the day, was defeated by the able dispositions of Townsend, and the broken and panic-stricken fugitives, pursued and cut down by the fiery Highlanders with their trenchant claymores, sought safety within the walls of Quebec. While the resistless tide of victory was thus flowing on, the faintness of dissolution v/as falling upon the senses of the British general. His first wound in the wrist had been but slight, but he received a second soon after in the body, and a ball from the redoubt struck him a third time on the breast. Unable to stand, he desired an officer to support him, " that his brave fellows might not see him fiiU," and sinking do^vn, was borne a little in the rear. Carleton was also desperately wounded, as was also Colonel Barre, the inti- mate friend of Wolfe, and who afterwards became so celebrated. To^^aisend had taken the further direction of the field, and completed the total rout of the enemy. Some grenadiers exclaimed, " See, they run ! " " Who run ? " faintly, but eagerly inquired the dying man. " The enemy, sir," answered the officer, " they give way every where." " Now, God be praised, I die happy," he feebly uttered — the last words that ever passed his lips, which in a few moments became closed in the silence of death. The gallant Montcalm, who had been carried within the city, did not long outlive his victor. It had been his presentiment that he should not survive the fall of the colony ; his militia, he well knew, would give way at the first shock ; and he is reported to have said ere he died, " Since it was my misfortune to be discomfited and mortally wounded, it is a great consolation to me to be van- quished by so great and generous an enemy. If I could survive this wound, I would engage to beat three times the number of such forces as I commanded this morning, with a third of their number of British troops." AVlien informed that he could hardly survive tlirough the day, he replied, " So much the better, I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." The governor of the city desiring to have his commands for the defence, he replied, " My time is short, so pray leave me. I wish you all comfort, and to be happily extricated from your present perplexities." His remaining hours were spent in religious offices, and late in the evening he expired. He might justly entertain the proud conviction, that " posterity would have no reproach to bring against his memory." From a remarkable letter to his cousin, he appears to have well foreseen that "his defeat would one day be more serviceable to his country than a victory, — that the victor, in aggrandizing himself, would find his tomb even in that very aggrandizement ;" and he uttered a remarkable prediction, that was realized perhaps even before he had himself expected. " What I advance here, dear cousin," he observes, " may appear paradoxical. 1759.] REMARKABLE LETTER WRITTEJST BY MOJYTCALIf. 275 but on a moment's cautious reflection, a single glance at the position of things in America, and the truth of my opinion will appear undeniable. Men are obedient to force and necessity alone, that is, when they see before their eyes an armed power, always ready and able to constrain them, or when the chain of their necessities dictates to them a law. Beyond that point, no yoke, and no obedience ; they desire to be their own masters, and to live freemen, because there is nothing within or without which obliges them to give up that liberty, which is the fairest appanage, and the most precious prerogative of humanity. Such is mankind, and on this point the English, whether by education or by sentiment, feel far more strongly than other men. The. sense of constraint torments them, they must breathe the atmosphere of freedom, and without this they feel out of their element. But if such are the Englishmen of Europe, far more so are the Englishmen in America. Great part of these colonists are children of the men who expatriated themselves in those trou- blous times when Old England, a prey to divisions, was attacked in her rights and privileges, and they went forth to seek in America a country where they might live and die in freedom, and almost independence ; and these children have not degenerated from the republican sentiments of their fathers. Others are men transported thither by the government for their crimes. The rest, in short, are a collection from the different nations of Europe, who hold little to Old England by heart and affection ; and all in general care but little for the English king or parliament, " I know them well, not by foreign report, but by correspondence and recent information All the colonies have, happily for them- selves, reached a very flourishing condition, they are numerous and rich, they contain within their own bosom all the necessities of life. England has been foolish and dupe enough to allow the arts, trades, and manufactures to become established among them, that is to say, she has allowed them to break the chain of wants which attached them to, and made them dependent upon, her- self. Thus all these English colonies would long ago have thrown off the yoke, each province would have formed a little independent republic, if the fear of seeing the French at their doors had not proved a bridle to restrain them. As masters, they would have preferred their countrymen to strangers, taking it nevertheless for a maxim to obey either as little as possible. But once let Canada be conquered, and the Canadians and these colonists become one people, and on the first occasion when Old England appears to touch their interests, do you imagine, my dear cousin, that the Americans will obey? And in revolting, what will they have to fear ?" How remarkably these an- ticipations were fulfilled, the course of our narrative will speedily disclose. But to return to the closing scenes of the taking of Quebec. On the day after the battle, in the general orders dated 14th of September, 1759, — Plains of Abraham, Parole, — WOLFE, countersign ENGLAND, — the remaining general officers expressed the praises due to the bravery of the soldiers, and lamented that he who lately commanded them had not survived so glorious a day, in order to give the troops their just encomium. They express their 2 N 2 276 SURREXDER OF CANADA TO THE BRITISH CROWK[17G0, confidence that the fatigues of the siege " ■will be supported with true spirit, as this seems to be the period which will in all probability determine our American laboiu-s." This expectation was speedily realized. The French troops under the Marquis de Vandreuil and Bougainville retreated to Cape Rouge, and despatched messengers to M. de Levi at Montreal. The marquis then proposed " that they should take their revenge on the morrow, and en- deavour to wipe off the disgrace of that fatal day ; " but this advice was justly set aside as chimerical, and the army, instead of advancing, fell back. A message was sent to the commandant of Quebec, promising him immediate succour, and iu"ging him to hold out to the last extremity ; but Townsend pressed him so vigorously, that on the 18th of September he surrendered the city, the English troops marched in, and the flag of England soon waved triumphantly from the crest of the citadel. The body of Wolfe was solemnly escorted to the beach by his mourning army, and conveyed for sepulture to England. A monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. A small pillar marks the spot where he fell, on the Plains of Abraham ; and a pyramid since raised upon the heights of the city, simply bearing the names of "WOLFE" and '^MONTCALM," is destined to perpetuate the common memory of these gallant chiefs, and of the memorable battle in which they gloriously fell. Though driven from Quebec, the French had not yet given up all hopes of defending Canada. After the battle on the Plains of Abraham, the main body of their army fell back upon Montreal, where M. de Levi, who had succeeded IMontcalm, resolved on a vigorous effort to recover Quebec. He at first me- ditated a covp-de-main during the winter, but found the English too much on the alert ; but in April, when the frost broke up, he descended the St. Lawreuce to Point aux Trembles, witliin a few miles of Quebec. The English garrison under General Murray had dwindled by sickness to three thousand men, but with this handful of brave men he boldly marched out to attack a body of three times their number. After a hard-fought action he was compelled to abandon his artillery, and retire -wdthin the walls. De Levi soon erected his batteries, and opened a heavy fire on the walls, but Murray had succeeded in mounting so numerous an artillery that the French guns were almost silenced. A British fleet soon after made its appear- ance, and compelled De Levi to retire to Montreal, at which city the Marquis de Vandreail, concentrating his remaining forces, determined to make a last stand for the defence of Canada. The struggle however was speedily over. No sooner had the season for operations arrived, than Amherst advanced with an army of ten thousand regulars and provincials, and being joined by Johnson at Oswego with one thousand Indians, made his appearance before Montreal on the very day that Murray, advancing from Quebec, landed within a few miles of the city; while the next day appeared Colonel Haviland, from Crown Point. As these combined forces rendered resistance impossible, the French governor capitu- lated, and the whole of Canada was surrendered to the British crown. i:C0, 01.] QUARRELS WITH THE CHEROKEE S. 211 Nothing could exceed tlie exultation of the northern colonies at this long-desired consummation of a struggle which had continued for so many years, and involved their frontiers in a desolating warfare. Their boundaries too received an immense expansion, New York claiming, by virtue of treaties with the Six Nations, the whole territory northward to the St, Lawrence, and westward to the great lakes, while the New England States were free to advance northward and eastward without any further check. But above all, by the conquest of the French, who had so long kept them in a state of con- tinual alarm, the colonists beheld themselves virtual masters of the entire con- tinent, and their sense of dependence upon the mother country was propor- tionably weakened, at the same time that military habits and feelings had been greatly fostered among them by the recent wars. During these struggles between the French and English, the Indians, whom they had engaged in the dispute, were gradually lessening in numbers, while upon pretext of different treaties artfully extorted from them, or made with- out any regard to their claims, they were more and more pushed from the old hunting-grounds of their fathers. The formidable Six Nations, who had so long braved the power of the French, now became less prominent in the American annals. Many of the tribes hostile to the English retired to Canada, while the Penobscots submitted to the English. After the reduction of Fort Duquesne, the Cherokees, who had acted as allies to the English, had become involved in quarrels with them. The origin of the quarrel is doubtful, but probably arose from encroachment, or hasty revenge, on the part of the whites, It is said that the Cherokees seized upon some horses which they found running wild through the woods, but which in reality belonged to Virginian owners, and that the latter, supposing it to be a theft, killed twelve or four- teen of them ; an outrage deeply resented by the Indians, who, inflamed by French influence, were led to believe that the English meditated their entire extermination. Accordingly they fell, in their cruel fashion, upon the ex- posed frontiers. On hearing that Governor Littleton was preparing to march against them, they sent a deputation to Charleston to negociate a peace. Lit- tleton, however, determined to strike terror into the Cherokees, by marching into their territories with a large force ; but being compelled to fall back, was glad to accept the offer he had lately spurned, and shortly afterwards con- cluded a peace with the Indians. It was not long, however, before fresh disputes broke out, and the Cherokees, raising a considerable body of warriors, awaited the attack of the English with a determined spirit. An express was sent to General Amherst, who de- tached some troops under Colonel Montgomery to the relief of the Carolinians. Strengthened by their militia, he marched into the Cherokee country, re- lieved Fort Prince George, which they .had blockaded, and ravaged all the Indian settlements on his way. Finding the Cherokees rather inflamed than intimidated by these proceedings, he advanced to Etchoe, their capital, not far from whence they had posted themselves to oppose his further progress. In doing so he had to pass through a hollow valley covered with brushwood. 278 THE CHEROKEES DEFEATED BY COL. GEANT [17C0, CI. tlirougli which rau a muddy river with clay banks, the Thermopylae of these Cherokee regions. To scour this dangerous pass Colonel Morrison advanced with a company of Rangers, when the Indians, suddenly springing from their ambush, killed him at the first shot, Avith several of his man. The light in- fantry being now moved forward, a warm fire was maintained on both sides, but the Indians still maintained the post without flinching, till, threatened in the flank by a movement of the agile Highlanders, they slowly fell back and reluctantly yielded the pass, posting themselves upon a hill, to watch the movements of their invaders. Supposing that INIontgomery was advancing towards Etchoe, they ran to give the alarm to their wives and children, and prepare for a still more desperate resistance. But the English commander, after this specimen of Indian resolution, and in the heart of a wilderness where a reverse must be fatal to his army, resolved to retrace his steps, first to Fort Prince George, and afterwards to Charleston, Avhence he was shortly afterwards summoned to rejoin the army of the north. The Cherokees now blockaded Fort Londoun on the Virginia frontier, the garrison of which was entirely cut off from all communication with their brethren. Famine at length compelled them to surrender, on condition of being conducted to Virginia or Carolina. But Avhen they had advanced some miles from the fort they were surrounded by a body of Indians, who oj)ened a heavy fire upon them, which killed Captain Demere the commandant and nearly thirty others, and carried off the remainder into captivity. The Che- rokees, who could now muster three thousand warriors, continued to range the frontiers, and inspired such fear that Amherst was earnestly solicited to send back the troops he had Avithdrawn. The conquest of Canada being now achieved, the Highland regiment commanded by Colonel Grant returned to Carolina, and being reinforced by the colonial militia and scouts dressed in Indian costume, advanced to the spot where Montgomery had been repulsed. The Cherokees bravely maintained the struggle for several hours, but were at length entirely defeated ; theu' toAvns and magazines destroyed, their corn- fields ravaged, and they themselves forced to retreat into the desolate recesses of their mountains. Their resources being thus cut off, these intrepid warriors were compelled to sue for a peace. In order to obtain it, they were at first required to deliver four warriors to be shot at the head of the army, or to furnish four fresh Indian scalps within twenty days ; a degrading and horrible condition, from which they were relieved by the intercession of one of their aged chiefs. Two years afterwards the DelaAvares tind ShaAvanese, proA'oked on one hand by aggressions on the part of the settlers, Avho noAV began to push across the Alleghanies, and on the other incited by the arts of the French, broke out into open hostilities, in which they Avere soon after Avards joined by numerous other tribes. They put the English traders to death, seized simultaneously nearly all the outlying forts and massacred their garrisons, and dealt destruc- tion upon the exposed frontiers. Forts Pitt, Niagara, and Detroit still held out, into wliich reinforcements Avere tlu'OAvn after some severe encounters 1761.] ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE THE ACTS OF TRADE. 279 with tlie Indians. These outrages provoked a bloody retaliation on the part of a body of Scotch and Irish settlers in Paxton township, Pennsylvania. They attacked a friendly and harmless tribe living under the guidance of some Moravian missionaries, murdered men, women, and children indis- criminately, forced their way into Lancaster workhouse, where some of the fugitives had taken refuge, and killed them, and then marched down to Phi- ladelphia, to exterminate a body of Indians who had fled to that city. It was wdth much difficulty Franklin succeeded in forming a body of militia, to check these disorders, and in compelling the " Paxton boys," as they were called, to retire to their own abodes. It required a colonial levy and two expedi- tions into the Indian country, to break up this wide-spread and dangerous combination of the tribes, and to force them to consent to peace. In the midst of the joy created by the conquest of Canada, an incident occurred which significantly foreshadowed the future. Francis Bernard, lately governor of New Jersey, had been transferred to that of INIassachusetts, and displayed from the first remarkable zeal in carrying out the ministerial policy, and abridging the illegal practices of the colonists, to which his predecessor Pownall had more wisely shut his eyes. This zeal was seconded by Hutchin- son, who had lately been appointed lieutenant-governor, and also chief justice, to the disappointment of Otis, who had been promised a seat on the bench by Pownall. It was at this juncture that, owing to a trade opened by the colonists with the French islands, by which they obtained supplies, orders had been given by the English ministry for the stricter enforcement of the acts of trade, already so odious to the mercantile interest and the people at large. To pre- vent evasion of the law, orders were sent to apply to the judicature for " writs of assistance," that is, for permits to break into and search any suspected place, ■ — never granted in America, unless by special warrant and for some particular object. It was not long before the custom-house officers applied for the issue of the writs, to which the merchants determined to ofler the most strenuous op- position, and retained Thatcher and young Otis, son of the speaker, to plead on their behalf. Otis, as advocate of the Admiralty, was bound to argue in favour of the writs, but urged by patriotic zeal, which was not improbably quickened by the neglect or affront offered to his parent, he resigned his office, and accepted the retainer of the merchants. On the day appointed for the trial, the council-chamber of the old town-house in Boston was crowded with the officers of government and the principal inhabitants of the city. The case was opened by the advocate for the crown, who founded his long and elaborate argument on the principle, that the parliament of Great Britain is supreme legislator of the British empire. Thatcher, who was one of the first lawyers of the city, replied in an ingenious and able speech, resting his argu- ments upon considerations purely legal and technical. But Otis, who follow- ed him, was not to be restrained within these narrow and inconvenient limits. In the words of Adams, " he w^as a flame of fire, with a promptitude of classi- cal allusion, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance into futurity, and a rapid 280 OTIS' S SPEECH IN FAVOR OF FREE TRADE. [1761. torrent of impetuous eloquence, wliicli carried away all before him." From tlie rights of man in a state of nature, he reasoned up to those involved in the British constitution, of which he declared the colonists could not be deprived. He launched out into a glowing eulogy of the forefathers of America, and "reproached the nation, parliament, and king, Avith injustice, illiberality, ingra- titude, and oppression," in a strain of invective congenial to his excited audi- tory. Feelings too deeply seated, but of which the utterance had hitherto been cautiously suppressed, now burst into open expression. American liberty there struggled into sudden existence. " The seeds of patriots and heroes to defend the Non sine Diis animosus infans, to defend the 'vigorous youth, were then and there sown. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me, says Adams, to go away as I did, ready to take arms against the ' writs of assistance.' Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born. In fifteen years he grew up to manhood, and declared himself free." This speech of Otis's gave a great impulse to his hearers, and through them was communicated to the people at large. Indeed, so powerful was the impression produced upon the public, that in his speech at the opening of the session, the governor thought prudent to recommend to the representatives to give no heed to declamations tending to promote a sus- picion of the civil rights of the people being in danger. The popularity of Otis became unbounded ; he was elected representative for Boston, and took , the lead among the opposition members of the house, who shortly afterwards led the van of resistance against the encroachments of the English ministry. The conquest of Canada being achieved, the British arms were turned against the French islands in the "West Indies. General Monckton sailed from New York with a formidable army, among the officers of which were Gates and Montgomery, afterwards celebrated in the revolutionary war. The expedition was completely successful, and all the islands then in possession of the French were wrested from them. A family compact between the differ- ent branches of the house of Bourbon had engaged Spain to side with France, and declare war against Great Britain. To humble this new enemy was the next object of her arms, and an expedition was shortly afterwards sent out, which wrested Havanna from Spain. The arms of England were every where triumphant, her cruisers swept the seas, and her enemies were obliged to consent to a humiliating peace. On the 3rd of November, 1762, the treaty was signed at Fontaineblcau, by which the whole of North America, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, was ceded to Great Britain. The island and city of New Orleans were ceded to Spain, with all Louisiana west of the Mississippi, then almost in a state of nature. Havanna was also restored to her in lieu of Florida, which now became incorporated with the English territory. This final cessation of intercolonial and frontier warfare restored, it is said, upwards of four thousand families to the homes from which they had been driven during its continuance. Relieved of the pressure from without, the . 17G3.] DEBT INCURRED BY ENGLAND DURING THE WAR. 281 colonies every where expanded rapidly. On tlie north, the settlements of Maine began to advance to the Kennebec and Penobscot ; on the west, the green mountains of Vermont and the country extending to Lake Champlain received a rapid accession of settlers. A westward impulse was given to all the States ; New York pushed up the Mohawk valley to the lakes, Virginia and Pennsylvania poured across the Alleghanies. No colony felt the benefit of the peace more than Georgia, now relieved from its hostile peighbours the Spaniards, its rich swamps being turned to account for the cultivation of rice. English settlers advanced into Florida, and began to dcvelope its re- sources, which had remained almost dormant under the administration of its former occupants. CHAPTER V. FROM THE CONQUEST OF CANADA TO THE REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. The war which terminated in the conquest of Canada was but a part of the stupendous struggle waged by Great Britain against the power of France, and from which, if she had emerged with glory, she had also become saddled with a debt increased to a hundred and forty millions sterling. The pressure of taxation weighed heavily upon the nation, every art for raisiiig supplies at home had been already exhausted by the ministry, and it was now resolved to turn to the colonies for some alleviations of the public burdens. Before the . termination of the Canadian war, Pitt had declared liis intention, so soon as it was over, to adopt some method of compelling the colonists to contribute their quota towards any future expense incurred by the mother country in their defence. To carry out this design now became the serious stu 'y of liis suc- cessors in the administration. The colonies, however, had already suffered severely. Th' / had lost thii'ty thousand of their citizens, and incurred an expense of siAceen millions of dollars, of which parliament had reimbursed them only about a third. Ihey had taxed themselves very severely, and the leading States had incurred a heavy debt. Some of them indeed had not contributed their proper quota, and of the funds thus raised, the assemblies had always contrived to keep the management mainly in theu- own hands, and to concede as httle as possible to\ the royal governors. It became in consequence the object of the English, ministry to raise a fix:ed revenue, to which all the colonies should contribute / alike, and which should be placed entirely under thek own control. This 2 o 282 PROPOSAL TO RAISE MONEY BY TAXATION. [17C3. became more important to the ministry, since, either for the purpose of strengthening the executive power, which had become much Aveakened by the gradual encroacliments of the assemblies, or to defend the frontiers against the invasions of the Indians, they proposed to maintain a standing army in America ; a scheme which naturally created much suspicion and uneasiness on the part of the colonists, and to which they might accordingly refuse to contribute in the usual way of voluntary offerings. That parliament had the power to tax America, few in England, at that time at least, seemed to have entertained a doubt. The connexion between the parent country and her colonies was essentially vague and undefined. Parliament had always assumed the right to regulate the external commerce of the colonists, and even to prevent the growth of their domestic manufac- tures ; and although, as formerly exj^lained, these acts had always been resisted as arbitrary and impolitic, they had nevertheless been acquiesced in as legal. Now the distinction between this mode of raising a revenue and that of levy- ing a direct tax was so doubtful, as afterwards to be repudiated by the colonists themselves. Even Franklin, when a stamp tax had been mooted in the colonial congress held at Albany, had acquiesced in it as a legitimate and desirable plan for making all the colonies contribute their fair proportions alOve. Indeed the plan seems not to have originated with the English ministry, but to have been suggested to them by certain American merchants, and particularly by one Huske, who had obtained a seat in parliament, and who, reminding Grenville of the above-mentioned incident, expressed his be- lief that his countrymen were able to raise a liberal annual revenue for the support of government. Of their ability to do so, every one was fully convinced. Notwithstanding the temporary check to their onward career caused by the recent war, the colonists were, comparatively with the bulk of their English brethren, in such prosperous circumstances as to be objects of envy. The officers who returned home after the war, and whom the richer inhabitants had taken a pride in entertaining with an over- ostentatious hospitality, were full of the wealth and luxury of the colonists, and it was considered high time that " our subjects in America," as every English chimney-sweeper called them, should be made to bear their portion of a burden frcm which they had been hitherto comparatively exempted. Ac- cordingly wht 1, shortly after the war was over, Grenville first laid his plans before parliam nt, the resolution that " towards further defraying the ex- j)enses, it may be proper to charge certain stamp duties in the said colonies and plantations," was passed Avithout debate, while public feeling throughout the country was entirely in favour of carrying it into efiect. Very different was the feeling on the other side of the Atlantic as soon as the intentions of the English government began to be noised about. The colonists had long borne with impatience the increasing severity of restrictions which at once checked the development of their commerce, and reminded them of their humiliating dependence upon a foreign power. The feeling had become general that a stand must be made against any further encroachments. i:C3.] EXCITEMENT ABOUT TAXES IN THE COLONIES. 283 jSTo soonei then did tins resolution of parliament to impose a direct tax become generally known, than the public mind was greatly excited and alarmed. With her usual foresight and vigilance, Massachusetts was foremost in oppo- sition to the government measure. Her representatives, assembled in general court, resolved "that the sole right of giving and granting the money of the people of that province was vested in themselves, and that the imposition of taxes and duties by the parliament of Great Britain upon a people who are not represented in parliament is absolutely irreconcilable with their rights. If ovir trade may be taxed," they continue, " why not our lands, why not the produce of our lands, and every thing we possess or use ? This we conceive annihilates our charter-rights to govern and tax ourselves. It strikes at our British privileges, which, as we have never forfeited, we hold in common with our fellow subjects Avho are natives of Britain. If taxes are laid upon us with- out our having a legal representation where they are laid, we are reduced from the character of free subjects to the state of tributary slaves." Such was the tenor of their instructions to their agent in London, who was also desired to use his utmost influence in urging the representatives of the other colonies to unite their remonstrances with his o^voi, while they at the same time appointed a committee to write to the colonies themselves, and urge them to apply for the repeal of the sugar duty, and to prevent the pass- age of the obnoxious Act ; measures which must be recognised as being the germ of that resistance afterwards so successfully carried out. Connecticut followed in the steps of Massachusetts, and a body of reasons why the colonies should not be taxed by parliament was drawn up by Fetel, the governor, himself an able jurist. Petitions to the king and the houses of parliament were drawn up in the different colonies, all breathing the same language of firm but respectful remonstrance. . AVliiie the different public bodies were thus combining their forces, influ- ential individuals were no less active in arousing and exciting the people by newspaper articles and pamphlets. Among these, one written by Otis, entitled " The Rights of the British Colonies asserted," produced the most consider- able sensation. The ground taken by the writer Avas broad, and its limits somewhat ill-defined and inconsistent. It conceded to parliament the power to enact general regulations for the government of the colonies, limited by *^ the natural rights of man and constitutional rights of British subjects," one of the latter being that of not being taxed without the consent of t]>?mselves or their representatives. The distinction between internal and external taxes was repudiated. It became thus evident that the opponents of taxation were gradually extending their ground, and becoming more impatient of foreign imposition in every shape, although at this period any forcible opposition to its exercise would have been generally denounced as unjustifiable, if not actually treasonable. Il was at this stage of the excitement that Franklin sailed from Philadelphia for London as agent for the colony of Pennsylvania. Since the time when the young printer, reprimanded, as we have seen, by the magistrates of Boston, and 2 o 2 284 FRANKLIN'S POSITION IN PENNSYLVANIA. [1763. discliarged from his brotlier's office, had arrived at Philadelphia with hardly a doUar in his jaocket, a wonderful alteration had taken place in liis circum- stances. Commencing there as a journeyman, he gradually worked his way up until he became a master printer, and acquhed, his only competitor being old and rich, the most lucrative business in the city, printed for the assembly, composed and issued his " Poor Richard's Almanac," was successively ap- pointed postmaster, j ustice of the peace, clerk of the assembly, and finally re- presentative for the city of Philadelphia. No man was more completely the architect of liis own fortune : laborious and self-denying, prudent and per- severing, he put in practice his own maxims — the quintessence of mere worldly wisdom. He was the embodiment of the practical and the useful. Every thing to his mind, even virtue herself, must be reduced to calculation, and carried out by rule and measure. No other man perhaps ever erected for his o'vvn practice a regular table, on which to mark down his daily shortcomings, and, adding them up at the end of the week, compute his moral progress or declension by an aritlimetical process. No one else ever set about emendating the Lord's prayer. Calm and passionless in temperament, Franklin was not without a certain enthusiasm, the enthusiasm, if we may so call it, of prac- tical benevolence. His incessantly active mind teemed with designs for the good of the public, and indeed of aU mankind. From the cleansing of streets and the reformation of stoves, up to the organizing a " United Party for Vir- tue," nothing came amiss to his hand. The actual good he accomplished was prodigious. He established the first library in Philadelphia, originated a philosophical society, enrolled and commanded the mihtia, and carried through by his practical management a scheme organized by his friend. Dr. Bond, for a hospital. No matter what was the design on foot, every one first asked — " Have you consulted Franklin on this business, and what does he think of it ?" Add to this, that his probity was above susj)icion, and his inde- pendence proof alike against official or popular influence; that his temper was placid and cheerful, and his manners simple and fuU of genial humour ; and it is not surprising that he should have obtained unbounded influence over his f ,llow citizens. As years rolled on, his public services grew more important, his moral consistency more tried and manifest, and the feelings of his countrymen deepened into gratitude and veneration. When Franklin became involved in the petty politics of Pennsylvania, he chose the side of the people, and was deputed to sail to England, to solicit from parhament the abolition of the proprietary government, just when the revolutionary ti'oubles first broke out. Having himself drawn up the abortive " Albany convention," he had a perfect knowledge of the temper of his coun- trymen, and of their feeling towards the parent state, and thus no one could have been every way more fitted to occupy the position of advocate in England for the claims of the colonists, which naturally fell into his hands. Besides the influence naturally derived from his respectable char-TCter and position, he was also preceded by his reputation as a man of science. By his well-known experi- ments and writings on electricity, he had raised the character of liis country- ITGo.] RECEPTION OF FRANKLIN IN ENGLAND. 28o men tlirougliout Europe. The learned in Paris could scarcely believe that *^ such a work conld have come from America.^'' On arriving in England he was received with distinction, and warmly welcomed into circles to which, after being separated from them by war, he ever cast back a longing, lingering look of attachment. The tenor of his letters amply shows that his original bent was a strong attachment to the mother country, and a strong feeling of loyalty towards the ruling monarch. In giving an account of Wilkes's mobs, the first directly radical outbreak in England, he observes, " "What the event will be, God only knows. But some punishment seems preparing for a people who are ungratefully abusing the best constitution and the lest king any nation was ever blessed with." Franklin's hereditary prejudices against the French were strong, and he seems to have penetrated, even then, their secret policy of soAA^ing dissension between England and her colonies. Speaking of De Guerchy, the French ambassador in 176T, he says, " He is extremely curious to inform himself about the affairs of America, pretends to have a great esteem for me on account of the abilities shown in my examination, has de- sired to have all my political writings, invited me to dine with him, -n-as very inquisitive, treated me with great civility, makes me visits, &c. I fancy that intriguing nation would like very well to meddle on occasion, and blow up the coals between Britain and her colonies, hut I hope ue shall give tliem no opporfiinifg." Such was his feeling at the outset of the revolutionary strug- gle ; how signally it was afterward reversed in both cases, will appear in the course of events. After his arrival in England, Franklin was consulted both by GrenviUe and his party, and also by Pitt and the opposition, as to the expediency of introducing the Stamp Act. Whatever his opinion might once have been, (and more than one instance of his modifying his opinions occurred in the course of the revolution,) he now explicitly declared that he considered it an unwise measure, to which the Americans would never submit, and to enforce which would imjoeril the unity of the empire. At length, in the session of 1765, the Stamp Bill was formally brought before the House of Commons, where, owing to the preceding events, it now excited somewhat more attention and controversy than when it was first mooted, the galleries being crowded to hear the debate. The opposition firmly maintained the injustice no less than impolicy of the measure, alleging that by the ancient laws of the realm, tax- ation and representation had always gone hand in hand. The ministry re- plied, that the colonies were in fact virtually as mrich represented by the actual members, as were the great proportion of the English, who themselves enjoyed no vote ; that the right of taxing the colonists was derived from the responsibility and expense of defending them ; that the colonists must either be etilirelg dependent upon England, or entirely separated from her. The inconsistency of allowing a duty to be placed upon their exports, while they refused to submit to one upon stamps, Avas artfully pointed out. Finally, after ostentatiously enumerating the advantages derived by America from her connexion with Great Britain, and leaving out of sight the counterbalancing 286 BARRJS defends THE COLONISTS. [1TC5. restrictions upon her commerce, Charles Townshend concluded with the fol- lowing words: "And now, will these Americans, children planted by our care, nourished uf) by our indulgence till they are grown to a degree of strength and opulence, and protected by our arms — will they grudge to con- tribute their mite to relieve us from the heavy weight of that burden which we lie under ? " At these words up started Colonel Isaac Barre, one of the most formidable debaters of the opposition. He was familiar with America, had been the friend of Wolfe, and was near his person in the battle of Quebec, in which he had lost one of his eyes. He has been suspected, and not without strong show of evidence, to have been the author of the celebrated " Letters of Junius." Sarcastically echoing the conchiding words of Townshend, he burst into a torrent of vigorous eloquence which fairly electrified the house. " They planted by your care ! (he said). No ; yovir oppressions planted them in Ame- rica. They fled from your tyranny, to a then uncultivated and inhosj^itable country, where they exposed themselves to all the hardships 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 God's earth; yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suf- fered in their ovra country, from the hands of those, who should have been their friends. " T/iey povrished rip by your indidgence ! They grew by your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care for them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them in one department and another, who were, per- haps, fche 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 boil 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 omti. " Tliey protected by your arms ! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, have exerted their 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, that same spirit of freedom which actuated that peoj)le at first, will accompany them still ; but prudence forbids me to explain myself further. God knows, I do not at this time speak from any motives of party heat ; what I deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me, in general knov/ledge 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 with 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.** 17G5. ] PA TRICK HENR T'S MO VEMENT IN VIRGINIA. 287 The liouse remained stupifiecl for a while by the energy of Barre, and no one ventured to reply to him. This striking incident relieved what was pro- nounced by Burke to have been the most languid debate he had ever heard, so ignorant of American affairs, and so indifferent about them, were the major- ity of the members of the House of Commons. The bill having been voted by a majority of a hundi'ed and fifty to fifty, was sent up to the Lords, by whom it was passed without opposition, and shortly afterwards received the royal assent. The ministers, backed by the king and country, declared their inten- tion of speedil)^ carrying it into vigorous execution. " The sun of liberty is set," wrote Franklin to his fi-iend Charles Thompson, on the very night Avhen the bill was passed ; " the Americans must light the lamps of industry and eco- nomy." " Be assured," was the reply, " that we shall light torches of a very different sort." In fact, since the first mooting of this impolitic measure, the progress of public irritation in America had been constantly on the increase, and, sus- ])ended for a moment during the appeal to parliament, it acquired with the fatal news of the passing of the Stamp Act, a prodigious increase of force and activity. The house of burgesses in Virginia was then near the end of its session, and the older and more aristocratic of the body were uncertain and hesitating. But Patrick Henry, a young lawyer who had been elected a burgess but a few days before, and was ignorant of the forms of the house and the members that composed it, finding no one prepared to step forth, " alone, unadvised, and unassisted," wrote upon the blank leaf of an old law book, a few spirited resolutions, which he launched into the midst of the assembly. A violent debate ensued, and many threats and much abuse were heaped upon the daring young advocate by the party who were inclined to temporize or submit. The spirit of Henry rose with the occasion, and while descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious Act, he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, " Ceesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third — " " Treason," cried the speaker — " Treason, treason," echoed from every part of the hou.se. " It was one of those trying moments," well says his biographer, " which aire decisive of character. Henry faltered not for a moment, but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished his sentence with firmest emj^hasis, — " may projit by their exaivjile. If this be treason make the most of it. " The resolutions were passed in spite of opposition, and being circulated tlrroughout the colonies, tended greatly to fortify the determined spirit of opposition every where so rife. In Massachusetts, the passing of the Act was received with still deeper dis- satisfaction, and notwithstanding the advice of Governor Bernard, himself unfavourable to the imposition of the tax, of submission to the act of parlia- ment "as it was the sanctuary of liberty and justice," the representatives appointed a committee of nine to report on the best measures to be adopted under the emergency. This body recommended the assembly of a congress at New York, in the ensuing month of October, to consult together on the 2S8 EXCITE3£EI\T AND RI0T8 IN BOSTON. [17C5. posture of affairs, and to consider of a general and humble address to his Majesty for relief. "With this momentous arrangement, the germ of all organized resistance to the ministerial proceedings, even Governor Bernard himself then thought it prudent to coincide. Meanwhile an explosion of popular fury broke out at Boston. There was an old elm tree in the city, which, from the association called the " Sons of Liberty " holding their meetings under it, had received the name of " Liberty Tree." Here the opponents of the Stamp Act were accustomed to assemble. On the morning of Thursday the fourteenth of August, two grotesque effigies of persons favourable to the tax, amongst which was that of Oliver, secretary to the colony, and who had been appointed to distribute the stamps, the other a huge hoot, with head and horns j^eeping out, intended to personify Lord Bute, were found suspended from its branches. The mob soon collected to witness the sight, and the excitement went on increasing till night, when the effigies were taken down, put upon a bier, and carried in solemn procession through the streets of the city, the populace shouting after them, " No Stamp Act ! " At length the procession halted before the door of a small building destined for the reception of the stamjjs, v/hich was instantly destroyed by the mob, who brandishing its fragments tumultuously hurried to the house of Oliver himself, and cutting off the head of his effigy, smashed in his windows, and after resting a while to burn the effigy returned to his house, which they completely gutted. Oliver, who had fled on the attack upon his premises, notified next day that he had written to resign his office. In the evening the mob assembled again before his house, and exacted a rencAval of the pledge, whereupon they greeted him with loud huzzas, and here for the moment the agitation was suspended. Shortly after, Jonathan INIayhew, one of the minis- ters of the city, preached a warm sermon against the Stamp Act, taking for his text the significant words, " I would they were even cut off Avhich trouble you." Next evening the rioting broke out anew with increased violence. A band of men disguised in masks and armed \n\\\ clubs, rushed first to the house of Faxon, marshal of the admu'alty, but being artfully taken off to the tavern, where their excitement was stimulated by drink, they next selected the residence of Story, registrar of the admiralty, for the object of their at- tacks. Here they destroyed the official and private papers, and whatever came to their hand. Meanwhile the mob continuing to increase, and with it the contagious frenzy of the rioters, they next proceeded to the house of the con- troller of the customs, where they committed the same disorders ; and becoming inflamed to madness by the additional stock of liquors discovered in his cel- lars, they finally hurried off to the house of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson, the most elegantly furnished in the AA'hole colony. Having sent aAvay his children to a place of safety, Hutchinson barricaded his doors and prepared for resistance, but the desperate fury of the rabble soon compelled him to seek safety in flight, and by four in the morning the contents of his establishment, plate, furniture, clothing, and money, together with all the public pa2:)ers, and a body of manuscripts relating to the liistory of the province which he had 17C5.] GENERAL FEELING IN OTHER STATES. 289 been thirty years in collecting, were entii-ely destroyed or carried off. Next morning Hutcliinson was obliged to appear at the usual sitting of the council without his robes, which had been destroyed by the mob, while the other members were clothed in their usual costume. The court, to mark their sense of the outrage received by their president, adjourned until the middle of October. Mayhew sent to Hutchinson next day to disclaim all sympathy with the rioters. The more influential citizens assembled at Faneuil Hall to take order for the prevention of such outrages for the future. A civic guard was organized to patrol the city. A reward was offered for the apprehension of the ringleaders, and one or two were taken, but refused to betray their ac- complices, and although the rioters were well known, no one ventured to come forward for theu* conviction. Similar manifestations of public feeling occurred in all the colonies. On the 24th August, at Providence, Rhode Island, appeared a Gazette extra- ordinary, headed with the words Vox popuU,vox Dei, in large characters ; and below, the sentence of St. Paul, " Wliere the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." The writers boldly panegyrised the riots of the Bostonians, as proving that they had not degenerated from the spirit of their forefathers. Squibs and pasquinades were circulated freely, and the effigies of the ob- noxious di-agged about the streets, and afterwards hanged and burned amidst the acclamations of the populace. In Connecticut, Ingersoll, the agent for the stamps, was compelled to promise, under pain of seeing his house de- molished, that he would either send back the stamps on their arrival, or throve open the magazines containing them to the discretion of the people. At Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the bells were tolled, and notice given to the friends of Liberty to hold themselves in readiness to attend her funeral. A coffin was prepared neatly labelled, " Liberty, aged clxv years," and carried in funeral procession about the town, while minute guns were fired until the grave destined to receive the coffin was reached. An oration in honour of the deceased was then pronounced, when suddenly some remains of life hav- ing been discovered, poor Liberty was taken up again, and the inscription altered, while the bells struck up a merry peal. At New York the obnoxious bill, headed, " Folly of England, and Ruin of America," was contemptuously hawked about the streets. Satirical pamphlets, and cutting articles in the journals, constantly added fresh fuel to the flame. One of those published at Boston bore for its title, " The Constitutional Courier, or Considerations im- portant to Liberty, without being contrary to Loyalty." But the device adopted was most original, representing a serpent cut into eight pieces, the head bearing the initials of New England, and the other pieces those of the other colonies as far as Carolina, the whole being surmounted by the signifi- cant inscription in large letters, " Unite or Die." These acts of intimidation were principally the work of the lower classes, but set in motion, there is little doubt, by others who kept behind the scenes. Bodies of the more ardent patriots, originating in Connecticut, spread through the northern colonies, calling themselves " Sons of Liberty," after Barre's 2 p 290 ARBIVAL OF THE STAMPS IN AMERICA. [1765. famous speech, and adopting the principle of forcible resistance to tyranny, seem to have taken the initiation in precipitating a popular outbreak. The members of this association solemnly pledged themselves to march at their own cost to the relief of any who should be in danger from the Stamp Act and its abettors, to watch for and prevent the introduction of the paper, and to punish as enemies to their country any one who should be instrumental in its circulation. "WHiile the more wealthy and influential citizens repudiated their princijjles, they were no less active in organizing a firm resistance by constitutional means. On the 5th of October, the ships having on board the stamps appeared in \dew of Philadelphia. All the vessels in the river immediately hoisted their colours half-mast high, the bells in the churches were muffled, and continued to toll until the evening. Although the Quakers and Episcopalians seemed inclined for peaceable submission, the mass of the people forcibly compelled Hughes, the stamp master, reluctantljA to resign his office. The paper having arrived at Boston on the 10th of September, Governor Bernard wrote to the assembly, to request their advice and assistance ; but they shrewdly declined to meddle with an affair beyond their functions, and the governor decided to deposit the stam^ps in the castle, and defend them, if needful, with artillery. But on the 1st of November, the day when the Act was to come into oj^er- ations, all the bells in Boston were tolled, and the same scenes which had before occurred there, were repeated mth increased violence. Oliver was dragged through the mob to the foot of Liberty tree, and made to swear anew to his renunciation of office, while papers with the signature " Vox populi," were affixed to the doors of the public offices, warning any who should dare to make use of the stamps to look to his house, his property, and his person. Still more daring were the^ proceedings at New York. There too the dis- tributor of stamps having resigned his employment, Vice-Governor Golden, who was very unpopular, deposited the stamps for safety in the fort. On the evening of the 1st of November, a furious mob proceeded to the citadel, and seized upon Colden's carriage, then hung him in effigy, with the Stamp Act in his hand, made a bonfire of the whole under the very gims of the citadel, and then proceeded to attack and pillage the house of ]\Iajor James. Encouraged by impunity, and stimulated by the cofiee-house oratory of the popular leaders, headed by one Captain Scars, they marched tumultuously to the vice-governor's, threatening the direst extremity unless the stamps were given up to them. To avoid bloodshed, and in the absence of the governor. Golden delivered up the obnoxious paper, which was immediately car- ried off by the populace. Next day a meeting took place of the more respectable inhabitants, for the purpose of forming a committee of correspondence with the other colonies, to keep alive the spirit of opposition to the government measure. Shortly after- wards a more important resolution was agreed upon. The merchants of New York resolved to import no more goods from England, until the revocation of the bill ; an example shortly afterwards followed by the majority in Phila- 17G5.] DETERMINED SPIRIT OF THE COLONISTS. 291 delphia and Boston. Some even went so far as to forbid any action to be brought against an American subject to recover debts due in England. The ])eople, too, of all ranks and classes agreed to deny themselves the use of all foreign luxuries, and even necessaries, until they had obtained justice. Sheep were forbidden to be used as food, in order that their avooI might be ex- clusively used for domestic manufactures, and to appear in homespun Avas esteemed the mark of a true patriot. A society was formed at New York to promote the growth of domestic manufactures. By adopting such a policy they hoped to touch the English manufacturers to the quick, and compel them to agitate for the removal of the obnoxious bill. On the 1st of November, when the stamps were to have come into general use, not a single one was to be found in circulation ; all had been either de- stroyed, locked up, or sent back again to England by the royal governors, who found it impossible to carry the Act into execution. Tire greatest confu- sion prevailed through the provinces, and business was generally at a stand- still. The diary of John Adams, then rising into popularity at Boston, gives a most lively picture of the state of public feeling at this period. " The year 1TG5," he observes, " has been the most remarkable year of my life. That enormous engine, fabricated by the British parliament, for battering down all the rights and liberties of America, I mean the Stamp Act, has raised and spread through the whole continent a spirit that will be recorded to our honour with all future generations. In every colony, from Georgia to New Hamp- shire inclusively, the stamp distributors and inspectors have been compelled by the unconquerable rage of the people to renounce their offices. Such and so universal has been the resentment of the people, that every man who has dared to speak in favour of the stamps, or to soften the detestation in which they are held, how great soever his abilities and virtues had been esteemed before, or whatever his fortune, connexions, and influence had been, has been seen to sink into universal contempt and ignominy. " The people, even to the lowest ranks, have become more attentive to their liberties, more inquisitive about them, and more determined to defend them, than they were ever before known or had occasion to be; innumerable have been the monuments of wit, humour, sense, learning, spirit, j^atriotism, and heroism, erected in the several colonies and provinces in the course of this year. Our presses have groaned, our pulpits have thundered, our legis- latures have resolved, our towns have voted; the crown officers have every where trembled, and all their little tools and creatures been afraid to speak and ashamed to be seen. I " This spirit, however, has not yet been sufficient to banish from persons in authority that timidity which they have discovered from the beginning. The executive courts have not yet dared to adjudge the Stamp Act void, nor to proceed with business as usual, though it should seem that necessity alone would be sufficient to justify business at present, though the Act should be allowed to be obligatory. The stamps are in the castle. Mr. Oliver has no commission. The governor has no authority to distribute or even to unpack 2 p 2 DIFFERENCE OF OPINION IN ENGLAND. [1765. the bales ; the Act has never been proclaimed nor read in the province ; yet the probate office is shut, the custom-house is shut, the courts of justice are shut, and all business seems at a stand. Yesterday and the day before, the two last days of service for January term, only one man asked me for a writ, and he was soon determined to wave his request. I have not drawn a writ since the first of November. " How long we are to remain in this languid condition, this passive obedi- ence to the Stamp Act, is not certain. But such a pause cannot be lasting. Debtors grow insolent ; creditors grow angry ; and it is to be expected that the public offices will very soon be forced open, imless such favourable ac- counts should be received from England as to draw away the fears of the great, or unless a greater dread of the multitude should drive away the fear of censure from Great Britain." In the midst of this universal excitement, the congress suggested by Massa- chusetts met at New York. Nine of the colonies sent deputies, and assur- ances of support were received from the others. Most of the men noAV assembled became afterwards famous in the annals of the coming revolution. During a session of three weeks, they drew up a '' Declaration of Rights and Grievances," recapitulating the arguments already advanced against taxation by a parliament where they were not represented, but, as though they feared they might be taken at their word and required to send deputies to England, they alleged the distance and other reasons as an argument for lodging the power of taxation exclusively in their own assemblies. Petitions to the king and houses of parliament were also prepared, filled with warm protestations of loyalty, and earnest entreaties for redress. These petitions, which were fully approved by the different colonial assemblies, were shortly afterwards sent over to England for j)resentation. The united and formidable ojjposition of all classes in the colonies to the recent Act, awakened in England, so soon as it was known, a general attention to American affairs, which had previously been regarded with great indiffer- ence. The merchants, whose interests were seriously compromised by the non-importation confederacy, were the first to blame the impolitic measure, which had entirely stopped the course of trade, and the table of the minister groaned under their petitions for its repeal. Pamphlets were continually ap- pearing, in which the subject was agitated, according to political or party dif- ferences. Some exalted the firmness of the Americans to the skies, while others accused them of ingratitude and rebellion. Some who affirmed the right of parliament to tax them, among whom were the bulk of the aristocracy and clergy, called for the adoption of force, Avhile the opj)osite party recom- mended the policy of forbearance and concession. Meanwhile the Grenville ministry, distinguished for its maintenance of the royal prerogative, had given place to a more liberal administration under the Marquis of Pockingham. The new ministry, overwhelmed by the petitions of the colonists and remon- strances of the merchants, adroitly endeavoured in their instructions to the royal governors in America, to luU the tempest awakened by their prede- 1766.] DEBATE ON THE STAMP ACT. 293 cessors, wliile they awaited the renewal of the session of parliament in order to obtain an entire reversal of their policy. Thus terminated the year 1765, as yet the most stormy and momentous in the colonial annals. Parliament met in the following January, when the speech from the throne brought the affairs of America formally before the house. His Majesty de- clared " his firm confidence in the wisdom and zeal of the members, which would, he doubted not, guide them to such sound and prudent resolutions as might tend at once to preserve the constitutional rights of the British legislature over the colonies, and to restore to them that harmony and tranquillity which had lately been interrupted by disorders of the most dangerous nature." The reports of the royal governors and other papers, together with a mass of peti- tions requesting the repeal of the Stamp Act, were then laid before the house. The motion for an address to the king was next warmly agitated, and the same differences of opinion on the subject which had before appeared were now more fully manifested, fortified by motives of party or personal animosity. The ex-ministers, now in opposition, were firm in the defence of their recent policy. But Pitt, who had neither formed part of the recent nor present ad- ministration, and whose ill health had for some time withdrawn him from any active share in politics, now appeared to turn the scale decisively in favour of its repeal. " It is a long time, Mr. Speaker," he said, " since I have attended in par- liament : when the resolution was taken in this 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 soli- cited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor to have borne my testimony against it. It is my opinion, that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time, I assert the authority of this kingdom to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of government and legislature whatsoever. Taxation is no part of the governing or legisla- tive power ; and taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the commons alone. The concurrence of the peers and of the crown is necessary only as a form of law. This house represents the commons of Great Britain. When in this house we give and grant, therefore, we give and grant Avhat is our own ; but can we give and grant the property of the commons of America ? It is an absurdity in terms. There is an idea in some, that the colonies are virtually represented in this house. I would fain know by whom ? The idea of vir- tual representation is the most contemptible that ever entered into the head of man ; it does not deserve a serious refutation. The commons in America, represented in their several assemblies, have invariably exercised this consti- tutional right of giving and granting their own money ; they would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it. At the same time this kingdom has ever professed the j)OAver of legislature and commercial control. The colonies ac- knowledge your authority in all things, with the sole exception that you shall not take their money out of their pockets without their consent. Here would I diaw the line — quam ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum,''^ A pro- 294 GEORGE GRENVILLE DEFENDS HIS MEASURES. [1766. found silence succeeded tlie address of Mr, Pitt ; no one aj)peared inclined to take the part of tlie late ministers. At length Mr, Grenville himself, the obstinate author of all the mischief which then so loudly threatened the peace and prosperity of the whole empire, rose in defence of the measures of his ad- ministration. " Protection and obedience," said the late minister, " are recipro- cal ; Great Britain protects America, America is therefore bound to yield obedi- ence. If not, tell me when Avere the Americans emancipated ? " Fixing his eye upon Pitt he exclaimed, " The seditious spirit of the colonies owes its birth to the factions in this house. Gentlemen are careless what they say, provided it serves the purposes of opposition. We were told we trod on tender ground, we were bid to expect disobedience : what is this but telling America to stand out against the law ? to encourage their obstinacy with the expectation of support here ? Ungrateful people of America ! The nation has run itself into an immense debt to give them protection ; bounties have been extended to them ; in their favour the Act of Navigation, that palladium of British commerce, has been relaxed ; and now that they are called upon to contribute a small share towards the public expense, they renounce your authoiity, in- sult your officers, and break out, I might almost say, into open rebellion." At this several members started suddenly to their feet, among whom was Pitt himself. There was a general cry of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Pitt, and all but he resumed their seats. Addressing himself to the speaker, he observed, " Sir, a charge is brought against gentlemen sitting in this house for giving birth to sedition in America. The freedom with Avhich they have spoken their senti- ments against this unhappy Act is imputed to them as a crime ; but the imputation shall not discourage me. It is a liberty which I hope no gentle- man will be afraid to exercise ; it is a liberty by which the gentleman "svho calumniates it might have profited. He ought to have desisted from his ]3ro- ject. We are told America is obstinate — America is almost in open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice America has resisted ; three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest. I came not here armed at all points with law cases and acts of parliament, with the statute book doubled down in dogsears, to defend the cause of liberty ; but for the defence of liberty upon a general constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I dare meet any man. I will not debate points of law; but what, after all, do the cases of Chester and Durham prove, but that imder the most arbitrary reigns parliament were ashamed of taxing a people without their consent, and allowed them representatives ? A higher and better example might have been taken from Wales ; that principality was never taxed by parliament till it was incorporated with England. We are told of many classes of persons in this kingdom not represented in parliament ; bul; are they not all virtually represented as English- men within the realm ? Have; they not the option, many of them at least, of becoming themselves electors? Every inhabitant of this kingdom is necessarily included in the general system of representation. It is a mififortiwe that more are not actually represented. The honourable gentleman boasts of his boimties 17GG.] PITT TAKES PART WITH AMERICA, 295 to America. Are not these bounties intended finally for the benefit of tliis kingdom ? If they are not, he has misapplied the national treasures. I am no courtier of America. I maintain that parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative poAver over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. The honourable gentleman tells us he understands not the differ- ence between internal and external taxation ; but surely there is a plain dis- tinction between taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue and duties imposed for the regulation of commerce. ' When,' said the honourable gen- tleman, ' were the colonies emancipated ? ' At what time say I, in answer, were they made slaves ? I speak from actual knowledge when I say that the profit to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is two millions per annum. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the war : this is the price America pays you for her protection ; and shall a miserable financier come 'with a boast that he can fetch a peppercorn into the exchequer at the loss of millions to the nation ? I knoAv the valour of your troops, I know the skill of your officers, I know the force of this country ; but in such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, Avould fall like a strong man : she would embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution with her. Is this your boasted peace ? not to sheathe the sword in the scabbard, but to sheathe it in the bowels of your countrymen? The Americans have been wronged, they have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned ? No, let this country be the first to resume its prudence and temper ; I will pledge myself for the colonies, that, on their part, animo- sity and resentment will cease. Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the house in a few words what is really my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately. At the same time let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever ; that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactui"es, and exercise any poAver Avhatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent." Grenville having vainly endeavoured to pledge the House to the enforce- ment of the Act, the policy to be pursued was anxiously investigated and dis- cussed. It was on this occasion that Franklin was summoned to give his evi- dence before the House of Commons. The galleries Avcre crowded with spectators eager to behold and listen to the remarkable stranger, so distin- guished both for his scientific discoveries and the services he had rendered to his country. His demeanour was simple and self-possessed as usual, and his replies to the questions proposed to him were clear, intelligent, and conclusive as to the impossibility of enforcing the tax. When asked whether he thought the people of America would submit to the Stamp duty if it was moderated, he answered emphatically, " No. never, unless compelled by force of arms.'* To the question, " What was the temper of America towards Great Britain, before the year 1763 ?" he replied, " The best in the world. They submitted 296 THE HE PEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. [1766. willingly to the government of the crown, and paid, in their courts, obedience to acts of parliament, jSTumerous as the people are in the several old pro- vinces, they cost you nothing in forts, citadels, garrisons, or armies, to keep them in subjection. They Avere governed by this country at the expense only of a little pen, ink, and paper ; they were led by a thread. They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great Britain, — for its laws, its customs, and manners, — and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the com- merce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard ; to be an Old England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us!" — "And what is their temper now?" it was asked. " O, very much altered," he replied. " Did you ever hear the authority of parliament to make laws for America questioned till lately ? " " The authority of parliament," said he, " Avas allowed to be valid in all laws, except such as should lay internal taxes. It was never disputed in laying duties to regulate commerce." 'i'o the question, " Can you name any act of assembly, or public act of any of your governments, that luade such distinction ? " he replied, " I do not know that there was any; I tliink there was never an occasion to make such an act, till now that you have attempted to tax us ; that has occasioned resolutions of assembly, declaring the distinction, in which I think every assembly on the continent, and every member in every assembly, have been unanimous." General Conway, who from the first had opposed the imposition of the Stamp Act, now brought in a bill for its total repeal, which, after being warmly opposed by Grenville and the opposition, was put to the vote, and carried by a large majority. " During the debate," to use the language of Burke, who had lent the strength of his eloquence to the ministerial measure, " the trading interest of the empire crammed into the lobbies of the House of Commons with a trembling and anxious expectation, and waited almost to a winter's return of light, their fate from the resolution of the House. "When at length that had determined in their favour, and the doors thrown open showed their deliverer in the well-earned triumph of his important victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and transj^ort. They jumped upon him like children on a long-absent father. They clung about him as captives about a redeemer All England joined in his applause." In repealing the Stamp Act the ministry, it should be observed, took no higher ground than that of the impolicy of maintaining it, and they carefully salved over the wounded honour of the country, by an act declaring " that the parliament had, and of right ought to have, power to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." AVhen .the repeal bill was sent up to the Lords, the highest legal authorities in the realm differed entirely upon the point at issue. Lord Mansfield maintaining that the sovereign power of parliament included the right of taxation, a doctrine which Lord Camden most strenuously denied. The king, it was understood, was in principle opposed to the repeal, but un- willing to risk the effusion of blood. Others of the peers, both temporal and 17GG.] EFFECTS OF THE REPEAL IN AMERICA. 297 spiritual, brcatlicd a spirit far more hostile, but finally tlie bill was carried by a majority of a third, and shortly afterwards the king Avent down to the House of Lords to give it his assent. On this occasion the American merchants crowded around to express their gratitude, the ships in the river were adorned with flags, the streets were illuminated, bonfires blazed, and every sign of public rejoicing hailed the renewal of their friendly relations with America, which had lately been so lamentably interrupted. CHAPTER VI. FROM THE REPEAL OP THE STAMP ACT TO THE PASSING OF THE BOSTON PORT BILL. TitE news of the repeal of the Stamp Act was received in the colonies with unbounded joy. At Boston the bells were immediately set ringing, cannon dis- charged, and the ships in the harbour adorned with flags and streamers. The sons of liberty gathered under their familiar tree, and commemorated the joyful event by drinking toasts and firing muskets. The debtors in the jails were set at liberty, there were splendid exhibitions of fireworks, and Han- cock and Otis, the popular leaders, kept open house for the citizens, and broached a cask of Madeira to regale the populace. In the other cities, and throughout the colonies, public thanksgivings were offered up in the churches for the restoration of harmony with England. The non-importation agree- ments were rescinded, the home-spun suits given to the poor, and the colonists again appeared in the silks and broadcloths of the parent country. Statues to the king were erected, and portraits of Lord Camden, Barre, and Conway adorned the public halls. But Pitt, above all, became the object of popular idola^"ry. Forgetful of his original intention to raise a revenue in America, and eA^cn of his recent reservation of the absolute power of parliament to re- gulate her commerce, his recent exertions in her cause were rewarded with enthusiastic gratitude. But as this first ebullition of rejoicing gradually died away, a reaction, broader and deeper than the first impulse of discontent, began to occupy its place. The recent agitation had accustomed all classes in America to the discussion of their rights, and rendered them increasingly susceptible of the slightest encroachment upon them. In the triumphant result of the recent struggle, they had found out the all-powerful effect of itvion and OfjHaiion. A popular party had been formed, embracing many of the most powerful minds in the colony, who, while they still used the language of loyalty, had adopted 2 Q 298 BERNARD'S DISPUTES WITH THE ASSEMBLY. [1706. views which, would have rendered them virtually, if not nominally, independ- ent of England. This was jjarticularly the case in Massachusetts, where Governor Bernard, who saw the turn affairs were taking, was determined to assert the supreme authority of the mother country, and had thus become personally obnoxious to the liberals. Where the materials of discord were so abundant, and where the officers of the crown and the leaders of the people maintained an attitude of determined antagonism, it could not be long before fresh subjects of dispute were forthcoming. In his circular to the royal governors. Secretary Conway informed them, " that the king and parliament seemed disposed to forgive and forget the marks of an undutiful disposition too firequent in the late transactions, but desired them to recommend to the assemblies, the propriety of making full and ample comjjensation to those who had suffered for their deference to the act of the British legislature." On submitting this message to the Massa- chusetts assembly, Bernard observed that " the justice and humanity of this requisition was incontrovertible, while the authority Avith which it was intro- duced should preclude all disputation about it." Neither this message itself, nor the terms in which it was administered, were very palatable to the as- sembly. They were aware that its execution would be highly unpopular, denying, as it tacitly did, the right of the colonists to agitate for the abolition of a tax which the government itself had seen fit to repeal. They fastened therefore upon the language of the governor, observing that it wa-s conceived in much higher and stronger terms than the letter of the secretary, and that if this recommendation, which his Excellency termed a requisition , be founded on so much justice and humanity that it could not be controverted, while the aiTthority with which it is introduced should preclude all disputation about complpng with it, — they should be glad to know what freedom they had in the case. It was not until after a protracted discussion that the indemnity was at length granted by the assembly ; but it displayed its real feeling on the subject, by coupling it wuth a general pardon, amnesty, and oblivion for the rioters ; and although this proviso, which gave the deepest offence to the king and ministry, was expressly disallowed by his Majesty as not being within the power of a colonial assembly to grant, the actors in the late disturb- ances remained unpunished. These political differences were greatly inflamed by personal jealousies and animosities. Among the leaders of the popular movement in jNIassachusetts, who now began to come prominently forward, were James Otis, Thomas Gushing, Samuel A dams, and John Hancock. The first of these patriots, it will be remembered, originally held a place under government, which he resigned in order to plead against the "writs of assistance," on which occasion his memorable speech had produced so thrilling an effect; and he was also the author of the pamphlet on colonial rights. Since that period he had continued the untiring and deadly antagonist of government. His character is thus sketched by the master-hand of John Adams : "He is fiery and feverous, his imagination flames, his passions blaze ; he is liable to great 1767.] DEBATES OF THE ASSEMBLY MADE PUBLIC. 299 inequalities of temper, sometimes in despondency, sometimes in a rage. The rashnesses and imprudences into which his excesses of zeal have formerly- transported him, have made him enemies, whose malicious watch over him occasions more caution, and more cunning, and more inexplicable passages in his conduct than formerly, and perhaps views at the chair or the board, or possibly more expanded views beyond the Atlantic, may mingle now with his patriotism." Gushing, descended from an ancient colonial family, is described as being " st&ady and constant, busy in the interest of liberty and the oppo- sition, and famed for secrecy and talent at procuring intelligence," Samuel Adams, of the old Puritan stock and serious temper, poor, but of incorruptible integrity, and proof against the seductive offer of a government place, con- sidered to possess " the most thorough understanding of liberty, and her resources in the temper and character of the people, though not in the la-w- and constitution, was gradually acquiring influence among the masses. Of the mercantile class, Bowdoin and Hancock were the chief leaders. The former, of French origin, possessed the largest fortune in Boston ; the latter, whose father and grandfather had been in the ministry, had also acquired great wealth, and was active, lively, and prepossessing in his manners. To these we may add, John Adams himself, a young lawyer of rising reputation and high character, afterwards president of the United States, and now becoming so influential among the liberals, that the government offered, and even press- ed on him, notwithstanding his known political principles, the place of Advo- cate-general, in the court of Admiralty, but which, having determined to cast in his lot with the popular party, he had decidedly refused to accept. The great majority, it should be observed, of those v/ho stood at the head of the bar, still either ranged themselves on the side of government, or contrived at least to observe a prudent neutrality. The assembly having chosen Otis as president. Governor Bernard re- fused to ratify a choice so unpleasant to himself and so opposed to the interests of the ministry. Otis in retaliation exerted himself successfully to get Hutchin- son and Oliver excluded from the council, in consequence of which the governor refused to second the nomination of the other members of their choice. The popular party hereupon became more stirring and energetic, and a step Avas noAv taken by them that tended materially to silence the friends of government, to compel the neutral to a choice of sides, and to stimulate the activity of the friends of the people. Hitherto the debates of the assembly had been carried on with closed doors ; they were now, through a decree ob- tained by the popular leaders, thrown open to the public, for whose accom- modation galleries were erected, so that they might see at once who were their friends or enemies. While affairs in Massachusetts thus became more and more threatening, Kew York was also involving herself in further disputes with the ministry. An indemnity had been indeed voted for the loyalist sufferers in the recent riots, from the benefit of which, however, the vice-governor had been formally excluded, in consequence of his hostihty to the people. The go- 2 Q 2 300 DUTIES LEVIED ON TEA AND OTHER IMPORTS. [1767. vcrnor, expecting shortly tlie arrival of a body of troops under General Gage, conformably to an Act jjassed by parliament at the same time as the Stamp Act for quartering troops in the colonies, sent a message to the assembly requiring them to make the necessary provision. This however, to the full extent re- quired, they refused to do, and thus assumed an attitude of determined resist- ance towards the government. INIcanwhile another change had taken place in the British ministry. The Eockingham administration came to an end in July, 1766, and a new ministry was formed under the nominal leadership of Pitt, now created Earl of Chatham, who was however prevented by illness fi-om taking part in the measures. Lord Shelburn and General Conway became secretaries of state ; Camden, lord chancellor ; Charles ToAvnsend, chancellor of the Exchequer. This ad- ministration Avas of so chequered a character that it was described by Burke as " a piece of diversified Mosaic, a tesselated pavement without cement, here a bit of black stone, there a bit of white, patriots and courtiers, king's friends and republicans, "Whigs and Tories, treacherous friends and open enemies, — a very curious show, but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand upon." The contumacy of the colonists greatly annoyed the king and ministry as well as the people at large, and it became the general impression, fortified by the representations of the colonial governors, and especially of Bernard, that greater firmness must De displayed in futiu'e. Grenville in particular, the author of the Stamp Act, by continually appealing to the pride of the ministry, seems to have been the chief agent in inducing them to impose a fresh tax upon the colonists. Declaiming, it is said, as usual on American afiairs, he addressed himself particularly to the ministers. " You are cowards," he said, " you are afraid of the Americans, you dare not tax America." This he repeated in dififerent language. Upon this Townsend took fire, immediately rose, and said, *' Fear — fear — cowards — dare not tax America ! I dare tax America." Grenville stood silent for a moment, and then said, " Dare you tax America ? I wish to God I could see it." Townsend, indeed a man of brilliant abilities, was versa- tile, excitable, and inconsistent. He had warmly sujiported Grenville in passing the Stamp Act, and as warmly voted for its repeal, doubtless, it should be remembered, upon grounds of expediency alone. He now devised a new scheme, upon the ingenuity of which he congratulated himself, for raising a revenue in America without offending the feelings of the colonists, who, while they denied the right of parliament to impose upon them a direct Internal tax, such as that upon stamps, had hitherto at least acquiesced in her right to levy external duties for the regulation of commerce. He brought in a biU for imposing a duty upon teas InijDorted into America, together with paints, paper, glass, and lead, which were articles of British produce ; its alleged object being to raise a revenue for the support of the civil government, for the expense of a standing army, and for giving permanent salaries to the royal governors, with a view to render them independent of the colonial* assemblies. In order to enforce the new Act and those already in existence," which, odious as they were to the Americans, had hitherto been continually I 1767.] RENEWAL OF THE EXCITEMENT IN A3IERICA. 301 evaded by them, a B'oard of Revenue Commissioners was to be establislied at Boston. Indignant, moreover, at the recent refusal of the New York assem- bly to comply with the provisions of the Act for quartering soldiers, notwith- standing their personal remonstrances, the ministers passed an Act restraining that body from any further legislative proceedings until they had submitted. These Acts, passed at home almost without opposition, arrived in America about the same time, and immediately rekindled the agitation, which, lulled for a moment by the repeal of the Stamp Act, now broke out more vigor- ously than ever. As indeed the tax upon tea, being distinctly external, differed entirely from that upon stamps, being in fact of the same nature as those upon molasses and other articles to which a reluctant submission had hitherto been afforded, it is possible that, under other circumstances, it might have passed into operation without exciting any great commotion. But the object for which it was levied tended to create a general odium in the minds of the colonists, excited as they were by jealous apprehensions of parliamen- tary encroachment. It was not only to raise a revenue from the colonies, but that revenue was moreover to be applied in strengthening the royal power, in enforcing the detested Acts of Trade, in rendering the governors independent, and in crushing resistance by the establishment of a standing army. Every day therefore the feeling of attachment to England grew weaker, and the desire for independence stronger. The nature of the connexion between the mother country and the colonies was the constant subject of discussion, and wliile the authority of England was reduced to a mere nullity, the pretensions of the Americans were gradually expanded, until the interference of parliament Avith the affairs of the colonies in any shape, and in any way, was boldly and em- phatically denied. Thus, as in the English parliament Grcnville had denied the distinction between internal and external taxes, formerly so streniiously insisted on by the colonists, as fallacious, and thereon founded his argument for imposing the Stamp Act, so noAV, that tax being repealed, the Americans made use of the identical argument for refusing to submit to any other. This view of the subject was warmly advocated in a series of " Letters from a Earmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies," written by John Dickenson, in which the right of parliamentary taxation in any shape whatever was strenuously denied. Franklin, who at first had inclined to the difference between external and internal taxation, now altered his opinion, and caused the " Letters " to be reprinted in London. Warmly advocated by the colonial press, these views took possession of the minds of the people ; and thus the qiiestion between the contending parties, removed from its original ground, became increasingly difficult of solution. On the receipt of the new Acts, Governor Bernard had been solicited to call a special session of the general court to examine and discuss them ; a request with which he had refused to comply. When the court met two months afterwards, a committee was ajipointcd to take into consideration the state of affairs. They drew iip a humble petition to the king, in which they dwell upon the grant of their original charter, "with the conditions of which they had 303 THE COLONISTS' PETITION TO THE KING. [17G7. fully complied, till in an unhappy time it was vacated." They next allude to tlie subsequent and modified charter, granted by William and Mary, con- firming the same fundamental liberties granted them by the first. Acknow- ledging indeed the superintending authority of parliament, in all cases that can consist uith t lie fundamental rights of nature and the constitution, they proceed as follows : '' It is with the deepest concern that your humble suppli- ants would represent to your Majesty, that your parliament, the rectitude of whose intentions is never to be questioned, has thought proper to pass divers Acts imposing taxes on your subjects in America with the sole and express purpose of raising a revenue. If yoiu- Majesty's subjects here shall be de- prived of the honour and jii'ivilege of voluntarily contributing their aid to your Majesty, in supporting your government and authority in the province, and defending and securing your rights and territories in America, which they have always hitherto done with the utmost cheerfulness ; if these acts of parliament shall remain in force, and your Majesty's Commons in Great Bri- tain shall continue to exercise the power of granting the property of their fellow subjects in this province, your people must then regret their unhappy fate ir having only the name left of free subjects. "With all humility we conceive that a representation of this province in parliament, considering their local circumstances, is utterly impracticable. Your Majesty has therefore been graciously 2:)leased to order your requisitions to be laid before the repre- sentatives of your people in the general assembly, who have never failed to afford the necessary aid, to the extent of their ability, and sometimes beyond it, and it would be ever grievous to your INIajesty's faithful subjects, to be called upon in a way that should appear to them to imply a distrust of their most ready and willing compliance." Besides this petition to the king, they sent letters of instructions to their agents, and also to Lords Shelburne, Con- way, Cam.den, Chatham, and other advocates of their cause. They adopted, moreover, a measure, the efficacy of which had been already tested, that of despatching a circular to the rest of the colonies, to engage them in a common resistance, concluding it with an expression of their "firm confidence in the king, their common head and father, that the united and dutiful supplications of his distressed American subjects will meet with his royal and favourable acceptance." No step could have given greater uneasiness or offence than this to the English ministry, who dreaded the union of the scattered States, and the gradual establishment of a colonial congress, as earnestly as those measures became the desire of the patriot party. Accordingly Lord Hillsborough, re- cently appointed to the new secretaryship of the colonies, desired Governor Bernard to press upon the House of Representatives the jiropriety of rescind- ing this resolution as " rash and hasty," and artfully procured by surprise against the general sense of the assembly, and to dissolve that body in case of refusal. He also addressed a circular with the same instructions to the rest of the royal governors. " As his Majesty considers this measure," it observed, " to be of the most dangerous and factious tendency, calculated to inflame the 17G8.] ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE THE DUTIES. 303 minds of his good subjects in the colonies, and promote an unwarrantable combination, it is his Majesty's pleasure that you sliould exert your utmost influence to defeat this flagitious attempt to disturb the public peace, by pre- vailing upon the assembly of your province to take no notice of it, whicli will be treating it with the contempt it deserves." ^Vlien Bernard communicated this message to the new assembly, they denied that the circular to the colonies had been unfairly passed, and flatly refused to comply with the ministerial suggestion. " If," they observed, "by the word rescinding is intended the passing a vote in direct and express disapprobation of the measure taken by the former house, we must take the liberty to declare that we take it to be the native right of the subject to petition the king for the redress of grievances. If the votes of the house are to be controlled by the direction of a minister, we have left us but a vain semblance of liberty. We have now only to inform you that this house have voted iwt to rescind, and that on a division on the question there were ninety-two nays and seventeen yeas." Otis made a speech characterized by his usual vehemence and daring, which was pronounced by the friends of government to be " the most violent, in- solent, abusive, and treasonable declaration, that perhaps was ever delivered." *' When Lord Hillsborough," he said, " knows that we will not rescind our Acts, he should, apply to parliament to rescind theirs. Let Britons rescind their measures, or they are lost for ever." The next day the House of Re- presentatives was dissolved by Bernard. His administration had become so odious, that a committee was ajDpointed to draw up a list of accusations against him, and to entreat his removal from the province. Equally vain were the attempts of the royal governors to obtain a jDromise from the assemblies of the other colonies not to unite with that of Massachusetts, whose sentiments, on the contrary, they unanimously echoed. They refused one and all, and were dissolved accordingly. Not only were the ministerial requisitions set at nought, but it soon became evident that the recent Acts could never be carried into effect in defiance of the popular feeling. How hateful the custom-house oflicers had ever been in America, the difficulty and even danger with which the discharge of their functions was attended, as well as the systematic evasion of the duties, has been already mentioned. The presence therefore of the recently ap]3ointed commissioners of customs, animated by the determination to enforce these laws^ could not fail to give rise to fresh commotions. Soon after their arrival the sloop " Liberty," laden with wines, was boarded and seized by them, and the oflicers, in the apprehension of a rescue, solicited aid from the captain of a ship of war in the harbour, who ordered the sloop to be cut from her fasten- ings and brought under the guns of his ship. This proceeding was greatly resented, especially as the sloop belonged to John Hancock, conspicuous, as before said, among the popular leaders. A mob collected, the custom-house officers, after being severely handled, narrowly escaped with their lives, and fled for refuge, first to the ship of war and afterwards to the castle, while their houses were attacked, and their boat dragged through the town, and afterwards 304 ENGLISH TR OPS A RRI VE AT B OSTOK [1768. burned upon the common. The council, while' they admitted the criminality of the rioters, and recommended that they should be prosecuted, sought to extenuate their offence on the ground of the extraordinary proceedings of the custom-house officers, and as witnesses refused to come forward, the prosecu- tion fell to the ground. At the suggestion of the friends of government, who plainly perceived the impossibility of carrying out the obnoxious laws except by force, tAvo regi- ments had already been ordered to Boston, to which two others were now added. On learning this, a to-\ATi meeting was called, which, having in vain requested the governor to summon a general court, took the bold step of summoning a convention of delegates from the different towTis in the province, which, while they renounced legislative pretensions, should deliberate on the redress of grievances. A day of fasting and prayer was also appointed ; and here it may be well to observe, that the majority of the congregational ministers, who had looked with an evil eye on a recent attempt to establish Episcopacy in the province, warmly espoused the popular cause. Still more — on the pretence of apprehensions of " a war with France," all parties not already provided with fire-arms were advised to procure them at once. The summons was warmly responded to, delegates from more than a hundred towns assembled on the appointed day, and petitioned the governor to convene a general court. Bernard refused, and denounced the meeting as treasonable. Giving expression to their hatred of standing armies and declaring their readiness themselves to maintain the peace, after warm professions of loyalty, the delegates dispersed about the end of September, spreading through every part of the country the same spirit already so rife in Boston. The very day after they broke up their session the ships bearing two of the regiments arrived, and the governor requested the council to appoint them quarters in the town, as General Gage required him to do. The council replied, that there was already room in the barracks ; to which Bernard replied, that they were reserved for the two other regiments that w^ere shortly ex- pected. There was a large building belonging to the province, and then occupied by some poor families, which the governor suggested might be cleared for the soldiers ; but the council, averring that by the terms of the Act the provision of quarters devolved on the local magistrates, refused to- inter- fere. Some fears being even entertained that the inhabitants would oppose a landing, the guns of the ships were pointed on the town, and under their cover the troops were set ashore, and with muskets charged, bayonets fixed, and a train of artillery, they marched into the town. The overseers of Boston refused to appoint them quarters, but a temporary shelter was afforded to one regiment in Fancuil Hall, while the other pitched their tents on the common. Next morning the governor ordered a portion to occupy the State-house, with the exception of the council-chamber alone, the main guard with two field-pieces being stationed at the front. It was the sabbath day, and such a one as had never before been known in Boston. The place looked like a town in a state of siege. All the public buildings were filled 17G8, G9.] LORD BOTETO URT DI8S0L YES THE ASSEMBLY. 305 with soUicrs, parties of wliom were constantly marching to and fro to relieve guard. The peaceful citizens were challenged by sentinels as they passed to church, and the p^lblic exercises of devotion, so strictly and solemnly ob- served, interrupted by the roll of drums, and the thrilling sounds of military music. A spectacle so galling had never been witnessed by the colonists ; with indignation they felt, even to the lowest depth of their hearts, the bitterness of their dependence upon a distant power. On the opening of parliament, the papers connected with the late proceed- ings at Boston were laid before the House of Lords, who, already strongly prejudiced against the colonists, now passed resolutions declaring that the election of deputies to sit in convention, and the meeting of that convention, were daring insults to his Majesty's authority, and audacious usurpations of the power of government. They gave the ministers the strongest assurance of support, and suggested that the governor of Massachusetts should be directed to procure the fullest information touching all treasons or misprisions of treason committed there since Dec, 1767, and transmit the ringleaders to England for trial, under an obsolete statute of the reign of King Henry VIII. These resolutions sent down to the Commons, occasioned a vigorous opposition, but so deeply were parliament and the entire nation offended by the behavi-/ our of the Americans that they passed by a large majority, and were em/ bodied in a j-oint address to the king, "When the news of these proceedings reached America, Massachusetts pos- sessed no general assembly, but that of Virginia immediately took up their discussion with their wonted spirit, and immediately drew up several resolu- tions, which their speaker was directed to forward for concurrence to the rest of the colonial assemblies. In defence of the proceedings in ]\Iassachusetts, and in deprecation of the ministerial threats, they declared that "the sole right of imposing taxes on the inhabitants of this colony is now and ever hath been legally and constitutionally vested in the house of burgesses, with consent of the council, governor, and king ; that it is the privilege of the ' inhabitants to petition their sovereign for the redress of grievances, and lawful to procure the concurrence of the other colonies to this end ; that all trials for tre?\son, or misprision of treason, ought to be before his Majesty's courts in the colonies ;. and that the seizing any citizen suspected merely of any crime is a derogation from the rights of British subjects, as thereby the inestimable privilege of being tried by a jury from the vicinage, as well as the liberty of producing witnesses on such trial, will be taken away from the party accused." Althougli this decided protest was, as usually the case, accompanied by a loyal address to the king, on the following day. Lord Botetourt, then governor of Virginia, suddenly appearing in the midst of the assembly, abruptly put an end to its session, in these Avords : " Mr. Speaker, and Gentlemen of the House of Burgesses, 1 have heard of your resolves, and augur ill of their effects. You have made it my duty to dissolve you, and you are dissolved accordingly." The indignant members immediately adjourned to a tavern, and choosing Peyton Eandolph, their late speaker, as chairman, adopted strong resolutions 2 R 300 BEFUSAL TO PROVIDE FOR THE TROOPS. [1769. against the importation of British goods ; an example speedily followed by the rest of the colonies, Avhich were animated by the same determined s^^irit. The troops still continued to occupy Boston, where the poj^ular exasperation was every day increasing. The first thing done by the general court, upon its assembling in May, was to address a spirited remonstrance on this subject to the governor, declaring that an armament by land and sea, and a military guard with cannon pointed at the very door of the state-house, were incon- sistent with that dignity and freedom with which their deliberations could alone be carried on, and they consequently expected that his Excellency M'ould, as the king's representative, give orders for the removal of the forces during the session of the assembly. The governor curtly declared in reply, that he had no authority whatever over the ships in the harbour, or the troops Avithin the town. The assembly declared their intention of suspending all business, and of voting no supplies, until their petitions were attended to : the governor, complaining of their conduct as a waste of time and money, adjourned them to the neighbouring village of Cambridge. Thither, on the 6th of July, he for- warded to them an account of the expenditure already incurred by quartering the troops, requiring them, according to the Act of Parliament, not only to liquidate the outstanding debt, but also to make provision for the continued ac- commodation of the soldiers. Exasperated to the highest pitch, the assembly passed a resolution that the " general discontent on account of the E-evenue Acts, the expectation of a sudden arrival of a military j)ower to enforce them, an apprehension of the troops being quartered upon the inhabitants, and the general court dissolved, the governor refusing to call a new one, and the people reduced almost to a state of despair, rendered it highly expedient and necessary for the people to convene by their committees, to associate and con- sult upon the best means to promote peace and good order, to present their united complaints to the throne, and pray for the royal interposition in favour of their violated rights ; nor can this proceeding possibly be illegal, as they expressly disclaim all governmental acts. That the establishment of a standing army in the colony in time of peace is an invasion of their natural rights ; that a standing army is no part of the British constitution ; and that to send an armed force among them under pretence of assisting the civil authority is highly dangerous to the people, and both unprecedented and unconstitutional. The governor calling upon them to declare decidedly whether they would or not make provision for the troops, they boldly spoke out as folio w> : " Of all the new regulations, the Stamp Act not excepted, this under consideration is most excessively unreasonable. Yoirr Excellency must therefore excuse us in this express declaration, that as we cannot consisttently with our honour and interest, much less with the duty we owe to our constituents, so we never will make provision for the pvirposes in your several messages above mentioned." Bernard, upon this, prorogued the assembly until the 10th of January, ap- pointing them to meet at Boston. "While these stormy proceedings were going on, the ministry at home, con- vinced that the maintenance of the obnoxious duties, and also of a standing army 17G9.] THE NOX-IMPORTATION AGREEMENTS. 307 in America, was not only an impolitic measure, but also a seriously losing concern, the Earl of Hillsborough, addressed a circular to the governors, the publication of which was expected to allay the general perturbation. While strenuously asserting the legislative authority of Great Britain, he added as a salvo, that he " could take upon himself to assure them that, notwithstanding insinuations to the contrary from men with factious and seditious views, his Majesty's administration never entertained an idea of proposing further taxes upon America for the purpose of raising a revenue ; and that it was their in- tention, the next session of parliament, to take off the duties upon glass, paper, and colours, all of them British goods, such duties having been laid contrary to the true principles of commerce." Conway, the stanch friend of the colonists, declared in the house, that " if he understood the language of common sense, here was the strongest renunciation of the right of taxation." Such was not, however, the real intention of the English ministry ; while desirous of concili- ation, they still maintained the tax on tea, thus reserving the question at issue, and it was in this light that their conduct was regarded by the Americans. Accordingly, so far from relaxing their opposition, the latter continued the business of agitation with the greater spirit, as perceiving clearly that it was to this alone they were indebted for every concession extorted from the ministry, and to this alone they must look in carrying the point they were contending for. A meeting of the trading classes took place in Boston, at which it was declared that the repeal of only a part of the Act was an insidious measure, intended to give relief to the manufacturers in Great Britain, and to prevent the colonists from setting up manufactories for themselves, and therefore, so long as the revenue laws remained unrepealed, no further importations, with the exception of certain articles, should be made from England. A committee was ajipointed to obtain a written pledge from the inhabitants, not to make any purchases from such as should infringe this rule, to inspect the cargoes of vessels, and to publish the names of all importers unless they immediately delivered their goods into the hands appointed to receive them. These regu- lations, carried out in the other colonies, savour slightly of an arbitrary and inquisitorial character, and many were terrified into a compliance with them by the dread of popular odium. Party spirit rose every day higher and bit- terer, and the same nicknames of Whig and Tory, by which the two great parties in England were designated, were applied with equal acrimony on the other side of the Atlantic. In the midst of this scene of agitation. Governor Bernard proposed to leave Massachusetts, having, as he had some time previously informed the house, been summoned to England to lay the condition of the province before his Majesty. The firmness, not to say severity, with which he had maintained his administration, had rendered him generally unpopular, and this unpopularity had been greatly increased through the feuds that had arisen between himself and the leading agitators, whose factious encroachments, as he deemed them, he had steadily resisted in the colony, and denounced in his private letters to government, copies of which had been surreptitiously obtained and circulated. 2 B 2 808 GOVERNOR BERNARD LEAVES AMERICA. [17G9, The assembly unanimously voted a petition to tlie king tliat he might be for ever removed from the government of the j^rovince. There can be no doubt that his administration precipitated a collision between England and her colonies, but we can hardly lay upon him as a fault, what was in reality attributable to the position in which he stood. Believing as he did that England had a right to tax the colonies, it was his duty as a royal governor to maintain that right at all events. Aware of the wide-spread spirit of disaffection and of the manoeu- ■\Tes of the popular leaders, the ultimate tendency of whose proceedings he foresaw better than perhaps they did themselves, he cannot be blamed for coun- selling the adoj)tion of decided measures of repression. But these very con- siderations, which must form his excuse to posterity, rendered him peculiarly odious to the colonists. Leaving the administration in the hands of Lieu- tenant-Governor Hutchinson, whose unj)opularity was hardly less than liis c^Ti, he embarked on board a man of war appointed to convey him to Eng- land, to the infinite satisfaction of the people. To grace his departure, the. bells were rung, salvos of artillery were fired from Hancock's wharf, " liberty tree " was adorned with flags, and at night a great bonfire was made upon Fort Hill. Not long after his departure an indictment was . proved against him for libel, in writing slanderous letters to the govermiient concerning the inhabitants of the province. The king however, appreciating his zealous services, indemnified him for these vexations by creating him a barcnet. The non-importation agreements were vigorously resumed tlii'oughout the colonies, and in carrying them out the women rendered themselves con- spicuous for their self-denial and patriotic zeal. At Newport, in Rhode Island, at an afternoon meeting of ladies, it Avas resolved that those who could spin should be employed in that way, and that those ayIio could not should sew. When the tea-time arrived, both tea and hyperion, an imitation composed of raspberry leaves, were handed round, when all the ladies displayed their patriotism by preferring the latter. At Boston, a party of fifty young ladies, calling themselves " Daughters of Liberty," met at the house of their pastor, and employed themselves in spinning yarn for the poor. Numerous spec- tators came in, refreshments were provided, and tunes, anthems, and liberty songs were chanted, the " sons of liberty " joining in chorus. This was an earnest of the spirit displayed by the American women throughout the revo- lution, during which the trials and pi'ivations they unclerAvent, and the hero- ism with which they endured them, have formed the subject of many a ro- mantic narrative. A few merchants, disregarding the piiblic feeling, still continued to vend the obnoxious article. A mob of boys, probably at the instigation of their elders, raised a rude wooden head with a finger pointed like a sign post, opposite to the establishment of an individual named Lillie. One of his friends endeavouring to pull it down, the mob pelted him with stones into Lillie's house, whence, in a state of exasj^eration, he fired a loaded musket into the midst of the crowd, thus killing one boy and wounding another. He was instantly dragged off to prison, and afterwards condemned for murder, but 1T70.] THE PEOPLE RISE AGAIXST THE SOLDIERS. 309 the sentence was never executed. The boy's corpse was enclosed in a coffin, inscribed, "Innocence itself is not safe," and carried to "liberty tree," whence several bundi-ed school-boys and a host of the inhabitants conducted it to its final resting-place. The newspapers and popular orators took up the topic, and the unfortunate lad was regarded as the first victim to the cause of American liberty. The presence of the troops in the town of Boston, notwithstanding the efforts of the commandant to mitigate the show of military occupation, was a source of perpetual irritation. The soldiers were detested by the people, whom they in their turn abhorred as rebels to the king. A certain party, practising on the public feeling, used every art to provoke a collision with the soldiers ; libels were published in the newspapers, and a mob of men made it a constant practice to insult them. A ropemaker having maltreated one of the soldiers, the latter fetched a body of his comrades, and a fight took place in which the soldiers came off" second best. The soldiers returning to the barracks fetched a body of their comrades, who in their turn beat the rope- makers, which greatly irritated the populace, and determined them to have their revenge. On the evening of Maych 5, a mob of several hundred armed with clubs assembled, threatening destruction to the soldiers, exclaiming, " Let us drive out these rascals, they have no business here — drive them out." The soldiers, threatened and insulted, were with difficulty restrained from march- ing out and attacking the mob. The confusion became fearful, the mob con- tinuing to shout, " Down with the bloody-backs," and tearing up the market stalls — the alarm bells rung — the cry of Fire, fire, re-echoed through the streets. Some leading citizens were endeavouring to induce the mob to disperse, when a tall man, in a red cloak and white wig, commenced a violent harangue, con- cluding with the shout " To the main guard, to the main guard," — re-echoed with fearfid energy by the infuriated mob. As they passed the custom-house, a boy exclaimed, pointing to the sentinel — " That's the scoundrel that knocked me down." " Let us knock him down, the bloody-back," was the reply ; and the soldier was instantly assailed with lumps of ice and other missiles. Alarmed for his life, he cried to the main guard for assistance, and a picket of eight men with unloaded muskets was despatched by Captain Preston to his relief. At this sight the fury of the mob increased to the highest pitch, they received the soldiers with a torrent of abusive epithets, and pelted them with stones covered with snow, dared them to fire, and completely surrounding them, pressed up to the very point of their bayonets. The soldiers loaded their muskets, but one Attucks, a powerful mulatto, at the head of a body of sailors, urged on the mob to exterminate the handful of military, and struck upon the bayonets with their clubs. "Come on," he exclaimed, "don't be afraid of them — they dare not fire — knock 'em over, kill 'em." Captain Preston com- ing up at this moment was received by Attucks with a violent blow. The Captain parried it with his arm, but it knocked the bayonet out of one of the soldier's hands, which was instantly seized by Attucks, and a struggle took place, in the midst of which some of those behind called out, " AVhy don't 310 THE PEOPLE QUIETED BY HUTCIIIXSON. [1770. you fire, wliy don't you fire ? " whereupon tlie soldier, suddenly springing to liis legs, shot Attucks dead upon the spot. Five other soldiers immediately fired, when three men were killed, five seriously wounded, and a few others slightly hurt. The mob fell back awhile, and carried off the dead and wounded. The tumidt became fearful, at ten o'clock the alarm bell began to toll, and drums to beat; the cry was, '^ Tlie soldiers are risen" and thousands of citizens flew to arms in all directions. Some people ran hastily to summon the lieutenant-governor, who hurried to the spot, and reproached Preston with firing on the people without an order from the magistrates. " To the to^wn- house, the town-house," exclaimed some, fearful for the personal safety of Hutchinson, who, such was the pressure of the mob, was fairly driven before it up the stairs into the council-chamber. Here a demand was made of him that he would order the troops to retire to their barracks, which he refused to do, but stepping forth to the balcony, assured the people of his great concern at the unhappy event, that a rigorous inquiry about it should take place, and entreated them to retire to their homes. Upon this there was a cry of " Home, home," and the greater part separated peaceably. The troops returned to the barracks. A warrant was then issued against Preston, who surrendering himself, was committed to prison to take his trial, together with several of the soldiers. On this eventful evening, John Adams had been spending the evening at Mr. Henderson Inches's house, at the south end of Boston, in the society of a friendly club. " About nine o'clock," he says in his journal, " we were alarmed with the ringing of bells, and, supposing it to be the signal of fire, we snatched our hats and cloaks, broke up the club, and went out to assist in quenching the fire, or aiding our friends who might be in danger. In the street we were informed that the British soldiers had fired on the inhabitants, killed some and wounded others, near the town-house. A crowd of jjeople was flowing down the street to the scene of action. When we arrived, we saw nothing but some field-pieces, placed before the south door of the town- house, and some engineers and grenadiers drawn up to protect them. Having surveyed round the town-house, and seeing all quiet, I walked doAvn Boylston Alley into Brattle Square, where a company or tAvo of regular soldiers were drawn up in front of Dr. Cooper's old church, with their muskets all should- ered, and their bayonets all fixed. I had no other way to proceed but along the Avhole front in a very narrow space which they had left for foot passen- gers. Pursuing my way, without taking the least notice of them, or they of me, any more than if they had been marble statues, I went directly home to Cole Lane. " ]\Iy wife having heard that the town was still, and likely to continue so, had recovered from her first apprehensions, and we had nothing but our re- flections to interrupt our repose. These reflections were to me disquieting enough. Endeavours had been systematically pursued for many months, by certain busy characters, to excite quarrels, rencounters, and combats, single or compound, in the night, between the inhabitants of the lower class and the soldiers, and at all risks to enkindle an immortal hatred betAveen them. ir:0.] THE DEFENCE OF CAPTAIN PRE8T0N. 311 1 suspected tliat this was tlie explosion v/liicli liad been intentionally wrouglit up by designing men, who knew what they werq aiming at better than the instruments employed. If these poor tools should be prosecuted for any of their illegal conduct, they must bt punished. If the soldiers in self-defence should kill any of them, they must be tried, and, if truth was respected and the law prevailed, must be acquitted. To depend upon the perversion of law, and the corruption or partiality of juries, would insensibly disgrace the juris- prudence of the country, and corrupt the morals of the people. It would be better for the whole people to rise in their majesty and insist on the removal of the army, and take upon themselves the consequences, than to excite such passions between the people and the soldiers as would expose both to con- tinual prosecution, civil or criminal, and keep the town boiling in a continual fermentation. The real and full intentions of the British government and nation were not yet developed ; and we knew not whether the to^xYL would be supported by the country ; whether the province would be supported by even our neighbouring States of New England ; nor whether New England would be supported by the continent. These were my meditations in the night. " The next morning, I think it was, sitting in my office, near the steps of the town-house stairs, Mr. Forrest came in, who was then called the Irish Infant. I had some acquaintance with him. "With tears streaming from his eyes, he said, ' I am come with a very solemn message from a very unfortu- nate man, Captain Preston, in prison. He wishes for counsel, and can get none. I have waited on Mr. Quincy, who says he will engage, if you will give him your assistance; without it, he positively will not. Even Mr, Auchmuty declines, unless you will engage.' I had no hesitation in answer- ing, that counsel ought to be the very last thing that an accused person should want in a free country ; that the bar ought, in my 02:)inion, to be in- dependent and impartial, at all times and in every circimistance, and that persons whose li^•es were at stake ought to have the counsel they preferred. But he must be sensible this would be as important a cause as was ever tried in any coi;rt or country of the Avorld ; and that every lawyer must hold him- self responsible not only to his country, but to the highest and most infallible of all tribunals, for the part he should act. He must, therefore, expect from me no art or addi'ess, no sophistry or prevarication, in such a cavtse, nor any thing more than fact, evidence, and law would justify. ' Captain Preston,' he said, ' requested and desired no more ; and that he had such an ojjinion from all he had heard from all parties of me, that he could cheerfully trust his life Avith me upon those principles.' 'And,' said Forrest, 'as God Al- mighty is my judge, I believe him an innocent man.' I replied, ' that must be ascertained by his trial, and if he thinks he cannot have a fair trial of that issue without my assistance, ivithout hesitation, he shall have it.' " Before this, almost with the dawn of day, the people began to reassemble, and Fanueil Hall was soon filled with the excited citizens. A town meeting was convened, at which it was voted that nothing " could prevc;nt blood and 312 BURIAL OF TEE "MARTYRS OF LIBERTY:' [1770. carnage but tlie immediate removal of the troops." The justices also had assembled, and had come to the same conclusion. Samuel Adams was there- fore deputed to wait on Hutchinson at the council-chamber, where Colonel Dalrymple, the commandant of the troops, 9nd the commander of the ships in the harbour, were awaiting him. The vice-governor refused to assmne the responsibility of ordering away the troops, but Colonel Dakymple consented that the 29th regiment, which was particularly obnoxious to the people,'should be removed to the castle for the present. " Sir," said Adams, " if the lieu- tenant-governor, or Colonel Dalrpnple, or both together, have authority to remove one regiment, they have authority to remove tAvo, and nothing short of the departure of both regiments will satisfy the public mind or preserve the peace of the proAdnce." Another pressing message coming in from the town meeting, Hutchinson was at length persuaded to give orders, with much reluctance, that the troops should be wholly withdrawn from the town. The news of the " Boston Massacre," as it was called, spread like wildfire, and added greatly to the j^opular resentment. As a matter of policy, care was taken that the obsequies of the deceased should be performed with the utmost solemnity. On the morning of the 8th of March, the shops were all shut, and the bells of Boston and the neighbourhood were tolled. The mourners ac- companying the different coffins assembled on the spot where three days be- fore these " martyrs of liberty," as they were proclaimed, had been shot by a barbarous soldiery, and thence, followed by an immense number of people walking six abreast, and a file of carriages belonging to the principal people of the town, the procession slowly moved to the place of the sepulture, Avhere the bodies were deposited in a single tomb. This incident, the memory of which was carefully kej^t up, made a profound sensation on the public mind. No one could forget that, to quote from a diary of the period, " blood lay in puddles yesterday in King Street " — the first blood hitherto di-awn in these unhappy disputes. The trial of Captain Preston soon afterwards came on, and had been con- tinued through a single term, when an election was held for the representation of Boston, and it is highly creditable to the electors that, unpopular as John Adams had rendered himself with certain classes by undertaking the defence of Preston, he was nevertheless elected by a very large majority. Nor is the issue of this trial less honourable to the independence of the colonial judiciary. An immense and highly excited auditory had assembled, when Adams opened the case as follows : " May it please your honours, and you gentlemen of the jury, I am for the prisoners at the bar, and shall apologize for it only in the words of the Marquis Beccaria — 'If I can be but the instrument of pre- serving one life, his blessing and tears of transport shall be a sufficient conso- lation to me for the contempt of all mankind.' " The eflfect upon the jury and court was perfectly electrical. The facts of the case Avere impartially investi- gated, and Preston was declared innocent — the judge declaring, " I feel myself deeply affec.tcd that this affair turns out so much to the shame of the town in general." " Calumnies and insinuations," says Adams in his diary. 1770.] OPimOHS OF Tim BOSTON ASSE3IBLY. 813 " were propagated against me, that I was tempted to undertake this case by great fees and enormous sums of money. Twenty guineas," he then tells us, " was all I ever received for fourteen or fifteen days' labour in the most exhausting and fatiguing cause I ever tried, for hazarding a popularity very general and very hardly earned, and for incurring a clamota*, popular suspi- cions, and prejudices, which are not yet worn out, and never wiU be forgotten as long as the history of this period is read. Although the clamom- has been long and loud among some sorts of people, it has been a great consolation to me, through life, that I acted in this business with steady impartiality, and conducted it to so happy an issue." Shortly after the massacre, the lieutenant-governor postponed the meeting of assembly from January to March, and ordered it to be convened at Boston, in consequence of instructions to that effect from the British ministry. When the assembly met, he declared his intention faithfully to discharge his duty to the king, his royal master, and his readiness to unite with the members in any measures for the welfare of the province. He took no notice of the mas- sacre, it not yet having been legally investigated, but shortly afterwards sent down to the house requesting redress for some injury received by one of the custom-house officers. The reply of the assembly fully shows the excited state of the public mind. " When complaints," they say, " are made of riots and tumults, it is the wisdom of government, and it becomes the representa- tives of the people especially, to inquire into the real causes of them. If they arise from oppression, as is often the case, a thorough redi-ess of grievances -wall remove the cause, and probably put an end to the complaint. It may be justly said of the people of this province, that they seldom, if ever, have assembled in a tumultuous manner, unless they were oppressed." Appealing then to the Bill of Rights passed after the Revolution of 1689, they declare that the maintenance of a standing army in their midst " is a most violent in- fraction of their natural and constitutional rights — an unlawful assembly, of all others most dangerous and alarming." They next enlarge upon the delinquencies of the soldiers, especially "in perpetrating Ihe most horrid slaugliter of a number of the inhabitants, but a few days before the sitting of this assembly." They express their surprise that there should be no allusion either in the governor's speech or message to both houses of this inhuman and barbarous action. To these violences, and the rigorous prosecutions, grounded on unconstitutional Acts, carried on by the court of Admiralty, they attribute the general excitement, and the particular injury complained of by the go- vernor. " The use therefore," they conclude, " which we shall make of the in- formation in your message, shall be to inqiiire into the grounds of the people's uneasiness, and to seek a radical redress of their grievances. Indeed it is natural to expect, that while the terror of arms continues in the province, the laws will be, in some degree, silent. But when the channels of justice shall be again opened, and the law can be heard, the person who has complained to your honour Avill have a remedy. Yet we entertain hope, that the military power, so grievous to the people, will soon be removed fi-om the province : till then, 2 8 314 LORD NORTH BECOMES PRIME MINISTER. [1770. we have nothing to expect, but that tyranny and confusion -will prevail, in defiance of the laws of the land, and the just and constitutional authority of government." Meanwhile a change in the English ministry, momentous in its results for America, had taken place, and Lord North, head of the Tory party in the last ministry, had been appointed the head of a new cabinet composed of men of his own political views. On the very night of the Boston massacre a bill was brought into the House of Commons for the repeal of all the recently imposed taxes, that on tea alone excepted. The impolicy of maintaining this exception was strenuously urged by the opposition, especially by Pownall, who, from his experience as governor in the colony, was fully qualified to ap- preciate both the jealous watchfulness of the Americans over their liberties, and, what the ministry never understood till too late, their firm determination to maintain them at all events. Even the entire repeal of the obnoxious Acts would not of itself, he believed, entirely tranquillize the colonists. " The Ame- ricans," he observed, " think that they have, in return to all their applications, experienced a temper and disposition that is unfriendly, and that the en- joyment and exercise of the common rights of freemen have been refused to them. Never with these views will they solicit the favour of this House, never more will they wish to bring before parliament the grievances under v/hich they conceive themselves to labour." The spirit of opposition shown by the Americans had however given such deep oflEence to the king and ministry, that they resolved never to yield up the disputed right of taxation. In this spirit Lord North declared that the tax on tea, in itself too trifling in amount to become a matter of grievance, was expressly maintained to assert the power of parliament over the refractory colonies. " Has the repeal of the Stamp Act," he asked, " taught the Americans obedi- ence ? Has our lenity ins^iired them with moderation ? Can it be proper, Avhile they deny our legal power to tax them, to acquiesce in the argument of illegality, and by the repeal of the whole law, to give up that power ? No ; the most proper time to exert our right of taxation is when the right is denied. To temporize is to yield, and the authority of the mother country, if it is now unsupported, will in reality be relinquished for ever. A total repeal cannot be thought of, till America is prostrate at our feet." Although it may be doubtful whether, after what had passed, any amount of concession short of at least virtual independence, would finally have satisfied the colonists, we must yet consider this particular measure, to carry out which the pride of the king and ministers was pledged, as the immediate cause of the disruption of Ame- rica from England. Yet it was at the time regarded by the minister rather as having a tendency to conciliation ; even the opposition to the tea tax he thought would be disarmed, as by offering a drawback of a shilling duty upon its expert from England, it virtually became nine-pence a pound cheaper to the Americans. The repeal of the other duties did in fact lead to a giving up of the non-importation resolutions, which imposed a severe, and often unwelcome, self-denial upon the colonists ; but their opposition in all other respects con- 1771, 72.] HUTCHINSON GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS. 315 tinued unabated. Sucli was the state of affairs at the termination of the year 1770. In the ensuing spring, Hutchinson received the appointment of governor, which, it was said, had always been the object of his ambition, but which in these stormy times he was, if we may behove his own assurances, so far from desiring, that he had written to the secretary of state desiring to be super- seded in his office of Ueutenant-governor. During the year 1771 there was a temporary lull in agitation, which was awakened next year by Hut- chinson's informing the house of representatives that thenceforth his salary would be paid by the crown, and that no allowance would therefore be re- quired of them for that purpose. Far from regarding this as a meiasure of relief, the people looked upon it, and justly, as intended to withdraw the governor from de]3endence on themselves, and to enable him to carry out the designs of the ministers without control. The matter was immediately taken up. The representatives of Massachusetts, at their session in July, declared the measure to be " an infraction of their charter," which they regarded as " a solemn contract between the crown and the inhabitants of the province." In reply, the governor, repudiating this doctrine, declared the charter to be not " a contract between two independent parties, hut a mere grant of j)owers and privileges from the king, which the people of the province could claim only so long as the sovereign chose to ratify it, and what he ahvays had the power to annul." De jure perhaps the colonists were right ; de facto the governor had certainly precedent to plead. It may be questioned indeed whether, in the grant of the original charter of Massachusetts, the supreme power of the king was not tacitly involved ; but that charter had in fact been abrogated by Charles II., and many alterations, and some of them salutary, had been effected in it. The most ardent advocate of American claims may then admit, with Guizot, that " the aggression of England," viz. in the matter of taxation, "was not new, nor altogether arbitrary ; it had its historical founda- tions, and might pretend to some right." The truth seems to be, that the claims of the conflicting parties were in their very nature irreconcilable, and could not be solved by a mere appeal to charters and to precedents. How- ever just it might be in the abstract, the doctrine of the Americans which denied the controlling power of parliament, (a right hitherto admitted, at least, in the external regulation of commerce,) proved in fact too much, for, fairly carried out, it involved no less then independence. If parliament, as the royalists argued, might lay no duties on the colonists, if the latter might law- fully resist their imposition, if the king might not legally quell that resistance by force, if the royal governor, in the exercise of his executive functions, was to be dependent on the legislative assembly, until he had ratified their mea- sures, or until he had given up the maintenance of the royal prerogative, the dependence of America on the mother country was merely nominal. To have granted her independence at once, would have been the only consistent course of policy ; but this was a policy not to be expected at that day of an English ministry, and not even looked for by the Americans themselves. On 2 s 2 316 HUTCHINSON'S LETTERS GIVEN TO FRANKLIN. [1773. the otlier liand, to submit any longer to foreign restrictions upon their com- merce, or to a perpetual check upon their legislative freedom of action, enforced upon them by the strong arm of a distant power, was gro-wai to be utterly in- supportable. Unprepared however boldly to throw off the yoke of the mother country, and yet determined no longer to submit to it, the Americans, at this crisis of the dispute, determined on drawing up a more careful and compre- hensive statement of their rights and grievances than they had ever hitherto put forth. This reply to Hutchinson, at first drafted by Samuel Adams, embodied the usual popular arguments, and it is supposed was afterwards revised in committee by John Adams himself, and placed, by his skill as a jurist, upon legal and constitutional grounds, forming as it stands the most celebrated state paper of the revolutionary controversy in Massachusetts. The bitter feeling against Hutchinson was shortly afterwards increased to the highest pitch by the following remarkable incident. Several of his private letters to persons connected with government had been artfully abstracted from the office by Dr. Williamson, who having learned that they were deposited in a draAver different from that in which they ought to have been placed, boldly repaired to the chief clerk and demanded the letters, naming the office in which they ought to have been deposited, and having thus obtained and placed them in the hands of Franklin, the very next day set sail for Holland. Franklin appears at first to have thought that the recent acts were rather forced upon the king by his ministers, but in a letter written shortly afterwards to his son, he seems to have got a new light, for he observes, "Between you and me, the late measures have been, I suspect, very much the king's ovn\, and he has, in some cases, a great share of what his friends cdiiS.Jirmness.'" Yet he had hitherto used his utmost endeavours to promote a conciliation. These letters of Hutchinson thus put into liis hand, and obtained without any con- nivance on his part, although many of them were strictly private, yet as their tenor was to influence the ministry to still severer measures of repression, he thought himself justified, having been lately appointed agent for Massachusetts, m sending to Boston, to be communicated only to a few confidential persons, and neither to be copied nor printed. There, however, upon the motion of Samuel Adams, they were read under certain restrictions in the house of assem- bly, and were at length made known to the j)ublic. They gave, as might be expected, a most unfavourable picture of the state of affairs, the temper of the people, and especially of the popular leaders, who were accused of making up by their audacity and turbulence for their want of respectability and influence, suggested the necessity of the most coercive measures, and a considerable change in the constitution and system of government, and even the " taking off"" the principal opponents to the British domination. The effect they j^roduced was convulsive. They were regarded, to use the words of John Adams, as part of a " mystery of iniquity," concocted between the governor and the parhament. The assembly unanimously lesolved, "that the tendency and design of the said letters was to overthrow the constitution of this government, and to in- troduce arbitrary power into the province." They moreover passed a vote, i:74] FRANKLIN ACCUSED OF FRAUDULENT PRACTICES. 317 " that a petition sliould be immediately sent to the king, to remove the governor, Hntchinson, and the vice-governor, Oliver, for ever from the government of the province." This petition, sent over to Franklin, was transmitted by him to Lord Dartmouth, the then colonial secretary ; and he appeared to support it at council-chamber on the 11th of July, 1774, but finding that the governor intended to employ counsel, he prayed and obtained a three weeks' adjournment of the inquiry. Meanwhile two gentlemen of the colonial office having suspected each other of the abstraction of the letters, a duel took place between them, when one of them was dangerously wounded. Franklin hereupon inserted a letter in the " Public Advertiser," exonerating both parties, and taking upon him- self the entire responsibility of having obtained the documents. When the day came on for the hearing of the cause, Franklin, accompanied by his friend Dr. Priestley, repaired to the council to support the Massachusetts petition, when, to the evident satisfaction of the members, he was assailed by Wedderburne, the advocate for Hutchinson, in terms which, to one who justly stood so high in the estimation of his countrymen and mankind, and conscious as he was of his innocence of the principal charge in general, must have required his utmost philosophy to endure. " The letters," said the caustic advocate, " could not have come to Dr. Franklin by fair means. The writers did not give them to him, nor yet did the deceased correspondent. Nothing, then, will acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most ma- lignant of purposes, uiih^ss he stole them from the person that stole them. This argument is irrefragable." Here, however, the advocate certainly v,'ent a little too far; since Franklin had only received the letters from the person who stole them. " I hope, my Lords," continued "Wedderburne, " you will mark and brand the ma.n, for the honour of this country, of Europe, and of manldnd. Private correspondence has hitherto been held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not only in politics but in religion. He has forfeited all the resjDect of societies and of men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of virtue ? Men will watch him with a jealous eye — they will hide their papers from him, and lock up their cscritoirs. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters, I/onw iriiim literarum. But he not only took away the letters from one brother, but kept himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder of the other. " It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, without horror. Amidst these tragical events, of one person nearly murdered, of another answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in his dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense, here is a man, who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands up and avows him- self the author of all. I can compare it only to Zavga in Dr. Young*s Revenge — 318 Q UARREL BETWEEN JAMES OTIS AXD ROBIXSON. [1773. * Know, then, 'twas I ; I forged the letter ; I disposed the picture. I hated, I despised, and I destroy.' I ask, my Lords, whetlier the revengeful temper attributed, by poetic fiction only, to the bloody African, is not surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the Avily American ? " During this trying scene, the temper of Franklin appeared impassible, and he preserved his countenance unmoved. Unable to explain the way in which the letters fell into his hands, he was compelled to submit in silence to the charges made against his honour. But the sarcasms and insults of Wedder- burne wounded him so profoundly, that he declared to Priestley after he had left the council-room that he would never again put on the suit he then wore until he had received satisfaction. And it is said that he never dressed himself in it again until the memorable day, when he signed at Paris the treaty which deprived Great Britain for ever of her dominions in North America. The petition was voted scandalous and vexatious, and Franklin dismissed from his office of postmaster-general. The altered state of his feelings, pro- duced by the treatment of the petition and the opprobium heaped upon himself, appears in these words : " When I see that all petitions and comijlaints of grievances are so odious to government, that even the mere pipe Avhich con- veys them becomes obnoxious, I am at a loss to know how peace and union is to be maintained or restored between the different parts of the empire. Grievances cannot be redressed unless they are known, and they cannot be known but through complaints and petitions. If these are deemed affronts, and the messengers punished as offenders, who will henceforth send petitions ? and who will deliver them ? It has been thought a dangerous thing in any state to stop up the vent of grief. Wise governments have therefore generally re- ceived petitions with some indulgence, even when but slightly founded. Thoye vv'ho think themselves injured by their rulers, are sometimes, by a mild and prudent answer, convinced of their error. But where complaining is a crime, hojje becomes despair." It was before this period of excitement, in 1770, that Otis, who had so greatly tended to bring it about, became involved in a quarrel which led to his .sudden rctn-emcnt from the revolutionary stage. One of the commissioners of custom.s, named Robinson, had given such imfavoiirable accounts of Otis as provoked the latter to retaliate in the Boston Gazette. Some expression he made use of induced Robinson publicly to insult Otis in a coffee-house, and an affray en- sued in which the latter was so severely handled by his opponent, that he never entirely recovered from the effects of it. Heavy damages were awarded against the aggressor, but Otis generously forgave him, and refused to receive the money. But his health and spirits were irrecoverably broken by this untoward and degrading accident, and he was obliged to retire into the country. His proud and susceptible nature was undermined, his reason became impaired, and the fiery orator upon whose accents listening senates had so lately hung enraptiu-ed, became an object of merriment to thoughtless boys as he stag- ^ ^ 1=3 4 © © s 17T3. ] DESTR JJCTION OF THE GA SPE AT PRO VIDENCE. 319 gered tlirougli the streets a driveller and a show. An anecdote is told of \\m\, which shows how vivid were the flashes of mental light, bursting at in- tervals through the melancholy gloom that overclouded his shattered powers. On one occasion a youth who had a knowledge of Latin, cruelly sprinkled some water over him from the upper story of a crockery warehouse, ex- claiming, " Pluit taut urn, nescio quantum. Sets tie tn ? It rains so much, I know not how much. Do you know ? " Otis, infuriated, instantly seized a mis- sile, and hurling it through the window to the destruction of every thing that came in its way, retorted the words, " Fregi tot, nescio quot. Scis ne tu ? I have broken so many, I know not how many. Do you know ? " A burden to himself and others, he had often desired to be suddenly cut off, and this desire was singularly fulfilled, as he was blasted by lightning, while standing in an open doorway during a storm. Thus perished James Otis, the most fervid, impetuous, brilliant, and — must we add — unhappy, of all the popular leaders. Of them all he had given perhaps the greatest imjjulse to the revolutionary feeling, and though a wreck in body and mind, he stiU survived long enough to witness its triumphant establishment upon his native soil. An incident now occurred wliich added to the growing exasperation of the ministerial feelings. The vigorous enforcement of the revenue laws had been particularly required of the servants of the crown, and no one had rendered himself more obnoxious by his zeal in this respect than Lieutenant Doddington of the Gaspe schooner, then stationed at Providence. Having in vain re- quired the master of one of the packets to lower his colours, the commander of the Gasjje fired at her to bring her to, but the vessel held on her course, and artfully stood in close with the land, so that the schooner in following her shortly afterwards stuck fast upon a shoal, and the packet proceeded tri- umphantly to Providence. Here a daring plan was concerted for the de- struction of the obnoxious revenue schooner. About tAVO in the morning, as the Gaspe lay aground, she was boarded by several boats full of volunteers. The lieutenant, after being wounded in defending his vessel, was put on shore with his crew and their personal effects, and the vessel with all her stores was set on fire and destroyed. When the governor heard of the out- rage, he offered a reward of five hundred pounds and a free pardon to any who would confess and give information; but so universal was the conspiracy, that no evidence whatever could be j)rocured against the incendiaries. AVhilc the English ministry were getting more irritated with the colonists, the popular agitation went on increasing, and a crisis ^u^is evidently near at hand. The nature of the political institutions of Massachusetts favoured the organization of a general resistance. The people, accustomed to discuss their affairs in town meetings, warmly took up any subject that affected their interests. Boston was, so to speak, the core of the confederation. In this city, certain of the leading patriots formed a central committee, called by an English Avriter, " tlie source of the rebellion, the foulest, most venomous serpent that ever issued from the egg of sedition." This committee decided upon the measures to be pursued, and took means, openly or secretly, to carry 320 COMMITTEES ESTABLISHED B Y THE PA TRIOTS. [1773. tliem into execution. By degrees similar committees, mainly established by Samuel Adams, Dr. James Warren, and John Hancock, extended themselves all over the province, until political agitation became universal, and the im- pulse given at head quarters was communicated with electric rapidity to every to^\Ti and village. The movement comprehended men of all parties, and of every shade of patriotism, from some of the wealthiest and most iixfluential citizens, doAvn to the intriguing demagogue, who, having nothing to lose, seeks to advance his interest amidst the public troubles. Some of the more ardent and daring, who might even then have aspired to independence, were perhaps desirous of precipitating an open struggle, but this was, as yet, far fi-om being the feeling of the majority. The best and purest minds were per- plexed as to the part they should act in the uncertain and alarming drama which opened before them. Their feelings may be well judged of by referring to the journal of John Adams, who, as before said, notwithstanding the odium incurred in the matter of Preston's trial, had been chosen one of the Boston representatives, and negatived by Governor Hutchinson for the active part he had taken in the opposition. " To-morrow," he says, " is our general elec- tion. The plots, plans, schemes, and machinations of this evening and night, will be very numerous. By the number of ministerial, governmental peo- ])\e returned, and by the secrecy of the friends of liberty, relating to the grand discovery of the complete evidence of the whole mystery of iniquity, (alluding to Hutchinson's letters,) I much fear the elections will go wrong. For myself , I own I tremble at the thouglit of an election. Wliat tvill be CTpected of me ? IVJtat will be required of me ? What duties and obligations will result to me from an election ? What duties to my God, my king, my country, my family, my friends, myself ? What perplexities, and intricacies, and difficulties shall I be exposed to ? What snares and temptations will be thrown in my way ? What self-denials and mortifications shall I be obliged to bear ? If I should be called in the course of providence to take a part in public life, I shall act a fearless, intrepid, undaunted part at all hazards, though it sliall be my endeavour like^udse to act a prudent, cautious, and considerate part. But if I should be excused by a non-election, or by the exertion of pre- rogative, from engaging in public business, I shall enjoy a sweet tranquillity in the pursuit of my private business, in the education of my children, and in a constant attention to the preservation of my health. The last is the most selfish and pleasant system ; the first the more generous, although arduous and disagreeable." Such is the language of pure, disinterested patriotism, and we cannot doubt that it would have been echoed by many eminent men at tliis anxious and perplexing period. But the march of events often outruns the hesitation of individuals, and hur- ries them along towards results from which they might originally ha^-e shrunk. "WTiat between smuggling and the non-iniportatiou agreements, the market of the East India Comj)any in America had so dAvindled doAA-n that a stock of seventeen millions of pounds of tea Avas accumulated in their cellars. In consequence of their urgent petitions to the government, the export duty Avas 1773.] ARRIVAL OF THE TEA SHIPS AT BOSTON. 321 wi*;hdrawn, so tliat, notwithstanding the obnoxious duty of three-pence a pound on its importation into America, which the ministers determined to maintain upon the ground of principle, the article itself would of course come much cheaper to the consumers. This positive advantage to the colonists, it was hoped, would tempt them to withdraw their opposition, but in this expect- ation the ministry were grossly mistaken, for no sooner was the intelligence of this measure received by the colonists, than they pei'ceived at once its insidious tendency, and exerted themselves to the utmost to counteract its effects. Their activity was increased by private advices from their friends in England, who urged ujDon them that noto or never was the moment to make a stand, and by prompt and decisive action to convince the ministry that America would not submit. The leaders of the people were on the alert, the committees of correspondence incessantly active, and the public mind was soon inflamed to the highest pitch of determination. The tea, it was resolved, should never be landed. The first step taken was to compel the consignees to give up their com- mission, under f)ain of being declared the enemies of their country. At Phila- delphia, a committee was appointed to wait on them for this purpose ; one firm complied at once, and were greeted with shouts of applause, but another refused to give any pledge until the tea had arrived. At Boston, so soon as the names of the consignees were ascertained, they were anonymously invited to repair, at an appointed hour, to the well-known " Liberty Tree," in order to surrender their commissions. As they took no notice of this summons, a committee was sent to wait on them, but with no effect. A town meeting was now held, at which Hancock presided, who sent a second committee to summon the consignees, among whom were two of the governor's sons, to resign their posts. This however, to the great in- dignation of the meeting, they declined to do, at least until they had received advices from England. As the ships were shortly to be expected, another town meeting was held, when a final summons was sent to the consignees, to knoAV definitely whether they would or would not resign. Upon their positive refusal to do so, the meeting retired without a word. The evening before, the house of their members having been mobbed, the consignees placed themselves and the tea under the protection of the governor and counciL The council, after temporizing for some time, when the first tea ship at length came in, flatly refused to render themselves in any way responsible for its safety. The governor stood entirely alone." The first tea ship having arrived, a crowded public meeting of the citizens of Boston and the neighbourhood was held in Faneuil Hall, at which it was resolved that a message should be sent to the captain, ordering him, on his peril, not to unload his ship without their orders, while a guard was placed over her to insure compliance. A similar assemblage taking place on the morrow, the governor declared it illegal, and required it to disperse, but to no purpose, and the militia were not to be depended upon. The consignees promised, if it were allowed to be landed, that they would keep it in their 2 T 322 MEETING OF PEOPLE IN OLD SOUTH CHURCH. [1773. cellars until tliey could receive fresli orders from England, but tlie people demanded the immediate return of tlie ships without unlading. The custom officers refused to grant the necessary clearance without the cargo was landed, and thus the time passed away until the arrival of two other tea ships. The people now determined to act. On the 16th of December, a town meeting took place in the old South Church. The owner was sent for, and requested to obtain from the customs the necessary clearance for the departure of the ships, but the officials refused to comply. He "v^as next sent to the governor, then at his country house, a few miles from the city, for the same purpose. It was generally believed that on the next day, the 17th, the commanders of the ships of war in the harbour had determined that, unless the inhabitants withdrew their oppo- sition, they would force the tea ashore, under cover of their artillery. It was known too that the governor had given order§ to prevent the vessels sailing, and that the admiral had stationed two armed vessels at the entrance of the harbour. The three tea ships were moored near each other at Griffin's wharf. An instant decision became imperative. Josiah Quincy harangued the crowded and excited assembly with much solemnity of man- ner, and in the fervid style of eloquence universally adopted by the popular leaders. " It is not," he said, " the spirit that vapours within these walls that must stand us in stead. The exertions of this day will call forth events which will make a very different spirit necessary for our salvation. Whoever supposes that shouts and hosannas will terminate the trials of this day, entertains a childish fancy. He must be grossly ignorant of the importance and value of the prize for which we contend ; we must be equally ignorant of the power of those who have combined against us, we must be blind to that malice, inveteracy, and insatiable revenge which actuates our enemies public and' private, abroad and in our bosoms, to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest — the sharpest conflict — to flatter ourselves that popvilar resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapour will vanquish our foes. Let us consider the issue. Let us look to the end. Let us weigh and consider before we advance to those mea- sures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw." Excited as they were to the utmost by this appeal, the question was put to the assembled multitude — " Will you abide by your former reso- lutions with respect to not suffering the tea to be landed ? " A unanimous shout was the reply, and as Hotch, who had been to the governor to request a permit, now returned with an answer in the negative, the excitement attained its utmost pitch. It was growing dark, and there was a cry for candles, when a man disguised as a Mohawk Indian raised the war-whoop in the gallery, which was responded to in the street without. Another voice suddenly shouted, "Boston harbour a tea-pot to-night! Hurra for Griffin's wharf!" The meeting instantly adjourned, and the populace, pouring into the street, hurried rapidly down towards the port. Every thing had been previously arranged. It was now a fine moonlight 1773.] THE TEA THROWN INTO BOSTON HARBOR. evening, and armed with Katchets and clubs, some five and twenty men, dis- guised as Indians, made their appearance in the streets, and hurried do-«ai to ' Griffin's wharf. " When I first ajjpeared in the street," says one of the actors in this momentous scene, " after being thus disguised, I fell in with many who were dressed, equipped, and painted as I was, and who fell in with me, and marched in order to the place of our destination. "Wlien we arrived at the wharf, there were three of our number who assumed an authority to direct our operations, to which we readily submitted. They divided us into three parties for the purpose of boarding the three shij^s which contained the tea, at the same time. The name of him who commanded the division to which I was assigned, was Leonard Pitt. The names of the other commanders I never knew." The parties then repaired on board the ships, demanded the keys and some candles of the captain, and in about three hours had broken and thrown overboard every tea-chest to be found. They Avere surrounded by armed ships, but either their operations were unnoticed, or for some other reason, no opposition was offered to their proceedings. A dense mob quietly stood on the shore while the devastation Avas going on. " AVhen the tea was emptied, we quietly," continues the actor, " returned to onr several places of residence, without having any conversation with each other, or taking any measures to discover who were our associates. There appeared to be an under- standing that each individual should volunteer his services, keep his own secret, and risk the consequences for himself." No disorder took place, and it was observed at the time, that the stillest night ensued that Boston had en- joyed for many months. The apathy of the naval and military force is almost inexplicable, except on the supposition put forth by the papers at the time, that the officials were glad of the riot, inasmuch as it extricated them from the unpleasant necessity of forcing the tea ashore, when a serious collision must inevitably have ensued. Admiral Montague was on shore at the house of a friend, and as the party marched from the wharf, raised the window and said, " Well, boys, you've had a fine night for your Indian caper, hav'n't you ? But mind, you've got to pay the fiddler yet." "Oh never mind," shouted Pitt, the leader, "never mind, squire ! just come out here if you please, and we '11 settle the bill in two minutes ! " The admiral wisely shut down the window, while the mob went on their way with miisic and shouting. The die was now cast, and the colonists might speedily look for the utmost vengeance of an irritated ministry. " Last night," says John Adams in his journal, " three cargoes of Bohea tea were emptied into the sea. This morn- ing, a man of war sails. This is the most magnificent movement of all. There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort- of the patriots, that I greatly admire. The people should never rise without doing something to be remembered, something notable and striking. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid, and inflexible, and it must have so im- portant consequences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an epocha in history." The excited state of the public mind, and the fury to which BM INCREASE OF SETTLEMEXTS IN THE WEST. [1773. "party animosity had arisen, is strikingly displayed in what follows : " This, however, is but an attack upon property. Another similar exertion of po- j)ular power may produce the destruction of lives. Many persons wish that as many dead carcasses were floating in the harbour, as there are chests of tea. A much less number of lives, however, would remove the causes of all our calamities. The malicious pleasure with which Hutchinson the governor, the consignees of the tea, and the officers of the customs, have stood and looked upon the distresses of the people, and their struggles to get the tea back to London, and at last the destruction of it, is amazing. 'Tis hard to believe persons so hardened and abandoned." The example of Massachusetts was followed in the other colonies. At Charleston alone was the tea landed, and being stored in damp cellars was soon spoiled. At Philadelphia, the caj^tain of the tea ship, on learning the proceedings at Boston, put about and returned. At New York, as soon as the tea ship appeared off 'the Hook, she was boarded by a self-constituted committee, and the captain com]3elled to retire without unloading her cargo. We must here turn aside awhile from the course of the revolutionary quar- rels to glance at the progress of emigration at this period. As soon as peace had been established with the North-western Indians, a great impulse was given to emigration from the Atlantic sea-board into the Far West. Settle- ments began to sj^ring up around the few military posts scattered at wide intervals through the wilderness ; and routes Avere opened, along which fresh stations were gradually established. A town had been already laid out at Fort Pitt, or Duquesne, and a road made from thence to the Monongahela. Settle- ments had been formed on that river, and every where indeed to the eastward of Pennyslvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. After the French war, a vast number of military grants had been issued by the government of Virginia, and an army of land surveyors and greedy speculators were busy in parcelling out the virgin wilderness, hitherto exclusively occupied by the hunting-grounds of the Indians. The inevitable result was a collision between the latter and the whites. As the Indian title to vast tracts of the land now seized upon had never been extinguished, every artifice was used to beguile their consent. In 1744, cer- tain commissioners from Pennsylvania and Maryland convened a portion of the Six Nations to treat with them for the relinquishment of a large portion of their territory, when by the aid of a liberal supply of whiskey punch, these Indians were inveigled into signing a treaty, the drift of which they probably never " understood, and which they afterwards indignantly rcpu.diated. The more daring and lawless portion of the white settlers however continued to advance, and settle down uj)on Indian lands, without even the shadow of a right. Against these continual encroachments, sustained as they were by force and outrage, the Indians had repeatedly remonstrated to the local governments, but to little or no purpose. At length, on the 6th of May, 1768, a deputation from the Six Nations repaired to Fort Pitt, to present a remonstrance, which 1773.] DANIEL BOONE DISCOVERS KENTUCKY. 325 was forwarded to the assembly of Virginia. The president of the council in his message declared, "that a set of men regardless of the laws of natural jus- tice, unmindful of the duties they owe to society, and in contempt of the royal proclamations, have dared to settle themselves upon the lands near Kedstone Creek and Cheat river, which are the property of the Indians, and notwithstanding the repeated warnings of the danger of such lawless proceed- ings, they still remain unmoved, and seem to defy the orders and even the powers of the government." The royal government was at length compelled to interfere, by ordering Sir William Johnson to purchase from the Six Nations the lands aheady thus occupied, as well as to obtain a further grant ; and accordingly, by a treaty at Fort Stanwix, large bodies of land extending to the Ohio were, as it was said, ceded by the Indians, but, as they firmly de- clared, by an unfair construction of their engagements. Thus, by force and fraud combined, or rather by an invincible and fatal necessity, the unhappy Indians were by degrees forced into a combination for their own defence, determined to resent the further advance of the white men upon their forests, and to cut off as spies such as dared to penetrate into as yet undiscovered regions. Nevertheless there were a few daring backwoodsmen, who, animated by a restless love of adventure, continued to defy every peril in order to make fresh explorations. Such a man was Daniel Boone, born and bred u])on the fron- tiers of North Carolina and Virginia, west of the Alleghany, a woodsman and a hunter by nature, and half an Indian himself in that tenacity and endurance that no peril or hardship can cuail. Buried in the woods, his countenance had acquired that grave, sombre cast, that distinguishes the red man himself; and he shunned the haunts of society, devoured by one single passion, that of contending with the wild denizens of the forest, whether man or beast, and of becoming a pioneer for the further advance of his white brethren. Allured by the descriptions of one Finley, a trader, who "had already caught a glunpse of the land of promise, Boone eagerly joined in an exploring expe- dition in company with Finley, John Stuart, and three other companions. Wlien they had advanced two hundred niiles to the west, the party divided, and Boone and Stuart proceeded in company, until from a lofty eminence they saw the beautiful plain of Kentucky, and its river rolling at their feet. Hardly had this splendid prospect opened before them, when they were surprised by a party of Indians, from whom they eventually succeeded in making their escape, and forming a hunting camp, the proceeds of which were sent to an eastern mart. During the year, Boone and Stuart remained the sole oc- cupants of the "forbidden ground" of Kentucky, eluding the constant pursuit of the Indians, until the former returned to conduct a colony thither, but was attacked and driven back by the Indians. A treaty for the cession of the lands south of Kentucky now being at length accomplished, Boone set off with a party,, and opened the first " Mazed Irace " or outline of a road to the banks of the Kentucky river, where he laid the foundation of Boonesborough. Such was the father of the state of Kentucky, to whom in all his attributes his 326 OUTRAGES COMMITTED ON THE BORDERS. [1774. children have ever borne a marvellous family resemblance. We can but briefly trace the further career of this extraordinary man. During the revo- lutionary war, he was taken prisoner by the Indians, and became such a favourite that he was adopted into their tribe as a brave; but on learning that a body of British and Indians had assembled for the invasion of Kentucky and the destruction of his darling Boonesborough, he suddenly decamped, and with a single meal in his pocket, across the wilderness, accomplishing a hundred and fifty miles in six days, and gave such timely notice to his fellow citizens as set aside the threatened attack. At the end of the war he settled down as a farmer, but found that the lands which he had himself first dis- covered had been granted away to some land-speculator in an eastern city. Thus driven away, he retired in disgust beyond the Mississippi, and sought a last resting-place on the banks of the Missouri, beyond the extreme verge of civilization, and here the old hunter was quietly gathered to his fathers. His grateful fellow citizens have since removed his bones into Kentucky, and buried them with those of his wife in a common sepulchre. Meanwhile the stream of emigration continued to pour incessantly west- ward. Since the treaty concluded by Sir William Johnson, the Indians gradually retired toward the west side of the Oliio, and though jealous at the rapid encroachments of the whites, carefully abstained from any acts of hosti- lity towards them. By the atrocious outrages of a handful of sanguinary monsters, the ofFscouring of civilized society, they were at length goaded into a war of revengeful extermination. It was in the summer of 17T4, that a considerable body of land-jobbers assembled at Wheeling, where a fort had been recently erected, anxious to precipitate a collision with the peaceful Indians. It was reported that the latter had stolen some of their horses, and the rumour was eagerly propa- gated that they were meditating an immediate rising, which, conscious, as too many of the settlers Avere, of outrages and injuries committed by themselves, might in itself have appeared probable. A few days afterwards, it was known that two Indians were descending the river in a canoe, when Captain Cresap, the commander of Fort Fincastle, pro^^osed to put them to death at once. Colonel Zane, proprietor of AATieeling, remonstrated upon the folly and wick- edness of such conduct, but in vain. Cresap and his party waylaid the unsuspecting Indians, shot them down, threw them overboard, and return- ed to Wlieeling in their bloodstained canoes. A still more base and bloody outrage was committed by one Daniel Greathouse, who contrived to decoy a body of Indians across the river, and after making them drunk, murdered them in cold blood. Atrocities of this description grew common. An old and distinguished chief, named " Bald Eagle," who had been friendly to the whites, was treacherously killed by three white men, who afterwards placed the lifeless body of their victim in a sitting position in his cano€, and sent it floating down the stream. Every outrage, in short, was perpetrated by this scum of the Avilderness upon the unoflending Indians ; and as the general feeling was so strong against them, and the members of the executive them- 1774.] THE INDIANS C02IPELLED TO DECLARE WAR. 327 selves involved in the charge, no redress of any sort was likely to be afforded. The passions of the Indians were now inflamed to the utmost pitch, and the long-smothered feeling of revenge broke out with a fearful energy. The Shawanese were the principals in the war, but the other northern and western tribes soon entered into alliance with them. They put to death all the white men they could lay their hands on, and cutting their bodies in fragments, scattered them to the four winds. Among the victims of the white murder- ers was the whole family of John Logan, an Indian chief, who had ever been the fast friend of the whites, and the strenuous advocate of peaceful counsels. Tortured beyond endurance, he was among the first to declare hostilities, and left " the war club " at the house of a settler, with the following note at- tached to it. " Captain Cresap — Why did you kill my people on Yellow Creek ? The white people killed my kin at Conestago a great while ago, and I thought nothing of that. But you have killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too, and I have been three times to ,war since : but the Indians are not angry, it is only myself. July 21, 1774. Captain John Logan." The whole frontier was now exposed to a war of extermination, many set- tlements were deserted, and the inhabitants fled to the different forts for refuge against the infuriated savages. A message being immediately sent to Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, a body of troops was speedily organized, commanded by General Lewis, Vv'ho marched through a trackless wilderness as far as the valley of the Kenhawa, while Lord Dunmore himself hastened to join him. While en- camped with a force of about twelve hundred men on the peninsula, above the mouth of the great Kenhawa, Lewis was suddenly attacked by an immensely superior body of Indians, who advanced to the assault with the most darins" courage. Intrenching themselves behind a breastwork of logs, they kept up a deadly fire upon the Virginians ; for ten hours the conflict was main- tained with equal courage and success. The Indian force comprised the flower of the tribes, and was commanded by their most distinguished chief- tains. Among them was the famous Shawanese chief. Cornstalk, with his son, Ked Hawk, a Delaware, and Logan himself. Cornstalk had previously ad- vised a truce, but being overruled by the eager passions of his brethren, sternly declared, " Since you will fight, you shall fight." His voice was heard in the din of battle, exclaiming to his men, " Be strong, be strong ! " and he cut down with his own hand any one who offered to fiinch. At length. General Lewis, unable to force the Indians in front, detached three com- panies, who stealthily advancing under cover of the underwood till they had gained the rear of the savages, opened iipon them a terrible fire, which creating a panic, they suddenly fled and retreated to their towns. 328 TREATY WITH THE INDIANS. [1774. Lord Dunmore having now arrived, the Indians were vigorously pressed on all sides, and compelled to make overtures to the commander-in-chief, who consented to an armistice, and ordered Lewis to suspend the march of his army, who were burning with desire to avenge their loss on the bloody day at the Kenhawa. Lewis, however, twice refused to obey, and continued his march, until he was encountered by Lord Dunmore, who, at the head of his staff, peremptorily ordered him to halt and encamp, and a conference with the Indians was immediately opened. Cornstalk then arose, and with a voice so loud as to be heard over the whole camj), and with great energy and dignity of manner, exposed the wrongs of his brethren. " He recited the former power of the Indians, the number of their tribes compared with their present wretched condition, and their diminished numbers; he referred to the treaty of Fort Stanwix, and the cessions of territory then made by them to the Avhites ; to the lawless en- croachments of the whites upon their lands, contrary to all treaty stipulations; to the patient forbearance of the Indians for years under wrongs exercised toward them by the frontier people. He said the Indians knew their weak- ness in a contest with the whites, and they desired only justice ; that the war was vot sought hy the Indians, but was forced upon them; for it was com- menced by the whites without previous notice : that, under the circumstances, they would have merited the contempt of the whites for cowardice if they had failed to retaliate the unprovoked and treacherous murders at Captina and Yellow Creeks ; that the war was the work of the Avhites, for the Indians de- sired peace." Terms of pacification were soon arranged. The Indians agreed to surrender their prisoners and abstain from further hostilities against settlements east and south-east of the Ohio, and to recognise that river as the proper boundary between themselves and the whites. Presents were then distributed, and the army disbanded ; upon Avhich the governor shortly afterwards returned home, where he issued a proclamation warniilg all persons from trespassing on the Indian lands on the west side of the river. The unhappy Logan, indignant at the murder of his family, had refused to assist at the treaty. But some time afterwards, when General Gibson was sent into the west, he saw Cornstalk and Logan together .in conference, when the latter, taking him aside into a covert, seated himself on a log, and after shed- ding abundance of tears, delivered to him the following speech,, to be trans- mitted by the general to the royal governor. " I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry, and he gave him nothing to eat ; if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advo- cate for peace. Such was my love for the whites, that my countrymen pointed at me as they passed and said, 'Logan is the friend oj wlnte men," I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Captain Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, mur- dered all the relations of Logan, sparing not even my 'women and children. ir:4.] THE BOSTON PORT BILL. 329 There runs not a drop of my blood in any living creature. This called on me for revenge : I have sought it ; I have killed many ; I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace ; but do not harbour a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan ? Not one ! " CHAPTER VII. FROM THE PASSING OF THE BOSTON PORT BILL, TO THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. The news of the destruction of the tea raised the feelings of the king and ministry to the highest pitch of exasperation. Hitherto, while determined to maintain the right of taxation, they had displayed in enforcing it the utmost moderation and lenity. The governor had not called in the assistance of the military, and re^Deated infraction of the laws had been allowed to pass un- punished. But the daring spirit shown in the recent outrage, detcrnihaed them to trifle no longer A\'ith a growing evil, but to adopt the most vigorous measures of coercion. Accordingly, on the 7th of March, Lprd North pre- sented a message from his INIajcsty to both Houses, pointedly calling their attention to the " violent and outrageous proceedings of the town and port of Boston." " The utmost lenity on the part of the governor — perhaps too much," observed the minister, " had been already shown, and this town, by its late proceedings, had left government perfectly at liberty to adopt any measures they shovdd think convenient, not only for redressing the wrong sustained by the East India Company, but for inflicting such punishment as their factious and criminal conduct merited." The House having voted a loyal reply, a bill was brought in on the 14th, by Lord North, '^for the im- mediate removal of the officers concerned in the management and collection of his JNIajcsty's customs from the town of Boston, and to discontinue the landing or shipping of goods at the said town, or within the harbour thereof." As the capital of Massachusetts was in fact, as Lord North observed, " the ringleader in every riot," the focus of resistance to the royal authority, whence the spirit of insubordination was communicated to the whole conti- nent, the ministers not only felt justified in inflicting upon her this ex- emplary punishment, but hoped that this timely severity would crush the spirit of sedition in the bud. The motion was received in deep silence. Every one felt what momentous consequences might ensue, but even the advocates of colonial liberties shrunk 2 TS 330 IJVTEODUCTION OF OTHER ARBITRARY BILLS. [1774. from defending this last instance of the violent and lawless conduct of the Bostonians. On the subsequent reading of the bill, Mr. Fuller proposed that a fine should be substituted for the closing of the port. Lord North, how- ever, was inflexible : " I hope," he said, " that our unanimity will go half way to insure the obedience of the people of Boston to this bill. The honourable gentleman tells us that the Act will be a piece of waste paper, and that an army Avill be required to put it into execution. The good of this Act is, that four or five frigates will do the business without any military force." So ignorant were the ministry of the true state of things in America. On the final reading, the bill was opposed by Burke, but it passed with hardly a dissentient voice, and was immediately ratified by the Upper House, although the Duke of Richmond, and several other peers, strongly protested against it. As if this bill for closing of their port were not sufilcient punishment, another shortly followed it, which deprived the people of Ncav England of almost every vestige of their ancient liberties. By this Act " for better regu- lating the government of Massachusetts Bay," the royal governor was em- powered to appoint all the civil authorities whatever, who were also to have the nomination of juries, functions hitherto vested in the people themselves ; and as their town meetings had proved the nursery of opposition to govern- ment, they were now entirely prohibited, except for the j)urpose of electing re- presentatives. A third Act, ostensibly designed " for the more impartial adminis- tration of justice," provided, in view of such cases as that of Captain Preston — that " any person indicted for murder, or any other capital offence, committed in aiding the magistracy, the governor might send the person so indicted to another^ colony, or to Great Britain, for trial." These last bills called forth a vigorous spirit of opposition from the friends of America. Among these, Barre lifted up his voice with characteristic energy. *' You may think," he said, " that a law founded on this inotion will be a pro- tection to the soldier who imbrues his hand in the blood of his fellow subjects. T am mistaken if it will. Who is to execute it ? He must be a bold man indeed who will make the attempt. If the people are so exasperated that it is unsafe to bring the man who has injured them to trial, let the governor who withdraws him from justice look to himself. The people will not endure it; they would no longer deserve the reputation of being descended from the loins of Englishmen if they did endure it. You have changed your ground. You are becoming the aggressors, and offering the last of human outrages to the people of America, by submitting them to military execution. Instead of sending them the olive branch, you have sent the naked sword. By the olive branch, I mean a repeal of all the late laws, fruitless to you, and oppressive to them. Ask their aid in a constitutional manner, and they will give it to the utmost of their ability. Your journals bear the recorded ac- knowledgments of the zeal with which they have contributed to the general necessities of the state. "VYliat madness is it that prompts you to attempt obtaining that by force which you may more certainly obtain by requisition ? They may be flattered into any thing, but they are too much like yourselves to 1774.] PITTAAD BURKE OPPOSE THE MEASURES IN VAIN. C31 be driven. Resj^ect iheir sturdy English virtue — retract your odious exertions of authority, and remember that the fii'st step toward making- them contribute to your Avants is to reconcile them to your government." He justly repre- sented it too as being the more unreasonable, that Captain Preston himself, notwithstanding the general feeling against him, had been nobly defended even by members of the opposition, and acquitted by a jury of Americans. If, even at a time of the highest excitement, experience had shown that a servant of the crown could obtain a fair trial in America, what occasion could there be for bringing him over to England ? Notwithstanding all the opposition that could be offered, the bills passed by a majority of four to one. A fourth bill, for quartering troops in America, was shortly added to the former ; on which occasion Lord Chatham, who owing to his declining health could take but a small part in the debates, opposed the ministerial policy wath his usual animation. " I condemn," he said, " in the severest manner the turbulent and unwarrantable conduct of the Americans in some instances, particularly in the late riots at Boston ; but, my Lords, the mode which has been pursued to bring them back to a sense of their duty is so diametrically op- posed to every principle of sound policy, as to excite my utmost astonish- ment. You have involved the guilty and the innocent in one common punish- ment, and avenge the crime of a few lawless depredators upon the whole body of the inhabitants. " My Lords, it has always been my fixed and unalterable opinion, I will carry it with me to the grave, that this country has no right under heaven to tax America. It is contrary to all the principles of justice and civil policy, it is contrary to that essential, unalterable right ingrafted into the British constitution as a fundamental law, that what a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but which cannot be taken away from him without his consent." Burke also strengthened the opposition by one of his most famous speeches. But all w^as in vain, and the measures of the ministers passed with a large majority. With a view to conciliate the Canadians in case of an appeal to arms, they wisely placed the Catholics and Protestants on an equality, confirmed to the Catholic clergy their extensive landed property, allowed the administration of justice to be carried on by the old French law, created a legislative council to be named by the crown, and enlarged the boundaries of the province southward as far as the Ohio, mea- sures to which it was doubtless owing that the Canadians remained entirely passive during the revolutionary w^ar. As the reluctance of the civil governor to call in the military arm had hitherto paralysed repressive operations, it was decided that, to insure greater promptitude and decision, Hutchinson should be superseded by General Gage, in whose person were united the offices of governor of the province of INIas- sachusetts and commander of his Majesty's forces in America. The result of these measures was fully predicted by the opposition. After vainly endeavouring to combat the obstinate determination of the cabinet. Rose FuUer exclaimed to them, " You will commence your ruin from this 2 u 2 332 GENERAL OA GE GOVERNOR OF MASSA CHUSETTS. [1744. day ! I am sorry to say tliat not only lias tlie House fallen into tliis error, but tlie people approve of tlie measure. The people, I am sorry to say, are misled. But a short time will prove the evil tendency of this bill. If ever there was a nation rushing headlong to ruin, it is this." The intelligence of the passing of the bill for closing their port was received by the Bostonians only a few days before the arrival of General Gage. In the midst of their exasperation he had looked for some tokens of disrespect, but was received with all the distinction due to his rank and character. But his appear- ance in their midst, armed as he was with such extensive power, and shortly to be followed by a formidable array of military force, operated no restraint upon the manifestation of their feelings. The very next day a town meeting assem- bled, who declared that " the impolicy, injustice, inhumanity, and cruelty of the Act exceed our powers of expression. We therefore," they say, " leave it to the just censure of others, and appeal to God and the world." They earn- estly recommend a joint resolution of all the colonies to put a stop to all com- mercial intercourse Avith Great Britain. " The bill," said Quincy, disregarding the fiict that the whole population had tacitly involved themselves in the act which had led to its imposition, and that no legal conviction of any offender could, in consequence of the universal complicity, be obtained, '* condemns a whole town unheard, nay, u^ncited to answer, and involves thousands in ruin and misery, without any suggestion of the crime by them committed. The destruction of the tea, which took place without any illegal procedure of the town, is the only alleged ground of consigning thousands of its inhabitants to ruii;i, misery, and despair." It was a moment of deep anxiety to the po- pidar leaders at Boston. Woidd they, who had taken the initiative in the struararle, be left to maintain it sino-le-handed, or would their sister colonies nobly come forward to fortify their resistance and mitigate the sufferings they were caUed upon to endure ? Every means was immediately taken to obtain the sympathy of their fellow colonists. Copies of the resolution were forwarded to the committees of correspondence. The bill, printed on black-edged paper, adorned with a death's head and cross-bones, was hawked about, coupled with the epithets of " cruel, barbarous, bloody, and inhuman murder," and solemnly burned by the assembled populace. Agents were seiit to the other colonics to engage them in the common cause. The clergy from their pulpits animated the people to resistance, while the press teemed with the most moving and vigorous appeals to their feelings. The news of the injury inflicted on Boston pro- duced throughout the colonies a general and spontaneous feeling of indigna- tion. In Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and INIaryland addresses of sympathy and promises of support were forwarded to the citizens of Boston, and suggesting as the best remedy the formation of a continental congress. In Virginia, the House of Representatives was in session at Williamsburg, when the news of the passing of the Boston Port bill was received. Among them was Washington, whom we now again meet with among the prominent actors in the troubled scene. Since the close of the Canadian war, he had married a beautiful and wealthy heiress, and quietly settled down on his estates. 1774.] RECOMMENDA TI0N8 FOR A GENERAL CONGRESS. 333 engaged in his favourite amusement of agriculture, and was on sucli terms with the royal governor. Lord Dunmore, that he was about to join him in an excursion to the western country, had not a family affliction intervened to prevent him. Notwithstanding, he has been among the very first to oppose the encroachments of the English ministry. The Stamp Act he denounced as " an unconstitutional method of taxation, and a direful attack upon the liberties of the colonists." He had been present in the Virginia legislature when Patrick Henry delivered his tlndlling speech. He was among the most decided in enforcing the non-importation agreements, but his conscien- tiousness was manifested by his protesting against the convenient doctrine of non-payment of previous debts due to English merchants. His opi- nions as to the iniquity of the ministerial Acts, and the small chance of obtaining redress by j)ctitioning the king and ministry, were unalterable. " For my own part," he says in a letter to a friend, " I shaU. not undertake to say where the line between Great Britain and the colonies should be drawn, but I am clearly of opinion that one ought to be drawn, and our rights clearly ascertained. I could wish, I own, that the dispute had been left for posterity to determine, but the crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or sub- mit to every imposition that can be heaped upon us, till custom shall make us tame and abject slaves." The sentiments of Washington were those of the whole assembly, and they accordingly passed an order fully displaying that they considered the cause of the Bostonians as their OAvn. " Deeply impressed with apprehension of the great dangers to be derived to British America from the hostile invasion of our sister colony of jNIassachusetts Bay," they appoint the 1st of June, the day on which the Port bill was to come into oper- ation, " as a day of fasting, humiliation, and j^rayer, to implore the Divine in- terposition for averting the heavy calamity which threatened destruction to their civil rights, and the evils of civil war, and to give them one heart and one mind firmly to oppose by all just and proper means every injury to Ame- can rights." Next day Lord Dunmore, considering the terms of this resolution as " re- flecting highly upon his Majesty and the parliament," dissolved the house. The members immediately withdrew to the Paleigh Tavern, and organizing themselves into a committee, drcAv up a resolution, in which, after enumerating the injurious measvires of the British parliament, they express their oj^inion that an attack made on one of oiu- sister colonies to compel submission to arbitrary taxes, threatens ruin to the rights of all, unless the united wisdom of the whole be applied, and they recommend to the committee of correspond- ence to communicate with their several corresponding committees on the ex- pediency of appointing depvities to meet in a general congress. This done, most of the members then returned to their own homes. On the 1st of June — ap- pointed for the religious services — Washington went to church and fasted the M'hole day. Similar manifestations of public grief took place in most of the other cities. At Philadelphia, a stillness reigned over the city, which exhibited an appear- 334 THE MASSA CHUSETTS ASSEMBLY MEETS AT SALEM.[1'71!4:. ance of the deepest distress. At Boston, on tlie 1st of June, tlie day designated by the Act, business was finished at twelve o'clock at noon, and the harbour shut up against all vessels. As that sea-port was entirely dependent upon com- merce, the ministerial measure cut off at once the subsistence of a great part of its citizens. The rich merchant was threatened with ruin, the poor man with the loss of his daily bread. The rents of wharf-holders ceased, and by the stoppage of the multifarious operations of a commercial city, all hands were reduced to idleness, and all heads given up with increased exasperation to the consideration of their political grievances. The Bostonians endured their sufferings with the most inflexible fortitude. Addresses and congratulations poured in upon them from all sides, and they received more substantial proofs of the sympa,thy of their fellow colonists, in contributions raised for their, relief, which, however, could but very partially mitigate the severity of their distress. If the English government, whose policy was always to foment a collision of interests between the different colonists, flattered themselves that the inhabitants of Salem would secretly rejoice at a measure that promised to enrich themselves, they were speedily disabused. The inhabitants of that port concluded an address to General Gage In terms most honourable to their patriotic sympathy. " By shutting up the port of Boston, some imagine that the course of trade might be turned hlt];ier, and for our benefit, but nature. In the formation of our harbour, forbids our becoming rivals in commerce to that convenient mart ; and were it otherwise, we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to every feeling of humanity, could we indulge one thought to seize on wealth, and raise ourselves on the ruins of our suffering neighbours." The inhabitants of Marblehead also generously offered to the Boston mer- chants the free use of their wharves and warehouses, and their personal attendance upon the lading and unlading of their goods. The sitting of the representatives of Massachusetts, who assembled at Boston on the 25th of ^fay, Avas perhaps the most anxious hitherto ever known In the history of the colony. The first act of the governor Avas to in- form them that he should in a few days adjourn them to Salem, where he expected they would be less under the control of popular influence. He also stretched his jircrogatlve to the utmost by giving his negative to thirteen of the liberal members chosen by the assembly for the council, and among whom were Bowdoin, Quincy, and John Adams. The representatives adopted resolutions advising the people to be firm and patient, and to adhere with inflexible steadiness to the non-Importation agreement. Shortly after, the court of representatives removed to Salem. There, on the 17th of June, they proceeded to adopt and sign " a solemn league and covenant," and to vote a committee of members to attend the general congress to meet next September at Philadelphia, and to vote a suitable provision for their expenses. The governor having received from a political friend among the members some intimation of what was going forward, despatched his secretary to dissolve the assembly. Samuel Adams, hoAvever, secured the key, and locked the doors of the chamber, until the proceedings had been terminated, while the secre- 1774.] PREPARATIONS FOR AN OPEN STRUGGLE. 335 taiy, wlio had forced his way into the house, v^as compelled to stand without and read his proclamation on the staircase. The delegates chosen to congress were Bowdoin, Gushing, Paine, Samuel Adams, and John Adams. How im- portant was the moment, and how anxious the feelings it excited, may be best gathered from an entry made on this occasion in the diary of the last-named patriot. It is related of him, that being advised by a friend not to accept of the appointment of delegate, as Great Britain was determined to subdue the colonies, and her power was irresistible, he replied that, " as to his fate, the die was cast ; the Rubicon was passed ; sink or swim, live or die — to survive or perish with his country was his unalterable resolution." His perturbation was nevertheless extreme. " There is," he writes, " a new and a grand scene open before me, a congress. This will be an assembly of the wisest men upon the continent, who are Americans in principle, that is, against the taxation of Americans by authority of parliament. I feel myself unequal to this business. A more extensive knowledge of the realm, the colonies, and of commerce, as well as law and policy, is necessary, than I am master of. What can be done ? Will it be expedient to propose an annual congress of committees ? To petition ? Will it do to petition at all ? To the king ? to the Lords ? to the Commons ? What will such consultations avail ? Deliberations alone will not do. We must petition, or recommend the assemblies to petition, or — " The ideas of people are as various as their faces. One thinks, no more petitions — former having been neglected and despised. Some are for resolves, spirited resolves ; and some are for bolder counsels. I wander alone and ponder, I muse, I mope, I ruminate. I am often in reveries and brown studies. The objects before me are too grand and multifarious for my com- prehension. We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, in education, in travel, in fortune, in every thing. I feel unutterable anxiety. God grant us wisdom and fortitude. Should the opposition be suppressed, should this country submit, what infamy and ruin ! God forbid. Death in any form is less terrible." The advocates of the " bolder counsels " alluded to by Adams, were already preparing for an open struggle. The great bulk of the citizens formed themselves into companies, most of them headed by officers who had served in the late wars. The excitement rapidly spread, on all sides were to be seen the marching and exercising of militia regiments, the founding of bullets and the making of cartouches. By this time several English regi- ments had been concentrated about Boston, five of which were quartered in the town itself. A collision might be expected at any moment. Aware that the inhabitants were endeavouring to form magazines, Gage sent a body of sol- diers to seize some powder belonging to the province, lest it should be made use of for insurrectionary purposes. No sooner had this got wind, than the inhabitants flew to arms, and were with diflSculty restrained by their leaders from marching down to Boston to attack the garrison. Several councillors re- siding at Cambridge, who had been nominated by the crown, were tumultu- ously mobbed and compelled to resign their appointments. While the people 336 THE CONVENTION ASSUMES THE GOVERNMENT. [1774 •were in this excited state a report having by some means got abroad that the British ships were bombarding the town, in a few hours some thirty thousand militia-men were in motion towards Boston, and only turned back when they ascertained that the report was unfounded. Amidst this effer- vescence. Gage had deemed it but prudent to fortify Boston Neck, so as to command the only land access to the isthmus upon Avhich the town is built, and to place himself in security against any sudden surprise ; although as yet the communication between the city and the country was allowed to re- main undisturbed. The quarrel between the governor and the people was now open and un- disguised. A convention of popular delegates met and resolved, " that no obedience was due to either or any of the recent Acts of Parliament," and ex- horted the tax-gatherers not to pay over any money into the hands of govern- ment until it should be constitutionally organized. The governor retorted by declaring this and similar meetings " unlawful and traitorous," but to no purjjose. He soon found himself blockaded in Boston, without the 'shadow of power, the real administration of the province having been assumed by the convention. The recent Acts were completely nullified. Of the council- lors who had been appointed by Gage, some, apprehensive of popular violence, had resigned, and the rest were voted " obstinate and incorrigible enemies of their country." Juries refused to be sworn in, lest by so doing they should recognise the authority of the cro-svn. Such as ventured to oppose themselves to the popular feeling were tarred and feathered, and compelled to take refuge with tlic troops. The partisans and opponents of government, mutually call- ing each other " Tories " and " Bebcls," had commenced that career of dis- cord M'hich grew every day more bitter and envenomed, and 'svliich j)roved one of the most melancholy features in the revolutionary conflict. Some time previously, when Governor Hutchinson took his departure for England, many of the wealthier inhabitants of Boston had drawn up a com- plimentary address to him, but soon found that they had thereby rendered themselves the objects of general odium. They were stigmatized as "ad- dressers," and to avoid worse handling, were compelled to put forth a public recantation of their oifence. Dreading the pass to which things were coming, a hundred and twenty merchants of Boston now signed an address to Gage, who had replaced Hutchinson, exjDressing their Avillingness to pay for the tea destroyed. Others, who were desirous of peace at all events, revolted at seeing the ministers of religion lending their influence from the pulpit to inflame the popular clamour, and they protested also against the revolutionary tendency of the measures of the committee of correspondence. But vain was the attempt to stem the stream ; these efforts of the moderate party only led to a popular vote of confidence in the committee ; while by giving to the English ministry an erroneous idea that the rebellion was mainly the work of the mob, it tended still more strongly to fortify them in the fatal policy of coercion. On the 10th of August the Massachusetts delegates set out for Philadelphia, 1774. ] MEETING OF THE DELEGA TES A T PHILADELPHIA. 337 and were received with enthusiasm in the different towns in their way. By i the 4th of September all the delegates from the colonies had assembled, except those from North Carolina, who did not arrive till ten days afterwards ; and on the 5th the congress commenced its session. The number of its mem- bers Avas fifty-one, among Avhom the following, for ever illustrious in the American annals, deserve especial mention. They Avere Peyton Randolph, Kichard H. Lee, Patrick Henry, and George Washington, from Virginia ; Samuel Adams and John Adams, from Massachusetts ; Henry Middleton and John Kutledge, from South Carolina ; John Jay, of New York ; and WHliam Livingston, of New Jersey. The greater part of the delegates were men of property and consideration in their respective States, all animated with the same patriotic spirit, though differing widely among themselves as to the measures to adopt in the crisis which had summoned them together. It was determined, that each colony should have but one vote, that their session should be held with closed doors, and their transactions kept secret. Peyton Randolph was unanimously elected president, and Charles Thompson, secretary. They were then at liberty to commence their momentous deliberations, which were to decide upon the destinies of America. " The most eminent men of the various colonies were now," says Wirt, '' for the first time brought together, known to each other by fame, but personally strangers. The meeting was awfully solemn. The object which had called them together was of incalculable magnitude. The liberties of no less than three millions of people, with that of all their posterity, was staked on the wisdom and energy of their counsels. No wonder, then, at the long and deep silence which is said to have followed upon their organization ; at the anxiety with which the members looked round upon each other ; and the re- luctance which every individual felt to open a business so fearfully momentous. In the midst of this deep and death-like silence, and just Avhcn it was begin- ning to become ^painfully embarrassing, Mr. Henry arose slowly, as if borne down by the weight of the subject. After faltering, according to his habit, through a most impressive exordium, in which he merely echoed back the conscioiisness of every other heart, in deploring his inability to do justice to the occasion, he launched gradually into a recital of the colonial wrongs. Rising, as he advanced, with the grandeur of his subject, and glowing at length with all the majesty of the occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal man. Mr. Henry was followed by Mr. Richard Henry Lee, in a speech scarcely less powerful, and still more replete with classic eloquence. One spirit of ardent love of liberty pervaded every breast, and produced an unanimity as advantageous to the cause they advocated as it was unexpected and appalling to their adversaries." On receiving the resolutions of the Massachusetts convention, congress resolved that they were entirely legitimate, and that every person who should accept any office under the new and illegal form of government " ought to be held in abhorrence, and considered the wicked tool of that despotism which 2 X 338 PBOCELDINGS OF THE FIRST CONGRESS. [1774. was preparing to destroy those rights which God, nature, and compact had given to America. To define these rights a committee of two from each province was appointed to draw np a series of resolutions, which were ratified by the whole congress. These were declared to consist in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property ; the privilege of submitting to no law which they had not consented to by their representatives. The sole legislative power was declared to belong to the colonial assemblies, but the right of enacting laws for the honajide regulation of trade was conceded, unless for the purpose of raising taxes, either internal or external. Trial by a local jury, and the right of public meetings and petitions, were also claimed. A protest was made against standing armies maintained in the colonies without their consent. Immunities hitherto enjoyed by the colonies, whether by charter or custom, were claimed as rights, which the mother country could not abrogate. They then pro- ceeded to enumerate those Acts " adopted since the late war, which demon- strated a system formed to enslave America. These were — the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the two Quartering Acts, the Tea Act, the Act suspending the New York Legislature, the Acts for transmitting offenders to England for trial, the Boston Port Bill, the Act for regulating the government of Massachusetts, and lastly, the Quebec Act. " To these grievous acts and measures," they proceed to say, " America cannot submit ; but in hopes their fellow countrymen in Great Britain will, on a revision of them, restore us to that state in which both countries found happiness and prosperity, we have, for the present, only resolved to pursue the following jDcaceable measures : 1. To enter into a non-importation association. 2. To prepare an address to the people of Great Britain, and a memorial to the inhabitants of British America. And, 3. To prepare a loyal address to his Majesty. To give effect to the first of these resolutions, an agreement called the '' American Association," was signed by all the members of congress, pledging them to a total commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies. The importation of slaves was expressly prohibited. Domestic maniifactures were also to be encouraged ; and to watch over the carrying out of these resolutions, committees were to be appointed to detect and publish the names of all such as infringed them, who were to be held as " enemies of American liberty," and with whom all dealings were in con- sequence to be broken off. The address to the people of Great Britain was draAvn up by John Jay. After enumerating the grievances of which the Americans complained, it alludes in the following energetic style to the prejudices commonly entertain- ed against them. " You have been told," say they, '' that we are seditious, impatient of government, and desirous of independency. Be assm-ed that these are not facts, but calumnies. Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness ; we shall ever be ready to contribute all in our power to the welfare of the whole empire ; we shall consider your enemies as our ene- mies, and your interest as our own. But if you are determined that your 1774.] ADDRESS OF CONGRESS TO THE KING. 339 ministers shall wantonly sport with the rights of mankind ; if neither the voice of justice, the dictates of the law, the principles of the constitution, or the suggestions of humanity, can restrain your hands from shedding human blood in subh an impious cause, we must then tell you, that we will never submit to be hewers of wood or drawers of water for any ministry or nation in the world." The address to the king was the work of Dickenson, and abounds in pro- fessions of loyalty which, if they may be deemed inconsistent with the acts of congress, were in themselves perfectly sincere. " Permit us then, most grr cious sovereign, in the name of all your faithful people in America, with th*. utmost humility to implore you, for the honour of Almighty God, whose pure religion our enemies are undermining ; for your glory, which can be advanced only by rendering your subjects happy, and keeping them imited ; for the interests of your family, depending on an adherence to the principles that enthroned it ; for the safety and welfare of your kingdoms and dominions, threatened with almost unavoidable dangers and distresses ; that your INIa- jesty, as the loving father of your whole people, connected by the same bonds of law, loyalty, faith, and blood, though dwelling in various countries, will not suifer the transcendent relation formed by these ties to be further violated, in uncertain expectations of effects that, if obtained, never can compensate for the calamities through which they must be gained." The address to the inhabitants of Canada, also drawn up by Dickenson, striving to awaken them to a joint resistance, could not fail to give the deepest offence to the ministry, and was, besides, entirely unsuccessful in its object. Such were the principal measures of the first continental congress, and they were not carried without much opposition and controversy. " Every man in this assembly," wrote John Adams to his wife, " is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore every man, upon every question, must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities. The consequence is, that business is spun out to an immeasurable length." Great difference besides existed as to the extent to which resistance to Great Britain should be carried, and as to the hopes of a final accommodation. The Adamses, who had borne \}ie brunt of the struggle in Massachusetts, despaired. Lee was very sanguine. " We shall undoubtedly carry all our points," he said. " You will be com- pletely relieved, all the offensive Acts will be repealed, the army and the fleet will be recalled, and Britain will give up her foolish projects. Others, among whom was Washington, had little faith in petitions and remonstrances, and Gadsden from South Carolina even proposed to attack Gage and drive him at once from Boston. Thus, as Guizot well observes, " Men of very different dispositions met together. Some full of respect and attachment to the mother country, others passionately absorbed in that American fatherland which was rising under their eyes and by their hands ; the former grieved and anxious, the latter daring and confident, but all governed and united by the same feeling of dignity, a like resolve of resistance, giving free play to the variety of their ideas and fancies, 'Avithout any lasting or wide division occurring be- 2x2 340 WASHINGTON'S POSITION IN CONGRESS. [1774. tween them. On the contrary, respecting one another in their reciprocal liberty, and discussing the great affair of the country together with conscienti- ous respect, with that spii-it of mutual deference and of justice, which assures success and makes its purchase less costly." The secrecy which veiled the debates concealed thcii- differences from the eye of the public, who looked up to them as men upon whom was worthily imposed the task of extricating their country from her difficulties, and regarded their recommendations as having all the force of law. This session of congress had the effect of introducing to each other's per- sonal knowledge the most eminent men in America, and of preparing them to act in concert. One of the members was Joseph Galloway, who afterwards be- came a royalist, and has given some glimpses of the personages behind the scenes. Of Samuel Adams he says, " He eats little, drinks little, sleeps little, thinks much, and is most indefatigable in the pursuit of his object. It was this man who, by his superior application, managed at once the factions in congress and the factions of New England." No one however made greater progress in the estimation of his fellow members than Washington, although far from being among the most prominent debaters. It is said that shortly after the return of the members, Patrick Henry was asked whom he thought the greatest man in congress. " If you speak of eloquence," he replied, " Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina is by far the greatest orator ; but if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, ' Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on that floor." Congress adjourned a session of four months. The firmness and dignity of their proceedings, and the style of the state papers they put forth, were justly regarded as extraordinary. " When your Lordshij)s," said Pitt to the British senate, " have perused the papers transmitted to us from America, when you consider the dignity, the firmness, and the wisdom with which Americans have acted, you cannot but respect their cause. History, my Lords, has been my favourite study, and in the celebrated writings of antiquity, I have often admired the patriotism of Greece and Rome ; but, my Lords, I must declare and avow that, in the master states of the world, I know not the people nor the senate who, in such a complication of difficult circumstances, can stand in pre- ference to the delegates of America assembled in general congress at Phila- delphia. I trust it is obvious to your Lordships, that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty conti- nental nation, must be vain — must be futile." In almost all the colonies power had already fallen from the hands of the royal governors, into that of provincial assemblies acting independently of them. Gage had convoked a general court of representatives to meet at Salem, but fearing the spirit which animated the people, had judged it more prudent to countermand it. The delegates however insisted that the governor had no right to remand them, and after waiting a whole day for his appearance, resolved themselves into a provincial congress, and adjourned to Concord. John Hancock was chosen as their president. Hence they despatched an address 1774.] INSTITUTION OF THE "MINUTE MEN.'' 341 to Gage, still ardent in protestations of loyalty to the Mng, but complaining of the recent Acts of Parliament, and particularly of the fortifications recently erected at Boston. Gage replied with some Avarmth, that he had no inten- tion of invading their liberties ; but when threats, of open resistance were every where rife, and military companies were abeady forming, he could not renounce his defensive preparations. He expressed a wish for reconcili- ation, and earnestly required them to desist from their illegal proceedings. Far from listening to his advice, the Massachusetts congress, now adjourned to Cambridge, proceeded to organize a Committee of Safety, with power to call out the militia, together with a Committee of Defence, empowered to raise money for the supply of military stores. The tax-gatherers were required to pay the taxes into the hands of the congress. In a subsequent session they voted a levy of twelve thousand men, one fourth of whom were to be called " minute men," from their holding themselves ready to march at a mo- ment's notice. Jedediah Preble, an old officer of the militia, Seth Pomeroy, who had fought at the battle of Lake George, with Artemas Ward, a civilian, were commissioned as generals. It was determined, however, that the British should not be attacked, unless they proved the first aggressors by marching into the interior of the country. A circular was also sent round to the clergy, urging them to use their influence in animating the spirit of the peoj)le, to which, for the most part, they heartily responded. The position of Gage be- came every day more critical. He was virtually shut up in Boston, and even there he had no support but in the military and government officials. The winter was approaching, and he was unable to procure materials to erect quarters for his soldiers. The straAV he had purchased was set on fire, his timber seized, and so great was the detestation of the people, that he was un- able to procure either workmen, clothing, or provisions. At Newport, Rhode Island, the people removed from the public battery forty pieces of cannon, and when Captain Wallace, on his return from a cruise, called upon Governor Wanton to demand the meaning of this act, the latter frankly avowed to him that " it had been done to prevent them falling into the hands of the king, or any of his servants, and that they meant to make use of it against any poAver that should offer to molest them." This happened in consequence of the receipt of a royal proclamation, prohibiting the export of military stores to America. This proclamation was forwarded from Boston, by Paul Pevere, one of the most active patriots, to the committee at Ports- mouth, who were not slow to act upon the hint, for the day after Eevere's arrival, a large body collected and took forcible possession of Fort William Mary, broke open the powder-house, and carried away all the powder and ammunition in the place. With the sole exception of Georgia, Avhere the influence of the governor prevailed, the rest of the colonies warmly approved and sanctioned the re- commendations of the colonial congress, and copied the example of the Massa- chusetts convention. In Maryland, the popular convention had assumed all the powers of government, and called out the militia. South Carolina had 342 THE QUAKERS DECLARE THEIR LOYALTY. [1774. acted in the same way. Greater diiference of feeling was manifested in Phila- delphia, where the Quaker party put forth a " testimony " at their annual meeting, in which their members were called upon to " unite in abhorrence of every measure and writing tending to break off the happy connexion of the colonies with the mother country, or to interrupt their just submission to the king." Such might be regarded as the general language of the royalists, or Tory party, numbering in that city a large proportion of the wealthier inhabit- ants. On the other hand, those citizens, dissatisfied with the tone adopted by the assembly of representatives, formed a convention in which they declared it to be their duty " to defend the rights and liberties of America by force." In New York, where the royalist and Episcopalian influence was very strong, the assembly declined to sanction the measures of congress, though they forwarded to Burke, their agent, petitions to parliament scarcely less decided in their tenor. Notwithstanding these local differences, never perhaps was there a people so united in their opposition to a foreign power. To quote the language of Dr. Warren, already cited as one of the most ardent advocates of colonial liberty, and destined unhappily to prove among its earliest sacri- fices : " It is the united voice of America, to jDreserve their freedom or lose their lives in defence of it. Their resolutions are not the results of inconsider- ate rashness, but the sound result of sober inquiry and deliberation. I am convinced that the true spirit of liberty was never so universally diffused through all ranks and orders of people, in any country on the face of the earth, as it now is through all North America." Of the state of things in Boston at this period a lively picture is given by Botta. " The garrison was formidable, the fortifications imposing, so that there was little hope of wresting the city from the hands of the British. Nor could the inhabitants flatter themselves with the hope of escaping by sea, inasmuch as the harbour was blockaded by a squadron. Shut up thus in the midst of an irritated soldiery, the citizens beheld themselves exposed to all the outrage that might be dreaded from military licence. Their city was become for them a confined prison, and they themselves but hostages in the hands of the Eng- lish general. This consideration was alone sufficient to embarrass all the military and civil operations projected by the Americans. Various means were proposed to extricate them from so cruel a position, and if they displayed no very great prudence, they gave proof at least of extraordinary determina- tion. Some persons suggested that all the inhabitants should evacuate the city, to take refuge in other places, where they should be maintained at the common expense. But this was impracticable, since it was open to General Gage to opipose its being carried out. Certain individuals then proposed that the houses and furniture of the inhabitants should be valued, and the city set on fire, these losses to be paid for out of the jDublic treasury. After a grave inquiry, this project was decided to be not only very difficult, but even hn- possible to execute. Nevertheless, many of the inhabitants quitted the city by stealth, and retired into the interior of the country, some out of disgust at che sort of captivity in which they were held, others for fcai' of imminent 1775.] ATTEMPT TO SEIZE THE STORES AT CONCORD. 343 hostilities, or lastly, in the apprehension that they might be dragged before a court of justice as criminals of state. Still a great number determined not to stir out of Boston, and to brave all hazards, whatever they might be. The soldiers of the garrison, weary of seeing themselves shut up, demanded to be led against the rebels who intercepted their provisions, and for whom they entertained the most supreme contempt. The people of Massachusetts, on their jiart, were indignant at hearing themselves accused of cowardice by the soldiers, and longed for an opportunity of proving by some signal revenge, the falsity of such reproaches." The wished-for opportunity was not long in presenting itself. General Gage had already sent to seize some military stores at Salem, when a collision was with difficulty prevented. He now received information that another supply had been deposited at Concord, distant about eighteen miles from Boston. Every possible precaution had been taken by the patriots against a sudden surprise. At Charlestown, Cambridge, and Box- bury men were stationed to keep an eye upon the movement of the troops, signals were agreed upon, and expresses kept ready to carry information into the country. In Boston itself there were always persons ready to penetrate the designs of the general, who was driven to all sorts of expedients in order to disguise his plans. Samuel Adams and John Hancock had been obliged to retire to Lexington, and the painful divisions Avhich agitated society are well illustrated by the fact, that the former received a private message from a " daughter of liberty," herself the wife of a royalist, that an expedition was shortly expected, warning them to look to their personal safety. On the 18th of April General Gage sent out a party of officers, ostensibly to dine and spend the day in amusement at Cambridge, but Avho, when night came on, dis- persed themselves on the road to Lexington and Concord, ready to intercept any expresses who might be sent to give notice of his designs. A body of troops was then secretly got ready, who embarking about eleven at night at the foot of Boston common, crossed the river Charles, and landing at Phipps' farm in Cambridge, marched on rapidly and silently towards Concord. But the patriots were on the alert, for Dr. Warren, who received notice of the ex- pedition only just before the embarkation of the troops, hurried off several expresses ; and though some were intercepted, one of them succeeded in eluding the patrols, and speedily raised the alarm, which, by the firing of signal guns and the ringing of church bells, and volleys of musketry, flew rapidly over hill and dale until ihe whole country-side was fully aroused. It was about five in the morning when the troops marched into Lexington. A body of about seventy minute-men had assembled upon the green in front of the church to oppose their further progress. It was a critical moment, most trying to the courage of the colonists. The bravery of the British troops was proverbial — they were the victors in a thousand fights ; a secret feeling of their inferiority to them, as mere soldiers, might well have lurked at the bottom of every patriot's heart at that decisive moment ; yet they determined to make a st.md, and perish as an example to their countrymen. The little band stood firm while Major Pitcairn, riding forAvard, exclaimed in a threatening voice. 344 THE ''MINUTE MEN'' FLY TO ARMS. [1775. *' Disperse, you rebels! throw down your arms and disperse." Notbeing attended to, he discharged his pistol and ordered his men to fire. The order was instantly obeyed ; several of the militia fell dead ; the others retired, returning the fire of the soldiers ; but as the latter advanced, scattered and fled on all sides. This was the first resistance offered by the Americans, and it showed what stuff" they were made of, and by what spirit they were animated. " One of the victims, Jonas Parker, had been heard to say, that, be the consequences what they might, and let others do as they please, he would never run from the enemy. He was as good as his word — better. Having loaded his musket, he placed his hat containing his ammunition on the ground before his feet, in readiness for a second charge. At the second fire he was wounded, and sunk on his knees, and in this condition discharged his gun, Wliile loading it again upon his knees, and striving in the agonies of death to redeem his pledge, he was transfixed by a bayonet, and thus died on the spot where he stood and fell." After assembling on the green, and firing off* three volleys in triumph over the militia, the troops now marched on to Concord. The minute-men of that place had assembled on a hill in front of the meeting-house, but seeing the strong force by which they were threatened, they crossed the bridge to another rising ground in the rear of the town. The bridge was immediately seized by the troops and a strong guard posted there, while another was detached into the town to destroy the stores, which they successfully accomplished, dis- abling two cannon, throwing a quantity of ball into the rivers and wells, and breaking in pieces about sixty barrels of flour. While they were thus en- gaged the militia on the hill were receiving reinforcements, and Major But- trick of Concord came forward to lead them against the enemy, carefully warn- ing them however not to fire unless first fired upon. They descended the hill and advanced towards the bridge, the planks of which were being removed by the English soldiers. As Buttrick approached, he remonstrated with a loud tone against this proceeding, and ordered his men to quicken their step. Seeing that the Americans were determined to pass the bridge, the soldiers fired a volley into the'ir midst, and one or two of them fell dead on the spot. On this Buttrick loudly exclaimed to his men — " Fire, fellow soldiers, for God's sake, fire!" The order flew with electric speed along the American line, and Avas re-echoed by hundreds of voices. The citizens fired, and hurry- ing over the bridge, pursued the English, who immediately commenced a precipitate retreat. By this time the country was fully aroused, the militia- men seemed, to use the words of an English officer, " to drop from the clouds." The farmer left his plough, and ran for his gun, and from every quarter the minute-men sAvarmed down to the road-side, lining the hedges, posting themselves in nooks and corners, harassing at once the front, flank, and rear of their retreating enemies, and picking them off at advantage, as they hurriedly retreated towards Lexington. Suffering most severely from this galling fire, exhausted by the heat and dust, their leader Avounded, and disorder rapidly increasing, it is probable the whole detachment would have been cut off, had not Gage most opportunely happened to despatch to 1775.] THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON, 345 theii sujjport a column of nine hundred men under the command of Lord Percy, with a couple of pieces of artillery, who, as the fugitives reached Lex- ington, formed his troops into a hollow square to receive them. Exhausted by their long march, the tired soldiers lay down for rest on the ground, their tongues hanging out of then- mouths, like those of hounds after a chase. The artillery kept the assailants at bay, and as soon as the men had recovered a little from their fatigue, the retreat recommenced in perfect order, Percy throwing out flanking parties to cover his main body. But it was like run- ning tlie gauntlet the whole way ; the numbers of the minute-men continually increased, and acquainted as they were with the best vantage ground, and all of them excellent marksmen, they kept up an irregular but deadly fire upon the retreating soldiers, three hundred of whom were killed or wounded. The main body, almost exhausted with fatigue, at length, after a march of five and tliirty miles, reached Bunker HiU at sun-set, and encamped for the night, under cover of the ships of war in the river. The next day they crossed over into the city. Such was the issue of this momentous skirmish, the melancholy forerunner of a long and sanguinary war. The royal troops were desperately chagrined at being compelled to retreat before a crowd of undisciplined and, as they had hitherto regarded them, contemptible Yankees. On the other hand, the Ameri- cans had discovered that the boasted English troops were not invincible, and their courage and determination were elevated to an enthusiastic pitch. Both parties however strove to cast on each other the blame of having first pro- ceeded to extremities. General Gage had given express orders that the troops should fire only in case they were attacked. The English affirmed that the Lexington militia fired first, which, though their withstanding the progress of the king's troops could not be construed into any thing short of an overt act of hostility, was certainly not the case. Both parties reproached each other moreover with horrible instances of cruelty. The Massachusetts convention, being then in session, despatched a special packet to England to prove that the troops had fij'ed first. It was accompanied with an address to the people of Great Britain, in which, appealing to HeaYen for the justice of their cause, they declare their intention to die or to be free ; and while still professing loyalty to the king, express their determination " not tamely to submit to the persecution and tyranny of his evil ministry." This address was committed to Franklin, upon whom, as their agent, its publication devolved ; but deeply wounded at the treatment he had personally received, and finding that aU hopes of reconciliation were likely to prove abortive, he had already set sail on his return to Philadelphia. The news of the afiair of Lexington— the first blood shed in the defence of liberty upon the American soil, produced an extraordinary excitement, vary- ing of course according to the feelings and convictions of its recipients. By the more ardent patriots, secretly anxious to throw off the allegiance of England, it was welcomed as the signal of a deadly and incurable quarrel ; and by those who yet hoped for a reconciliation with the parent country, it was, 2 T 346 THE MINISTERS EXGOVR AGE THE PATRIOTS. [1775. for the same reason, regarded with unfeigned sorrow and alarm. The ge- neral effect was incontestably to inflame the ardent and to confirm the timid, to unite all classes in a feeling of intense bitterness towards the ministers who, by their criminal obstinacy, had stained the once happy plains of America with the blood of her own citizens, and to give a great impulse towards the growing desire for independence. These feelings cannot be better expressed than in a letter written not long afterwards by Franklin, who, after his ineffectual at- tempts at conciliation, had recently returned from England, and been chosen a member of the Pennsylvania assembly, to his old friend Strahan, the king's printer, with whom, during his sojourn in London, he had been upon terms of intimate and playfal familiarity. To his old companion, a steady supporter of Lord North's administration, he now writes in the follow- ing indignant strain : " You are a member of parliament, and one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands ! They are stained with the blood of your relations ! You and I were long friends — you are now my enemy, and I am yours." If one of the most pacific of human beings, and who detested war alike upon moral and economical principles, could be thus exasperated by that oppression which makes the wise man mad, we may easily conceive what must have been the feelings of the more ardent and excitable of the people. Scarcely had the news of the battle arrived, when a great pxiblic meeting was held at Philadelphia, at which, in spite of the more pacific of the citi- zens, a volunteer military association was formed, towards the expenses of which the assembly, which met shortly after, voted a cou'siderable sum. The solemn sanction of religion was also given by the clergy to the cause of American liberty. It has been already observed, that the Congregationalist ministers of New England were extremely jealous of the introduction of Epis- copalianism, and a project of this kind, with which they had been .recently threatened, had given equal alarm and offence. Justly regarding the cause of civil and religious liberty as identical, they were easily induced to throw the weight of their influence into the popular scale. The Presbyterians j'/iturally sympathized with the Congregationalists in a traditionary dislike to 'Jclq. predominance of English influence, with which Episcopalianism was natur- ally identified. Accordingly, after the affair of Lexington, which was regarded as an act of overt hostility, the synods of New York and Philadelphia published a pastoral letter, which was read in all the churches, and produced an immense influence on the minds of the people. Hitherto, they declared, not willing to be instruments of discord between the colonists and their brethren, they had abstained from pronouncing an opinion ; but now, in the altered state of affairs, they declared that they could no longer hesitate in counselling their flocks to take up arms, under the full belief that the cause of oppressed America was the cause of Heaven. Some attempt at conciliation was made by John Penn, one of the descendants of the great founder of Pennsylvania, and the last of the roval "'ovcrnors of that state. In obedience to his instructions he laid before 1755.] BENEDICT ARNOLD OFFERS HIS SERVICES. 347 the assen .bly the proposition of Lord North, observing " that, as being the first assembly to whom it had been communicated, they would deservedly be re- vered by the latest posterity, if by any means they could be instrumental in restoring public tranquillity, and rescuing both countries from the horrors of a civil war<" They refused however to adopt it, even should it prove to be unexceptionable, without the advice and consent of their sister colonies, who, united by just motives and mutual faith, were guided by general councils. TJie Massachusetts congress now proceeded to improve the recent success, and give a profitable and permanent direction to the martial spirit of the people, by the formation of twenty-seven regiments, consisting of thirteen thou- sand men, and by calling upon the neighbouring States to make up the num- ber to thirty thousand ; an appeal that was responded to Avith spirit. Volunteer companies were formed, some of .hem under the command of men who after- wards became famous in the progress of the war. Conspicuous among these was the fiery and impetuous Benedict Arnold, who combined the trades of a druggist and bookseller — " from London," who was at that time captain of the governor of Connecticut's guards, at Newhaven. No sooner did the news of the skirmish at Lexington reach that place, than Arnold, leaving to others the custody of his books and gallipots, summoned his corps and proposed to start instantly for a more congenial scene of action. About forty of his company con- sented to go. Arnold then requested the town authorities to furnish him with ammunition, sending in Avord that if the keys were not delivered to him in five minutes, he would break in and help himself. The keys were delivered, the ammunition secured, and Arnold marched off with his corps to Cambridge, where its discipline was so superior that it was selected to deliver to General Gage the body of a British officer who had died of wounds received at Lex- ington. Another kindred spirit was Colonel Ethan Allen, who had emigrated from Connecticut to Vermont, and had taken a prominent part in the disputes that arose between the settlers and the State of New York. He was a tall, sinewy man, a perfect dare-devil in courage, of fervid patriotism, with a wild, eccentric enthusiasm peculiar to himself. A singular story is related of him by Eivington, the king's printer, who was one of the politest men in Boston, and highly fashionable in his dress, — wore curled and powdered hair, claret-coloured coat, scarlet waistcoat trimmed with gold lace, buck-skin breeches, and top-boots ; and he kept the best society. As a royalist, he greatly despised the rebels, and had made some remarks in his journal which so irritated Ethan Allen that he threatened " ro chastise him for it on the first opportunity." " I was sitting," says E-ivington, " after a good dinner alone, with my bottle of Madeira before me, when I heard an unusual noise in the street, and a huzza from the boys. I was in the second story, and, stepping to the window, saw a tall Jigiire in tarnislied regimentals, with a large cocked hat and an enor- mous long sword, followed by "a crowd of boys, who occasionally cheered him with huzzas, of which he seemed insensible. He came up to my door and stopped. I could see no more. My heart told me it was Ethan Allen. I shut down my window, and retired behind my table and bottle. I was cer- 2 T 2 348 ETHAN- ALLEN AND JAMES RIVINGTON. [1775. tain the hour of reckoning had come. There was no retreat. Mr. Staples, my clerk, came in paler than ever, and clasping his hands, said, ' Master, he is come ! ' * I know it.' ' He entered the store and asked ' if James liivington lived there.' I answered, * Yes, sir.' ' Is he at home ? ' ' I will go and see, sir,' I said. And now, master, what is to be done ? There he is in the store, and the hoys peeping at him from the street.' I had made up my mind. I looked at the bottle of Madeira — possibly took a glass. ' Show him up,' said I ; ' and if such Madeira cannot mollify him, he must be harder than adamant.* There was a fearful moment of suspense. I heard him on the stairs, his long sword clanking at every step. In he stalked. ' Is your name James Rivington ? ' ' It is, sir, and no man could be more happy than I am to see Colonel Ethan Allen.' * Sir, I have come — ' ' Not another word, my dear colonel, until you have taken a seat and a glass of old Madeira.' * But, sir, I don't think it proper — ' * Not another word, colonel. Taste this wine ; I have had it in glass for ten years. Old wine, you know, unless it is originally sound, never improves by age.' He took the glass,- swallowed the wine, smacked his lips, and shook his head approvingly. ' Sir, I come — ' * Not another word until you have taken another glass, and then, my dear colonel, we will talk of old affairs, and I have some droll events to detail.' In short, Ave finished two bottles of Ma- deira, and parted as good friends as if we never had cause to be otherwise." Such was this gunpowder captain, whom nothing but wine could mollify. Putnam too, who, as we have already seen, had served with great distinction during the Canadian wars, and now a veteran of sixty-five, hastened from his plough to join the insurgents. Another body of volunteers from Ehode Island also repaired to the camp under the command of Nathaniel Greene, a young Quaker, but of too warlike a turn of mind to prove an acceptable member of that community. He was appointed a brigadier-general, and afterwards became one of the most celebrated of the continental chiefs. By the junction of these different forces Boston was soon invested by an army of twenty thousand men, who, irregular as they were in discipline, had given abundant proof they were no longer to be regarded as contemptible opponents. Arnold and Allen speedily found an opportunity of displaying their enthu- siastic daring. In full -nticipation of a struggle, Samuel Adams and Dr. Warren had sent an agent into Canada to sound the temper of the people. He reported that they were but little disposed to join the Americans, and counselled the surprise of Ticondcroga upon the earliest outbreak of hostility. The enterprise was secretly concocted, and Allen, with a body of " Green Motlntain boys " from Vermont, was joined near Lake Champlain by a number of other volunteers. Arnold, burning to distinguish himself, and having, it is supposed, got wind of the intended expedition, contrived to obtain the com- mand of it from the provincial congress, and hurried down to the scene of action, but on producing his commission found, to his great chagrin, that the fellow mountaineers of Allen refused to follow any other leader than himself. Re- solved to share in the glory of the enterprise if he could not assume its com- mand, Arnold then attached himself to the expedition in the capacity of a 1775.] CAPTURE OF TICONDEBOGA AND CROWN POINT. 349 simple volunteer. The whole body now marched, down to the shores of the lake opposite to Ticonderoga, where, as no attack was dreamed of, the vigil- ance of the garrison was very greatly relaxed ; and a guide being found Avho was acquainted with every secret way about the fortress, Allen and Ai'nold crossed over during the night with about eighty of their men, the rest being unable to follow them for want of a supply of boats. Landed under the walls of the fort, they found their position extremely critical ; the dawn was begin- ning to break, and unless they could succeed in instantly surprising the gar- rison, they ran themselves the most imminent risk of capture. Ethan Allen did not hesitate a moment, but, drawing up his men, briefly explained to them the position of affairs, and then, with Arnold by his side, hurried up immediately to the sally-port. The sentinel snapped his fusee at them, and rushing into the fort, the Americans followed close at his heels, and entering the open parade, awoke the sleeping garrison with a tremendous shout of triumph. The English soldiers started from their beds, hvirried on their arms and rushed below, and were immediately taken prisoners and obliged to capitulate. Meanwhile Allen, attended by his guide, hurried up to the chamber of the commandant, Captain La Place, who was in bed with his wife, and knocking at his door with the hilt of his huge sword, ordered him in a stentorian voice to make his instant appearance, or the entire garrison should immediately be put to death. To the commandant, just awakened, all this seemed like a dream, and as he opened the door, but half dressed, Avith his terrified wife peeping over his shoulder, he authoritatively demanded the meaning of this incomprehensible summons. " I order you instantly to surrender," roared Allen. "But by what authority do you demand it?" inquired the bewildered officer. " In the name of the Great Jehovah and the continental congress, by G — d," was the thundering reply : to which Allen gave additional em- phasis by flourishing his long sword to and fro like a madman above La Place's head. The latter knew not what to make of it, but had no alter- native but to give up the place to his combustible captor ; and the fort and stores were accordingly surrendered. Another body followed up this success by surprising Crown Point. The continental congress, which had then but just opened its second session, and in whose name Allen had boldly captured the fortress, had as little expected as they had authorized this achievement : they gave orders that the cannon and stores should be removed to the south end of Lake George, and an exact inventory of them taken, " in order that they may be safely returned when the restoration of harmony between Great Britain and the colonies, so ardently desired by the latter, shall i-ender it prudent and consistent with the overpowering law of self-preservation." It is unnecessary to say that that period was never destined to arrive. .^ The state of American affairs about the opening of parliament was justly regarded with the greatest anxiety, both by the government, the opposition, and the people at large. " It had been hoped," says Botta, " and the ministers themselves had confidently predicted, that the recent enactments, and espe- cially the troops that were sent over to the colonies, would promptly extin- 850 0PP0SITI02T TO THE HOME GOVEENMEKT. [1775. guish sedition, and reduce the factious to obedience. It was not dotibtcd but that the partisans of the royal cause, encouraged by the presence of the soldiers, ■would display great energy, and join themselves to the royal troops, in order to establish the authority of government. There was a profound conviction that the southern provinces, when they beheld the storm about to burst upon them, would not embrace the quarrel of those of the north, and it seemed beyond a doubt that the dissensions which divided one from the other Avould bring about the submission of the whole. But these hopes had been completely frustrated. The popular movements, which at first had been but partial, now extended over the whole continent. The governors, far from having re-established the royal authority, had been compelled to fly and take refuge on board the ships. The Americans, who had been represented as trembling and ready to yield, displayed every day increasing strength and audacity." There is no doubt that the obstinacy of ministers had at first been greatly fortified by the belief that the number of the discontented was comparatively small, that their leaders were turbulent and unimportant, and that the mass of the respectable inhabitants only awaited the display of energy on the part of the government in order to throw their influence into the scale and reduce the factious to obedience. Nor was this delusion, Avhich continued for a long time afterwards to influence the proceedings of government, without some ap- pearance of foundation. The royal governors and ofiiciak had always per- sisted in holding this language, and besides, the partisans of the English wire really very numerous, esjiecially among the more wealthy and influential classes. This was known to be more particularly the case in New York and the southern provinces. Franklin, it is true, had endeavoured, but -oithout effect, to open the eyes of ministers to the truth, but in the disunited state of the colonies, and in the prej^onderance of loyalty among the inhabitants, it was supposed that a very small display of force would suflice to reduce the dis- affected. The British officers, who entertained strong prejudices against the colonists, and looked down upon them with a contemptuous feeling of supe- riority, boasted, and doubtless believed, that at the head of a few regiments they could march triumphantly from one end of America to the other. Ac- cordingly, far from sending over a really imposing force, government had contented themselves with despatching such a handful of men as, without in- timidating the colonists, had only stimulated them to increased opposition; and such is the inconsistency of party spirit, that this very reluctance to put forth a crushing display of power was now accused by those very members of the opposition Avho had been the fij'st to protest against the emplojnnent of force. A general election had taken place, but the result was decidedly in favour of the Tory party, and Lord North and his friends might count upon an overwhelming majority. It was by this time fully understood that the king was firmly resolved to reduce the rebellious colonists to obedience, and that no measures of concession were to be expected from his advisers. We have 17:4.] EXGLISH GO VERNMENT ASSERTS ITS A UTHORITT. 351 already remarked, that a conviction to this effect had da^oied slowly on the mind of Franklin, and that he had been at first disposed to regard the king as under the influence of his ministers, but was now fully convinced that the reverse of this was really the case. The pride of the monarch had engaged his advisers not to give way, but go on until America Avas reduced to obe- dience. In a conversation with Mr. Quincy, who had recently come over from Boston, Lord North, after reminding him of the power of England, declared his determination to exert it to the utmost in order to effect the sub- mission of the colonies. " We must try," said he, " what we can do to sup- port the authority we claim over America. If we are defective in power, we must sit down contented, and make the best terms we can, and nobody will blame us after we have done our utmost, but till we have tried what we can do we can never be justified in receding." Such was the feeling and policy of the ministry at the opening of the session in October, 1774. In his message to parliament, the king declared, '' that a most daring spirit of resistance and disobedience to the laws still un- happily prevailed in the province of Massachusetts, and had broken forth in fresh violences of a very criminal nature; and that these proceedings had been countenanced and encouraged in other of his colonies, and unwarrantable attempts had been made to obstruct the commerce of his kingdoms by unlaw- ful combinations ; and that he had taken such measures and given such orders as he judged most proper and effectual for carrying into execution the laws which were passed in the last session of the late parliament for the protection and security of the commerce of his subjects, and for restoring and preserving peace, order, and good government in the province of Massachusetts. The usual address in reply to the royal speech, though carried by a large majority, was not voted without a very spirited debate. Among the opponents of ministerial infatuation on this occasion was the celebrated John Wilkes, the leader of the rising popular party, and one of the earliest advocates of that so-called radical reform, which is now being gradually carried out in Eng- land. Horribly licentious in private life, he was no less the idol of the com- mon people. His principles naturally inclined him to espouse the cause of the Americans, and in the present instance he delivered himself with unusual and prophetic solemnity. After defending the colonists from the charges brought against them, and denouncing the measures intended to reduce them to obedience, he continued thus : " Whether their present state is that of re- bellion, or of a fit and just resistance to the unlawful acts of power, to our attempts to rob them of their property and liberties, as they imagine, I shall not declare. But I well know what will follow ; nor, however strange and harsh it may appear to some, shall I hesitate to announce it, that I may not be accused hereafter of having failed in my duty to my country, on so grave an occasion, and at the approach of such direful calamities. Know, then, a successful resistance is a revolution, not a rebellion. Rebellion, indeed, ap- pears on the back of a flying enemy, but revolution flames on the breastplate of the victorious warrior. Who can teU, whether in consequence of this day's 352 DISREGARD OF THE PETITION FROM CONGRESS. [1775. violent and mad address to his Majesty, the scabbard may not be thro^^Tl away by them as well as by us, and whether in a few years the independent Ameri- cans may not celebrate the glorious era of the Revolution of 1775, as we do that of 1668. You would declare the Americans rebels, and to your injustice and oppression you add the most opprobrious language, and the most insulting scoffs. If you persist in your resolution, all hope of a reconciliation is ex- tinct. The Americans will triumph, the whole continent of North America will be dismembered from Great Britain, and the wide arch of the raised em- pire fall. But I hope the just vengeance of the people will overtake the authors of these pernicious counsels, and the loss of the first province of the empire be speedily followed by the loss of the heads of those ministers who first invented them." Shortly afterwards, accounts of the proceedings of congress were received in England, which, by showing the imminence of the peril, gave increased ve- hemence to the feelings and language of the Whig opposition. On the 20th of January, the parliament having re-assembled, the venerable Lord Chatham, whose increasing infirmities had for a long time kept him absent from the House, moved that orders might be despatched to General Gage for the removal of the troops from Boston, a proposition which he supported with his accustomed earnestness. This motion of Lord Chatham's was seconded by Lord Camden, who affirmed that " whenever oppression begins resistance becomes lawful and right," and supported by the Marquis of Rockingham and Lord Shelburne, but in spite of his utmost efforts was lost by a very large majority. Determined to follow out their policy of comjiulsion, the ministry tinned a deaf ear not only to the strenuous efforts of the opposition, which they thought proper to attribute to party spirit, but also to the numerous petitions floAving in from London and other principal cities, which they referred for consider- ation to some future committee, well nick -named by the opposition, " a com- mittee of oblivion." The petition from the continental congress to the king shared the same fate. Franklin, Bollan, and Lee, to whose care it had been intrusted, desired to be heard by counsel at the bar of the House, but their request was refused on the ground that the congress was an illegal assembly. Lord Chatham next introduced a new measure of conciliation, respecting which he had consulted Franklin, who, though certain alterations he had sketched had not been introduced, was requested by his Lordship to be pre- sent at the debates upon it. Franklin accordingly repaired to the bar of the House of Lords. The bill provided that no tax should be levied upon the Americans without their consent ; but on the other hand it required a full ac- knowledgment of the supremacy of parliament, and the voting of a free grant to the king of a certain anniial revenue, to be at the disposition of parliament. Matters however had now gone too far for such a bill to have been received in America, where the claims of the colonists had increased with their suc- cessful opposition, even had it passed the House, but it was rejected by a large majority on its first reading. Lord Daitniouth, one of the ministers, was at first disposed to have the bill lie upon the table, but Lord Sandwich moved 1775.] MEASURES FOR PACIFYING THE COLONISTS. 353 that It be immediately " rejected with the contempt it deserved." " lie could never believe," he said, " that it was the production of a British peer, it appear- ed to him rather the work of some American. He fancied (such were his words as he looked round severely upon Franklin) that he had in his eye the person who drew it up, one of the bitterest and most mischievous enemies this country had ever known." To this invective Lord Chatham replied with warmth, that the proposition was entirely his o^vn, but that " were he the first minister of this country, and had the care of settling this momentous business, he should not be ashamed of publicly calling to his assistance a person so per- fectly acquainted Avith the whole of American affairs as the gentleman alluded to, and so injuriously reflected on, one whom all Europe held in estimation for his loiowledge and wisdom, and ranked with our Boyles and Newtons, who was an honour not to the English nation only, but to human nature." The utmost efforts of Lord Chatham failed to obtain even a second reading for his bill. Notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the opposition, a joint address from the Lords and Commons was presented to the king, in which they declared ''that a REBELLION actually existed in the province of Massachusetts Bay, besought his Majesty to adopt measures to enforce the authority of the sujDreme legislature, and solemnly assured him that it was their fixed resolution, at the hazard of their lives and properties, to stand by him against his re- bellious subjects." This declaration the minister shortly folloAved up by a bill restraining the commerce of INIassachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut to Great Britain and the West Indies, and, what was still more cruel, prohibiting these provinces from fishing on the banks of New- foundland, an occupation vital to their interests. This proposition gave rise to a very animated debate, in the midst of which Lord North surprised both his political friends and adversaries by suddenly bringing forward a measure ap- parently conciliatory, and perhaps intended to be so, differing in substance but little from that of Chatham, but more vague and cautiously worded. It pro- vided that, so long as the colonial assemblies should voluntarily furnish such sums as were required for the government in defence of the colony, to be dis- posable by parliament, and satisfactory to that body and the king, the right of taxation should be waived by government, except in regard to the external regiilation of commerce. Pressed by the objections of his party, who com- plained that his measure conceded the very point in dispute, Lord North was forced to declare, in order to pacify them, that it really conceded nothing, and was designed rather to divide parties in America, than expected to be cordially received there. With this explanation it passed the House, and was transmitted to the colonial governors, with orders to press its acceptance warmly upon the different legislatures^ but it experienced the usual fate of insincere and tem- porizing expedients. Not long after the passing of the New England Restraining Bill, arrived the imiwelcome news that the middle and southern colonists were joining heart and hand with their brothers of the north. The ministers were now in con- 2 z i 3o4 SITUATION OF THE CITY OF BOSTON. [1775. sistency obliged to impose the same restrictions upon all the offending States, New York, Delaware, and North Carolina alone excepted. Even these States however, in which the ministry had fondly hoped to have found adherents, proved to be no less earnest in their opposition to their measures than the others. Towards the end of the session, Burke, as agent for New York, pre- sented a petition from the general assembly of that province ; but as this was found to be hardly less emphatic in its declarations and claims than those of Massachusetts itself, Lord North, on the ground that it denied the supreme legislative authority of parliament, succeeded in carrying an amendment that it should not be entertained by the House. Previously to this, Burke had brought forward a proposal for entirely re- nouncing all attempts to tax the colonies, and trusting to the local assemblies for a free grant of such sums as should be required. In one of his most deeply studied and statesmanlike speeches he proposed to " establish the equity and justice of a taxation of America by grant, and not by imposUion, to mark the lec/al competency of the colonial assemblies for the support of their government in peace and for the public aids in time of war, to acknowledge that this legal competency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise, and that experience has shown the benefit of their grants and the futility of parliament- ary taxation as a measure of supply." But the utmost eloquence of Burke failed to render this conciliatory proposition acceptable to the House. We must now turn from the British parliament to the city of Boston, destined to become the scene of those hostilities that could no longer be averted. " This city," says Botta, " is situated in about the centre of the province of Massachusetts, on a tongue of land which, joined to the con- tinent by a very narrow isthmus, exjjands afterwards enough to contain a city of considerable size. The form of this peninsula is irregular, forming alternately bays and promontories. One of these bays, on the eastern side, serves as the port, receiving equally ships of war and merchant vessels. To- wards the north, the ground is divided into two points or horns, one of which, looking north-east, is called Point Hudson ; the other, facing the north-west, is denominated Point Barton. Opposite these two points appears another peninsula, which, from the name of a large suburb opj)osite the city, is called Charlestown, and it is joined to the continent by a very narrow isthmus, which bears the same denomination. The sea forms an arm of about half a mile broad between Hudson and Barton Points, and Charlestown (now united by a bridge) ; it afterwards extends itself so as to surround the Avestern portion of the peninsula of Boston. Several rivers or creeks discharge themselves into this bay, the principal being, the Muddy, the Charles, the Mistic, and the Medford. Not far from the isthmus of Boston, the continent advances into the sea and forms a long promontory, which extends on the right hand east- ward, which form another sort of peninsula, although joined to the mainland by an isthmus much larger than those of Boston and Charlestown, and bearing the name of the isthmus and point of Dorchester. The peninsulas of Charles- town and Dorchester are so near that of Boston, that batteries erected on them 1775.] CONDITION OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. 355 carry even into the city ; these peninsulas are moreover covered with lulls singularly favourable for the placing of artillery. One of these, named Breed's Hill, rises conspicuously above Charlestown, and commands the city of Boston ; another, near the extremity of the isthmus, and consequently farther off from Boston, bears the name of Bunker's Hill (These heights, it should be remarked, entirely commanded the great northern road into the country.) On the peninsula of Dorchester are conspicuous the so-called Dorchester Heights, and finally, another called Nook's Hill, croAvning the point nearest to Boston. The bay is dotted over with small islands, the most conspicu.ous of which are Noddle, Thompson, Governor's, Long Island, and Castle Island. Westward of Boston, on the Charles river, is situated the large village of Cambridge, (the seat of the so-often mentioned university,) and south- ward, at the entry of the isthmus, that of Roxbury." The American army rested its left wing on the river Mistic, and intercepted the isthmus of Charles- town. The centre occupied Cambridge, and the right wing, carried as far as Roxbury, kept the garrison in check upon that side of the isthmus, which being fortified, might facilitate their sorties and expeditions into the open country. To continue the grajjhic description of this author : " In this situation were the two armies respectively placed, but the number and quality of the com- batants, their opinions, military knowledge, arms, ammunition, and ])roA'is"'ons, render their condition widely different. The Americans were far sujxjior in number, but this number was subject to continual fluctuations. That rigid discipline, without which there can exist neither order nor stability in an army, was not yet introduced among them; the militia rejoined or quitted their colours at pleasure ; every day one troop replaced another in the camp. They enjoyed an abundance of all sorts of provisions, and especially of the vege- tables, so necessary to a soldier's health. But their arms were far from being adequate ; they possessed in all but sixteen field-pieces, of which six, at the utmost, were in a condition to do service. Their bronze cannon, of which they had but a very short number, were of the very weakest calibre. They had some stronger ones of iron, with three or four mortars and howitzers, and a small stock of balls and bombs. Powder was almost totally wanting. There was an abundance of muskets, but they were of all sorts of calibres, every militia-man bringing with him his own. For the rest, they knew how to use them with surprising skill, which rendered them singularly fit for sharp- shooters and skirmishers ; but not so suited, on the other hand, for fighting in oi'der of battle. They had no uniform, and no magazines of provisions, they lived day by day without taking thought for the morrow ; but at the outset, at least, every thing was abundant around them, thanks to the zeal of their sur- rounding countrymen. Cash was hardly known in the army, but paper- money, whicji at this period was fully equal in value. The officers were deficient in military knowledge, except those who had served in the. preceding wars. They Avere scarcely even recognised by their soldiers ; the organization of the corps was not yet completed, and the changes were perpetual. Orders were badly executed, every one desired to command and to do as he pleased, 2 z 2 &56 THE BRITISH TROOPS IN BOSTON. [1775. and very few deigned to obey. In short, with, the excejition of certain regi- ments, who had been formed in certain jn'ovinces by experienced leaders, the rest formed rather an assemblage than an army. But all these defects were compensated by a warmth and obstinacy of party spirit, and by the profound persuasion of the justice of their cause, entertained by all alike. Moreover the leaders of the army and the ministers of religion neglected no means of exciting every day, a people already disposed to enthusiastic ideas of religion, to redouble their firmness and valour in an enterprise sacred in the eyes of God and all good men. It was thus, with these scanty preparations, but with this un- common ardour, that the Americans commenced a war, which every thing an- nounced as likely to be both long and bloody. It might be foreseen nevertheless, that wdiatever were the reverses in store for them at the first, an unshaken constancy must insure their eventual triumph; and in acquiring discipline and tactics, the soldiers would not fail to prove equal to any that could be brought against them." " As to the British troops, they were abundantly provided with every thing necessary for a campaign ; their arsenals were crammed with artillery of every calibre, excellent muskets, j)lenty of powder, and arms of all descriptions. The soldiers were perfectly disciplined, accustomed to fatigue and danger, and for a long period formed to the first, but most difficult of the arts of war — that of obedience. They recalled the exploits by which they had distinguished themselves in the service of their country, in contending with the most war- like nations in the world. An especial motive added still more to the martial ardour of this army, the consciousness of fighting under the banners of their king, a consideration which generally adds fresh force to the sense of military honour. The English besides regarded the enemies they were about to encounter as reheh, and at that name alone they felt an animosity far beyond ordinary courage. They burned with the desire of revenging themselves for the afi"ront of Lexington, and could not bring themselves to believe that the insurgents were capable of resisting them ; they persisted in regarding them as cowards, who owed their success at Lexington only to their numbers and their advantage of the ground. They were convinced that upon the first serious encounter, the first pitched battle, the colonists would not dare to await them with firm foot. But until the arrival of the reinforcements pro- mised by the English government, prudence required them to act with cir- cumspection towards the Americans, whose forces were more than triple. Meanwhile the blockade was so rigid that, as no supply of provisions could any longer enter the city, fresh meat and vegetables began to get extremely scarce. Although the English had the command by sea, and a great number of light vessels at their disposal, they coidd draw no supplies whatever from the New England coasts, as the inhabitants had driven all their cattle into the interior of the country. Nor, as to the other provinces, could they obtain any thing freely, and they dared not employ force, since they were not as yet declared to be rebels. The scarcity at Boston thus became extreme, the gar- rison as well as inhabitants being reduced to salted provisions. Thus the 17T5.] PART OF THE CITIZENS LEA VE BOSTON. 3o7 English longed for the arrival of reinforcements from home, so as to be able to hazard some sudden blow, and thus extricate themselves from the critical situation in which they were placed." " The besiegers, aware that the inhabi*^ants of Boston had no other resources than the royal magazines, redoubled their vigilance in intercej)ting all external succoui-s. They trusted that the exhaustion of these magazines would at length force the governor to consent that the inhabitants should evacuate the city, or at least allow all useless mouths, namely, the women and children, to take their departure. The insurgents had several times made this demand with great urgency, but the governor, in spite of his difficulty in feeding the troops, appeared but little disposed to listen to this proposition. He looked upon the inhabitants as so many hostages who should answer for the city and its gar- rison, fearing lest the Americans should try to take the place by a general assault. The latter had indeed given out a report to that effect, though they had not the slightest intention of doing so. Their generals were too experi- enced not to see what a fatal and discouraging impression could not fail to be produced upon the public mind, by a blow of this importance, struck without success in the very outset of the war. Now there was but a very slender chance in favour of this assault, the in trench ments of the isthmus being of prodigious strength; and in the second place, that there was but little hope, so long as the English Avere masters at sea, and possessed a numerous marine. But at length General Gage, urged by necessity, and also desiring to get their arms out of the hands of the citizens, on which score he was not without con- siderable apprehensions, opened a lengthened conference with the council of the city:" The folloAving conditions were agreed upon. Those citizens who should deposit their arms at Faneuil Hall, or some other public place, were to be allowed to retire with all their property to whatever place they j)leased and a promise was even made to restore their arms when an opportune period had arrived. Thirty vehicles were to be admitted into the city to carry away the effects belonging to the emigrants, and the Admiralty were to furnish such vessels of transport as should be equally deemed necessary. This convention was at first punctually observed on both sides, the inhabitants deposited their arms, and the general delivered to them their permits. But shortly after- wards, whether he was unwilling to deprive himself entirely of hostages, or whether he feared, as the report ran, that the insurgents intended to set fu-e to the city as soon as their partisans had left it, he pretended that individuals who had left on the service of persons attached to the royal cause had been maltreated, and he began to refuse the passports. These refusals led to vio- lent complaints, both among the inhabitants as weU as the provincial troops. Nevertheless the governor persisted in his resolution. If he allowed some of the citizens to depart, it was no longer but on the condition that they should leave behind them their furniture and effects." In the mean time the second session of the colonial congi'ess was opened at Philadelphia, in the beginning of the month of May. Since its first meeting affairs had ripened towards a crisis, the British had marched into the interior 358 THE SECOND MEETING OF THE CONGRESS. [1775. of the country, tlie blood that had been shed had deepened the growing ani- mosity towards the parent country. In Massachusetts, at least, every linger- ing trace of loyalty was gone, and independence was openly talked of. The die was cast, to retrace their steps was impossible, to advance, though peril- ous, the only consistent and honourable course. Accordingly, while in their first session congress had expressly disclaimed political power, and contented themselves with merely recommending certain measures for the general adop- tion, they were now, by the exigency of the occasion, compelled to assume the direct authority of a government, which, although undefined in its limits, was invested with the confidence and support of the entire country. Nevertheless, whatever might have been the views of a certain party, and although the great majority might have felt that matters had gone too far to be amicably made up with England, it was still the policy of congress to disclaim any "intention of throwing ofi" their allegiance. The influence of Dickenson and those who yet hoped for a reconciliation with Great Britain was allowed for a while to prevail, and though contrary to the general belief in the futility of such expedients, fresh addresses to the king and to the people of Great Britain were ordered to be prepared. Upon one point however all were agreed. The British had been the first aggressors, the temper of the ministry was still unyielding, and they evinced by the importation of fresh troops a firm determination to suppress the liberties of America by force. It was therefore resolved that the most vigorous measures should be adopted for the security of the country. The Massachusetts convention had requested congress to assume the direction of the forces before Boston, and they now resolved to raise ten additional companies of riflemen in Pennsylvania, Mary- land, and Virginia, to be paid out of the public funds. Committees were appointed to prepare reports on subjects connected with the defence of the country, and such was the opinion already entertained of Washington's abilities and judgment, that he was chosen to preside over them. His own mind, it is needless to say, Avas fully convinced of the necessity of an aj)pcal to the sAvord. In a letter to a friend in England at this period, he thus writes, in reference to the aflair of Lexington. " Unhappy it is to reflect, that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched in blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative ! But can a virtuoiis man hesitate in his choice ? " The congress next proceeded to the important and delicate business of selecting a commander-in-chief. In so doing they had many claims to consi- der, many difficulties to reconcile, and many jealousies to appease. Their task might well have proved impossible, or their choice ruinous, had not Pro- vidence already prejDarcd that individual who, of all others upon the soil of America, alone possessed the many qualities required by the perils of the time. This, as the reader will already have anticipated, could be no other than AVashington himself. His military talents had been fully displayed in the campaigns with the French and Indians, while his prudence, firmness, saga- city, and self-command had conspicuously attracted the notice of congress 1775.] WASHINGTON MADE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 359 during their preceding session. There were other officers, natives of the country, such as Putnam and Ward, then leaders of this army before Boston, whose claims could not be overlooked ; and it seemed doubtful how far the New Englanders, who had talvcn the brunt of the struggle, and already so nobly distinguished themselves, might be willing to accept a Commander from, any but their oAvn States. Happily, after a due consideration of all the bear- ings of the question, the generous New Englanders were themselves the first to suggest the nomination of Washington. During the discussion on military affairs, John Adams, after moving that the levies then before Boston should be adopted by congress as a continental army, declared that it was his inten- tion "to propose for the office of commander-in-chief a gentleman from Virgi- nia, who was at that time a member of their own body." Conscious that this pointed observation had reference to himself, Washington arose and withdrew from the assembly. On the appointed day the nomination was made by Mr. j Johnson of Maryland, and on inspecting the ballot, it was found that Wash- 1 ington had been unanimously elected. In rising to express his thanks for the signal honour thus conferred upon him, he begged " to declare with the ut- most sincerity that he did not think himself equal to the command he Avas honoured with ; " and in reference to a vote previou.sly passed by congress, assured them,/' that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted him to accept this arduous employment at the expense of his domestic ease and happiness, he could accept of no other remuneration than the payment of his expenses, of which he would keep an exact account." His letters to his wife breathe the same spirit of self-distrust and reliance uj^on a higher power. ** As it has been a kind of destiny," he observes, " that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope my undertaking it is designed to answer some good pur- pose. I shall rely therefore on that Providence, which has heretofore pre- served and been bountiful to me." Four days afterwards Washington formally received his commission as commander-in-chief, and the members of congress solemnly pledged them- selves to adhere to him with their lives and fortunes. In fact, besides the peril of encountering a valiant and experienced adversary, the American generals must have been conscious, to use the insulting expression of the English, that they " fought with halters around their necks," and that if taken prisoners they had nothing less to expect than the confiscation of their pro- perty, and perhaps an ignominious death upon the scafibld At the same time were appointed several other officers, afterwards celebrated during the war. Putnain and Ward were chosen major-generals, as was also Lee, while Gates was adjutant-general with the rank of brigadier Gates, as before observed, was an Englishman, and had fought with Washington, at the disastrous defeat of Braddock. Lee had been a lieutenant-colonel in the British service, but for some unknown reason had taken bitter offence, resigned his commission, and embraced the cause of the Americans. Notwithstanding the ability and experience of these officers, they were naturally distrusted by congress, but were ultimately apj)ointed through the influence of Washington. Eichard 3G0 REINFORCEMENTS RECEIVED FROM ENGLAND. [1775 Montgomery, a young Irishman, had served under Wolfe at Louisburg and Quebec, and having married an American veife, sold his commission and re- tu-ed to New York. Philip Schuyler was a gentleman of large property and influence near Albany, Both of these gentlemen, at the recommendation of the New York provincial congress, were aj^pointed generals ; as were also Sullivan, of New Hampshire ; Pomeroy, Heath, and Thomas, of Massachusetts ; Wooster and Spencer, of Connecticut ; and Greene, of Rhode Island. As in the disorganized state of the army the immediate presence of the com- mander-in-chief was indispensable, no time was lost by Washington in rcpau'- ing to the scene of his duties. On the 21st of June he left Philadelphia, accompanied by Lee and Schuyler. He was every where received with great honour. The provincial congress of New York, then in session, deputed a com- mittee to meet him at Newark, and attend him across the river. At New York he received the news of the battle of Bunker's Hill, which induced him to hasten forward, leaving General Schuyler as commander in New York. He pursued his journey attended by volunteer military companies, and on the 2nd of July arrived at Cambridge. Two days afterwards the jDrovincial congress of Massachusetts presented to him a cordial and flattering address, the army received him with genuine warmth, and he entered upon his arduous labours cheered by universal esteem and confidence. In truth, he needed the ut- most support in order to contend with the Herculean difficulties which shortly developed themselves before him. About the end of the previous IMay Gage had received considerable rein- forcements from England, under Generals Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton, which raised his army to upwards of ten thousand men. He now issued a pro- clamation in the king's name, offering pardon to all persons who should lay down their arms and return to their allegiance, " excepting only Samuel Adams and John Hancock, whose offences," it declared, " were of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration than that of condign punishment." Mar- tial law was also proclaimed, " for so long as the present unhappy occasion should necessarily require." So far were these measures from intimidating the insurgents, that they tended to draw them still closer together, and to inspire them with still more determined energy. As the forces of Gage had now so greatly increased, it was apprehended that he ^Aoidd no longer submit to be cooped w]} within the walls of Boston, but break through the enemy's line of blockade and advance into the open country. Private information having been received that he in- tended to assume the offensive, with the view of more completely cutting off the communication with the country. Colonel Prescott, with a company of about a thousand men, including a company of artillery and two field-pieces, was detached at nightfall to take possession of Bunker's Hill, a bold eminence at the northern extremity of the peninsula of Charlestown. By some mistake however the party went past Bunker's Hill, and commenced operations on Breed's Hill, near the southern termination of the peninsula, and overlooking and commanding Boston. There, dii-ected by the engineer Gridley, and under 1775.] BREED'S HILL TAKEN BY THE AMERICANS. 361 cover of tlie darkness, they worked away in silence, and so vigorously, that when morning dawned they had thrown up a considerable redoubt on the crest of the hill, and were still toiling on to complete the remainder of the intrenchments. About four in the morning of the 17th June, the works were first perceived from a man-of-war in the harbour, whence a cannonade was immediately oj)ened upon the workmen. This firing immediately gave the alarm to the city, and crowds of people rushed down to the shore to discover what had occasioned it. The British generals, ascending the steeples and eminences of the city, reconnoitred the new works, at which, in spite of the cannonade, both from the ships, the town, and the floating batteries, the provincials, commanded by Gridley and Knox, continued to labour on with undiminished assiduity. To allow them to complete their fortifications, and occupy this jiosition, would have placed the ships in the harbour, and even the city itself, in peril ; it was therefore determined to dislodge them without a moment's loss of time. The position now occupied by the Americans was as follows : The newly constructed redoubt formed its crest and centre, on the right was Charles- town, and on the left an unfinished breastwork, which was continued down to the river Mystic, by a barricade constructed of two lines of rails from the neigh- bouring fences, filled up with new-mown hay. This paj-t of the works was de- fended by General Starke, Avith two New Hampshire regiments, w^ho reached the ground just before the battle commenced. The Massachusetts and Connec- ticut troops were distributed along the rest of the hne. "VYarren had hurried up to the scene of action only just in time, and took post among the defenders of the redoubt. There was little expectation of attack, and hardly any prepar- ation to repel it. No cannon was mounted, the quantity of ammunition was small, and the provincials were unprovided with bayonets. Nor was there even any regular commander, although the brave " Old Putnam," as he was called, assumed, by common consent, the general direction of affairs. During the \\hole morning Boston was in a state of the greatest excitement wdth the stir of military preparation ; and soon after noon, about three thousand British troops embarked under the orders of Generals Howe and Pigot, and landed at ]\Iorton's Point, at the foot of the Icng hill on which the American redoubt was erected, under cover of the guns of the ships of war in the harbour. Having observed the firm attitude of the insurgents. General Howe thought it prudent to send for seme additional reinforcements. His plan was to attack the redoubt and Charlestown in front, while another body, penetrating the rail fence, should take the defenders in fiank, and thus at once storm their works and cut off their retreat frcm the peninsula. The reinforcements having arrived, Howe prepared fcr action, and in a short speech assured his soldiers " that he would require no man to venture where he himself was not the first to show the way." About three o'clock, under cover of their artillery, the British troops advanced slowly and steadily up to the redoubt. It was a fearful moment, upon which the fate of America seemed to be suspended. The steeples and roofs in Boston, every corner in the 3 A 363 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S HILL. [1775. city and every spot in the neighbourliood that commanded a view o%'cr the scene of hostilities, was crowded with anxious spectators, men, women, and chikh-en, whose very souls were fixed with painful intensity upon the issue of the coming conflict. It was the decisive trial — would the jjrovincials await with firm foot the point of the dreaded British bayonet, or Avould they flinch and fly ? Prescott had warned them not to waste a shot, but reserve their fire until they could see the white of their enemies' eyes ; and knowing moreover that they were all of them good marksmen, counselled them to take steady aim at their opponents, and especially to j)ick off the officers. They obeyed him, upon the whole, with admirable steadiness. As the British line neared the redoubt, a thousand muskets flashed at once with simultaneous aim and unerring precision ; the head of the advancing column was instantly shattered, and that redoubtable infantry, after firing an irregular volley, and receiving others aimed as fatally as was the first, at length fell back and retreated in disorder to the landing. Sensitive to this disgrace, the officers were instantly seen running to and fro, encouraging or threatening their men, and in a short time the line was rallied, and ready to renew the attack. Meanwhile, with a view of expelling the provincials, the village of Charlestown Avas set on fire by the British, the tall spire of the church soon became a pillar of flame, and vast columns of fire and smoke added to the terrific interest of the spectacle. A second time the British advanced to the charge, and a second time the provincials opened upon them the same close and unerring fire, and drove them back in confusion towards the shore ; so terrible was the slaughter, that most of the officers around General Howe were shot down, and he remained at one time almost alone vipon the field of battle. At this critical moment. General Clinton, who had been watching the issue of the conflict from Cop's Hill, hastened over from Boston with fresh rein- forcements, the soldiers were led up a third time to the attack, directed to receive the enemy's fire, and then rush in and carry the redoubt with the bayonet. The ammunition of the defenders Avas by this time nearly ex- hausted, their fire upon the advancing column sensibly slackened ; the grena- diers, leaping on the redoubt Avith- fixed bayonets, dashed into it on three sides at once. The provincials, Avithout bayonets to oppose to those of the British, defended themselves desperately for a moment Avitli the butt- ends of their muskets. Some pieces of artillery, mcauAAhile, had been pushed in between the rail fence and the breastwork, and pointed upon them, rendering further resistance impossible. Starke's troops had bravely defended the stockade, conscious that if the enemy had forced their position, and taken in the rear the defenders of the redoubt, their discomfiture must have been inevitable. Seeing that this had now happened, in spite of the entreaties of Putnam, who sought to lead them against the victorious Eng- lish, they noAV effected their retreat, AA'ith a degree of order and steadiness which savoured but little of a rout. Their only means of returning Avas by the narrow isthmus of CharlestoAA^n Neck, swept by an incessant fire from, the floating batteries, which' hoAVCA'er occasioned them but little loss. They fell 1775.] LOSSES OF THE BRITISH AXD AMERICANS. 363 back and intrenclied tlieniselves at Prospect Hill, only about a mile from the field of battle. The British had gained a nominal triumph, not however, as they had proudly anticipated, with little or no effort on their part ; it had cost them the utmost exertion of their gallantry to achieve it, and they had purchased it at a fearful price, one third of their number lay killed or wounded on the field. Their victory too was utterly inconclusive ; they had stormed the works, their de- fenders had retreated in good order, and with a loss comparatively trifling ; a redoubt and a breastwork was all they had acquired at the cost of so much blood. The result of the engagement at length convinced General Gage, in the words of his letter to the ministry, that " the provincials were not the despicable rabble he had supposed them to be," that they had in nowise de- generated from the courage of their English forefathers, and that it w^ould cost a far greater exertion of power to reduce them to obedience than the army in the plenitude of its pride, and the ministry in the plenitude of its ignorance, had hitherto sujaposecl to be needful. On the other hand, the con- fidence of the Americans was greatly raised by the success of this en- counter ; a second and more signal proof had been afforded that their enemies were not invincible. The loss of the Americans, sheltered as they were by their defences, was far less than that of the British ; but among the fallen was Joseph Warren, whose loss was deeply felt, as being one of the most ardent and influential of the popular leaders. He was born at Eoxbury near Boston, and having gra- duated at Harvard college, folloAved the profession of medicine, in which he had attained considerable eminence. He was one of the earliest advocates of popular rights, and in conjunction with Samuel Adams, had laboured suc- cessfully at the establishment of local committees of correspondence. With an integrity above suspicion, and a character peculiarly amiable, he had naturally acquired increasing influence with his fellow patriots ; he was chosen the chairman of the committee of safety, and after distinguishing himself in many skirmishes with the enemy, had received the commission of Major-General only four days before the battle of Bunker's Hill. As soon as he heard that the British were meditating an attack, he hurried up to the scene of action, and shared with the Massachusetts soldiers in the peril of defending the intrcnch- nients. When they were at length forced, and the Americans compelled to retreat across Charlcstown Neck, he was the last to leave the redoubt, and im- mediately afterward received a mortal wound. The loss of Warren caused a profound impression throughout America. He "o^as the first person of any note that had as yet fallen in the quarrel, and his amiable qualities deep- ened the general concern at his loss. He was regarded as the first martyr to the cause of American liberty, and his death became the favourite theme of popular orators, who failed not to denounce the unnatural tyranny which had brought so valuable a citizen to an untimely end. "\Micn Washington reached the head-quarters of the American army at Cambridge, his first business was to ascertain its strength and position. He 3 A 2 364 RECONSTRUCTIOX OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. [1775, found that it occupied a complete line of siege round Boston, extending nearly twelve miles, from ]\Iystic river to Dorchester, of which Cambridge formed the centre. To. defend this immense line, there were but about twelve thousand men fit for duty. Intrenchments and redoubts had been thrown up at the most important points, and other works were still in progress. The British army, cut off from supplies, and unable to pene- trate into the open country, numbered about eleven thousand men. General Gage being in the city, and the bulk of his forces intrenched upon Bunker's Hill, or occupying Boston JVeck, the only direct access to the city from the interior. A council of war being called, it became a serious question whether this extensive line, which it was feared the enemy might be able to pe- netrate, should be maintained, or whether a stronger position should be oc- cupied at some distance further inland. As such a measure must have proved very discouraging to the troops, it was unanimously resolved that the present position of the army should at all risks be occupied. A formidable task now awaited Washington, that of giving form and sta- bility to the loose and heterogeneous materials of which the army was composed. Prompted by the impulse of patriotism, the citizens had eagerly shouldered their rifles and hurried down to the camp, they had already given abundant proofs of courage, and were excited to the highest pitch by their recent suc- cesses over the enemy. But the same ardent spirit that had stimulated them to action, proved itself a serious obstacle to their military organization. They ^ere impatient of the restraints required by discipline, and alarmed at the prospect of a protracted service. Most of them had been enlisted for a brief period by their respective States, many had left their families and business in the anticipation of a speedy return, and after the first brush with the enemy, were impatient to return to their homes. Few of them foresaw the duration of hostilities, and had they done so, would have been unwilling to engage themselves for so lengthened a period. Besides the disjointed state of the soldiery, they were most miserably pro- vided with every necessary, except provisions. There was no military chest, no stock of clothing, few tents or stores of any kind, and the supply of ammu- nition was so low that, on instituting an examination, Washington discovered, to his surprise and consternation, that there was not enough for nine cartridges a man to the whole camp. But what was perhaps of most importance, there was as yet no regular or- ganization or discipline. At first the regiments had elected their own leaders, and there had been no general officers invested with a j'ecognised command. And when congress at length proceeded to remedy this deficiency, their ap- pointments were received with great dissatisfaction, and gave rise to such jealousy and dissension, that many threatened to leave the camp altogether, unless the evil was speedily redressed. Such was the state of the army, when Washington, having matured his plans, began the gradual and difficult work of its reconstruction. He formed it 1775.] UNSETTLED CONDITION OF THE CONGRESS. 365 into tliree grand divisions, the left wing commanded by Lee, the right by- Ward, and the centre, at Cambridge, by Pntnam. A system of rides and regulations had been agreed upon by congress, to which, although many of the existing levies refused their compliance, all fresh recruits were com-, palled to subscribe. Among these new comers were several companies of riflemen from INIaryland, Pennsylvania, and -Virginia ; one of the latter regi- ments being commanded by Daniel Morgan, who afterwards attained consi- derable distinction. Besides the organization of the army, there devolved on Washington the arduous task of arranging its operations with congress, and stimulating that body to provide for its manifold wants. " My best abilities," he writes, " are at all times devoted to the service of my country. But I feel the weighty importance and variety of my present duties too sensibly not to wish a more frequent communication with congress. I fear it may often happen, in the course of our present operations, that I shall need that assistance and direc- tion from them, which time and distance will not allow me to receive." But congress was at that time almost as unsettled as the army itself. It was com- posed of men differing in opinion as to the dispute with England, some of them yet hoping for a reconciliation, and others doubtless looking forward to independence. They had hurriedly assumed the functions of government, and their authority as yet rested entirely upon public oj)inion. But recently come together from the different States, they brought with them their sectional interests and jealousies. In one thing they were indeed united, to defend themselves by force of arms against the tyrannical conduct of the English ministry. But while strenuously contending against a foreign despotism, might they not, by building up a powerful standing army of their own, lay them- selves open to an equally formidable peril ? As yet all was new and untried, and Washington himself, though highly respected, had not, by a long career of disinterested patriotism, rooted himself j)rofoundly in the universal confidence of his country. " We have the fullest assurance," say they, " that whenever this important contest shall be decided, by that fondest wish of every American soul, an accommodation with our mother country, you will cheerfully resign the important deposit committed to you:^ hands, and reassume the character of our worthiest citizen." This distrust, so natural in the position of congress, was not unperceived by Washington, but, conscious of his high and patriotic motives, he laboured to inspire them with increasing confidence, while by his intimate knowledge of military details he necessarily rendered himself the centre of all their operations. Nor was it a less arduous task to stimulate to action the governments of the respective colonies, upon whom in fact devolved the execution of the measures decided on by congress. There was from the first that jealousy on the part of the different States, not only of each other, but also of the authority of the central government, to appease which has ever proved the most difficult problem of American statesmen. Although at the present moment one com- mon imjDulse animated the whole, yet the furnishing their respective quotas of 366 GEN. HO WE BECOMES THE BRITISH COMMANDER. [17:5. men and money, for the common cause, was frequently accompanied by hesi- tation and delay. Nothing but invincible patience and temper, together with consummate prudence and wisdom, could have enabled Washington to meet and overcome such varied and formidable difficulties. Meanwhile, Washington heard that several prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the English at the battle of Bunker's Hill, were treated with great severity by General Gage. Washington and Gage had served together as aides-de-camp to the unfortunate Eraddock, and had fought side by side in the bloody battle of the Monongahela. Ever since that time they had main- tained a friendly correspondence, and now, in the chapter of accidents, they stood opposed to each other as the leaders of opposing armies. The British general, who regarded the Americans in the light of " rebels," denied the charge of cruelty, and boasted, on the contrary, of having spared many " whose lives by the law of the land were destined to the cord." He also professed to ignore all rank which was not derived from the king. The reply of Wash- ington was temperate and noble. " You affect, sir," he said, " to despise all rank not derived from the same source as your own. I cannot conceive one more honourable than that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power." He threatened at first to retaliate the ill usage of American prisoners upon such of the British as fell into his power, but adopting more merciful counsels, eventually released them upon parole, in the hope that " such conduct would compel their grateful acknowledgments that Americans are as merciful as they are brave." Shortly after this incident. General Gage was recalled to Eng- land, ostensibly " in order to give his Majesty exact information of every thing, and suggest such matters as his knowledge and experience of the service en- abled him to furnish." He was succeeded by General Howe, a brother of the same Lord Howe, who had been killed before Ticonderoga, and whose memory was affectionately cherished by the Americans. This change of command however led to no increased activity on the part of the British, Avho remained quietly within their intrenchments, sending out only small foraging parties, who often came into collision with the American outposts. This inaction appears greatly to have surprised Washington, who was well aware that the enemy were acquainted with his deficiency of ammunition, and it has with much probability been attributed to the desire of Howe not to in- crease the difficulty of a speedy adjustment of the quarrel by any further acts of hostility. We must now glance awhile at the operations of congress. Their first care was to pro\Tide the sinews of war by large emissions of bills of credit, the liability to redeem which devolved, in just proportion, upon the respective colonies. As the royal post-office had fallen to the ground, a continental one was now organized, and Franklin, now returned from England, was ap- pointed postmaster-general. An army hospital "was also created, and placed under the direction of Doctor Benjamin Church. In the future conduct of the war, there were two subjects of anxiety to con- 17T5.] CONGRESS PLANS AN INVASION OF CANADA. 367 gress, what part the Indians might be induced to take in it, and what would be the disposition of the Canadians. The deplorable policy which had already- led to so many sanguinary scenes, of engaging the Indians in the quarrels of the whites, was now renewed to a certain extent by both parties. Even before the battle of Lexington, the provincial congress of Massachusetts had enlisted in their service a company of minute-men among the Stockbridge Indians. Overtures were made to the Six Nations, but were defeated by the agency of Guy Johnson, son of the celebrated Sir William Johnson, and a stanch loyal- ist, and who had inherited his father's influence over these tribes. The Cagnawagas, or French Mohawks, were however brought over to the cause. These efforts to obtain the alliance of the Indians were st];^nuously counter- worked by Sir Guy Carleton, then governor of Canada. The question next arose, whether the inhabitants of this province would be disposed to join the insurgents, or rather to assist in their subjugation. Addresses had been voted to them by congress, but the conciliatory policy of the British government had hitherto induced them to observe a prudent neutrality. After the surprise of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, Allen and Arnold had strenuously lu'ged upon congress the desirableness of advancing into Canada, where the British force Avas very small, and of seizing upon the important strongholds of that country. This measure was at first repugnant to congress, inasmuch as it seemed to be stepping out of the line of resistance they had marked out for themselves, and com- mencing a war of aggression. But as the designs of the British to reduce them to obedience by an increased display of force became apparent, the war assumed another character, and congress readily adopted the project of an attack upon Canada as a measure of self-defence, which was fully sanctioned by Washington himself, who regarded it as " being of the utmost consequence to the interests and liberties of America." The command of the detachment Avhich was to invade Canada, by way of Lake Champlain, was conferred on General Schuyler. Montgomery, who ac- companied him, was ordered to proceed in advance, and attack the strong post of St. John's, at the northern extremity of Lake Champlain, which, as com- manding the chief entry into Canada, had been carefully strengthened by Sir Guy Carleton. This order he proceeded to execute, and was shortly after- wards rejoined by Schuyler, who finding the fort defy his utmost efforts, retired to Isle aux Noix, whence illness compelled him to return to Ticonde- roga, leaving the command of the army in the hands of Montgomery. The siege of St. John's was now continued, but at first with very little success, until the American general, learning that Fort Chambly, at the rapids on the river Sorel, a few miles to the northward, was but slenderly gar- risoned, succeeded in surprising and capturing it. No sooner had Carleton, who was then at Montreal, heard of this disaster, than he immediately crossed the St. Lawrence with a reinforcement for the garrison of St. John's. Colonel Warner, however, placed himself in ambush on the shore, and as the English boats approached, opened upon them so heavy a fire that they were com- pelled to recross the river in great confusion. On learning the discomfiture 36S CAPTURE OF MONTREAL BY 2I0NTG0MERT. [1T75. of these succours, tlie commandant of St. John's, who had ah'cady held out for six "weeks, surrendered on honourable terms. Montgomery now prepared to push over to the opposite shore. He had already been severely tried with the insubordination and bad discipline of his troops, and many of them now threatened to return home, but by his earnest persuasion were at last induced to assist in the cajjture of Montreal. Crossing the St. Lawrence he now entered the city, which immediately su.rrendercd. Montgomery had detached a strong force to the mouth of the Sorel to intercept the British vessels as they retired down the stream, and if possible effect the capture of Sir Guy Carleton, whose talents and activity were regarded as the soul of the English cause. In this design they were but partially successful. The vessels were taken, together with Prescott and a body of soldiers, who were on board ; but Carleton, embarking in a small boat furnished with muffled oars, suc- ceeded under cover of the night in eluding the watchfulness of the American guard boats ; and effecting his escape by an obscure channel of the river, rapidly descended to assume the command of Quebec, which was at that mo- ment threatened by the second division of the American army. To effect a junction with this body was the next object of IMontgomery, but he was doomed to struggle with the same insubordination and discontent that had already so seriously impeded his movements, and threatened his entire failure. Many of his levies insisted on returning home, and abandoned the army. At length however he succeeded in persuading a small force to march on with him to the rencontre of their brethren. Some time before, while besieging St. John's, IMontgomery detached Ethan Allen to endeavour, to arouse the Canadians to revolt, and induce them to join his standard. With the wild energy of his character, he had entirely succeeded in his object, and was on his way to join the camp before St. John's, when he fell in with Major Brown, at the head of a party of Americans and Canadians, who rej)orted that Montreal was feebly garrisoned, and proposed that they should surprise it in concert. This project, it is needless to say, was utterly unauthorized by the general in command, but then it was extremely tempting to an ardent spirit like that of Allen ; and in those early days of the American army, every man, spurning the restraints of discipline, sought only to do that which was right in his otvh eyes, and above all, to win fame and promotion by the performance of some gallant exploit. Accordingly it was agreed, that while Allen procured canoes, and traversed the St. Lawrence by night, a little below Montreal, Brown should cross over at the same time, not far above the city, and, at a given signal, they should simultaneously adA^ance and surprise it. Allen performed his 2:)art of the agree- ment, but some unknown reason prevented the co-operation of his confederate. On a windy night he embarked in canoes with his men, but for hour after hour he vainly awaited the promised signal, and as the day began to advance his own position became precarious in the extreme. He would have retreated at once, but his boats would hold but a third of his force ; his Canadian re- cruits ran off, and being discovered and attacked by a force fi-om the town. 1775.] ETHAN ALLEN TAKEN BY THE ENGLISH. 360 after a gallant defence of nearly two hours, lie was obliged to lay down his arms. He was conducted into the city, and brought before General Prescott, who, on learning from his own lips that he was the same man who had surprised Ticonderoga before any declaration of war, and struck perhaps with his eccentric and unmilitary appearance, treated him rather as the leader of a troop of banditti than an officer in honourable service, threatened to have him hanged, loaded him with heavy irons, and thrust him into the hold of the Gaspee war schooner, where he languished during five weeks. He was after- wards transferred to Quebec, and thence sent over to England to take his trial for treason. On landing at Falmouth, where his grotesque ap- pearance excited the surprise of the inhabitants, he was at first confined in Pendennis castle, thence transported to Halifax, and finally to New York, then in possession of the British, where, after three years' captivity, he was at length released in exchange for an English officer. Cut short in the very outset of his career, and blamed moreover for the rashness of his attempt on Montreal, he retired to his beloved Vermont, and thenceforth vanished from the scene of the revolutionary conflict. Benedict Arnold, who, as before narrated, had been baffled in his en- deavour to obtain the command at Ticonderoga, after remaining a short time in service on the shores of Lake Champlain, had returned to the camp at Cambridge, discontented with his treatment, and eager for some enterprise that should at once gratify his daring temper, and also open to him a path to distinction. To him Washington now resolved to confide the conduct of a most romantic expedition against Quebec. Arnold, when a trader, had formerly visited that city, to purchase horses ; he knew it well, and also had acquaint- ances within its walls. The journal of a British officer, who fifteen years before had traversed the intervening wilderness, while it displayed the perils and privations that awaited an army which should venture to penetrate it, served also in some measure as a guide to future operations. Eleven hundred men, among whom were three companies of Virginia and Pennsylvania riflemen, were appointed him for this hazardous service, commanded by several young military aspirants, who afterwards became celebrated in the history of the war ; among them were Morgan, Greene, Dearborne, and Aaron Burr, then a young cadet of twenty. At Newbury Port the expedition embarked for the mouth of the Kennebec river, where two hundred batteaux had already been provided for their fur- ther ascent of the stream. At Fort "Western, opposite Augusta, they reached the utmost verge of civilization. From this point to the next human habitation extended a wide and pathless wilderness, intersected with unknown moun- tains, lakes, and rivers. Into this they now boldly plunged. A small recon- noitring party was sent on in advance to the shores of Lake Megantic, the rest followed at intervals of a day apart, INIorgan with his riflemen leading the van. Arnold, after witnessing the departiu'e of the whole force, hurried forward and overtook Morgan at the falls of Norridgewock. Here, amidst the solitude of the forests, they came upon the mouldering vestiges of the church of the mur- 3 B 370 ARNOLD'S EXPEDITION TO QUEBEC. [1775. dered missionary Rasles, but the Indians who once dwelt there had fled for ever from the blood-stained spot. At this spot their difficulties commenced. It was necessary to repair and drag their batteaux, already damaged and leaky, past the waterfall, to launch them anew upon the stream. Seven days were consumed in this toilsome operation, and these labours had to be re- newed with every fresh obstruction of the stream. Worn out or terrified with these hardships, many had deserted or fallen sick, and when Arnold at length reached the great carrying-place from the Kennebec to Dead River, his ef- fective company Avas already thinned to nine hundred and fifty men. Toilsomely surmounting the fifteen miles that separated them from Dead River, they launched their canoes upon its gentle stream, flowing through an unbroken forest, gorgeous with the vivid hues of an American autumn. They next encamped at the foot of a lofty snow-covered mountain ; but scarcely had they set forward, when the river, suddenly swollen by rain, came down ujDon them with irresistible fury : the soldiers with much difficulty effected their re- treat, not before several boats were overturned and the provisions in them spoilt, a loss irreparable amidst these boundless and desolate forests. A council of war was held, and orders sent to Enos, who commanded the rear division, to send back the sick and feeble, but that officer retreated with his entire troop. Arnold however pressed forward through snow, which now lay two inches deep, the men toilsomely wading marshes, and working their batteaux with infinite difficulty along streams interrupted by numerous waterfalls, until at length they reached the shores of Lake Megantic, the source of the Chau- driere river, which falls into the river St. Lawrence a little above Quebec. At this spot they found the agent who had been sent on to sound the dis- position of the Canadians, which was reported by him to be friendly. Two Indian runners who had been sent with him betrayed their trust, and convey- ed intelligence of the invasion to the governor of Quebec, who was thus put upon his guard against surprise. The passage of the wilderness had taken the Americans so much longer than was expected, that their provisions were now wholly exhausted. A dog that had followed them furnished a luxurious repast ; they were next reduced to boil their moose-skin moccassins in the vain hopes of extracting nourishment, and the pungent roots of the forest were de- voured with all the eagerness of famine. For forty-eight hours no food had passed their lips. Arnold hurried forward with the least exhausted, to pro- cure relief for his starving troops. Embarking on the lake, he followed the unexplored stream of the Chaudriere, but before long his barks were over- turned among foaming rapids, and his men with difficulty saved. At length they reached Sertigan, the first settlement of the French Canadians, who re- ceived them kindly and furnished them with provisions, which, as soon as his own wants were supplied, were sent back by Arnold to his suffering followers, who were thus enabled to advance, and at length the whole army, the wilder- ness behind them, joyfully assembled at Sertigan. Arnold now distributed to the Canadians the printed manifesto of Wash- ington, inviting them to join their American brethren, but the contented " habi- 1775.] MONTGOMERY JOINS WITH ARNOLD. 371 tans " had no inducement to quit the neutrality which they had hitherto pru- dently observed. Eager to strike the blow before Quebec could be placed in a posture for defence, he hastened rapidly down the valley of the Chaudriere, and at length, to the astonishment and alarm of the Canadians, to whom the governor had not thought fit to communicate his knowledge of the expedition, suddenly emerged through showers of falling snow upon the heights of Point Levi, exactly opposite the city. Foaming with impatience, Arnold would have lost not a moment in crossing over, and had he been able to do so, might not improbably have succeeded in storming Quebec ; but the governor had retained all the boats on the opposite shore, and for several days it blew such a tempest of wind and sleet, that all communication with the opposite shore became impossible. Having at length obtained a small suj^ ply of barks, Arnold crossed over under cover of the night, eluding two ships of war placed to intercept him, and hurrying up the same ravine which Wolfe had before ascended to victory, stood, as morning dawned, upon the memorable Plains of Abraham ; but only, after such infinite toils, to awake to a conviction of the almost hopelessness of his enterprise. He had calculated on surprising the city, and found it already on its guard. The number of his men was but seven hundred and fifty, without artillery, and with damaged muskets; while the enemy were receiving reinforcements. The lieutenant- governor, knowing the disaffection of the Canadians, declined to march out and attack him. After some empty demonstrations, Arnold resolved to put a bold front upon the matter by sending a flag with a formal summons to surrender, to the British commandant, who only fired upon the bearer. In this ridiculous piece ot bravado, which disgusted his own officers, Arnold, it was said, had a private motive to gratify. The British, aware of his antecedents, had liberally stig- matized him as " the horse-jockey,^^ an aff"ront he was anxious to wipe out by this display of importance. Finding all his efforts fruitless, he retired in infinite vexation to Point aux Trembles, there to await the arrival of INIont- gomery and his troops. He had scarcely reached this spot, when his chagrin was increased at learning that Sir Guy Carleton, who, as before said, had escaped from Montreal, had but just left it for Quebec, and shortly afterwards was heard the booming of the cannon which welcomed his return to the city. On the 1st of December, Montgomery made his appearance from Montreal with a forlorn handful of troops, way-worn and sick ; and he now took the command of the whole American force, which amounted only to nine hundred men. After clothing the half-naked troops of Arnold with garments he had brought with him, the whole force set forward together for Quebec. On their march thither, they were now exposed to all the severities of a Canadian winter ; the driving sleet beat fiercely in their faces, the road was cum- bered with huge drifts of snow, and in the open and unsheltered country the cold was almost beyond endurance. Such was the season when the American troops commenced the siege of Quebec, furnished only Avith a few feeble guns, which were reared on batteries of snow and ice, and produced no effect whatever upon the solid ramparts that confronted them. For three weeks 3 B 2 372 THE DEATH OF MONTGOMERY. [1775. they continued nevertheless to abide the bitter severity of the weather, until the small-pox broke out in the camp, the term of enlistment of many of the troops had nearly expired, discontent and despondency began to prevail, and Montgomery perceived that nothing but engaging them in some vigorous effort could keep his disorganized ranks much longer from falling to pieces. In venturing upon this enterprise, the Americans had fully calculated on the co-operation of a strong body of the discontented within the city, but on the arrival of Carleton, all hope from that quarter had vanished. Scarcely had that active and able officer regained the city, than he adopted the most vigorous measures of defence, overawed the disaffected, organized the citizens into regiments, and soon raised the feeble garrison to a much larger number than that of the besiegers themselves. It was in vain that Montgomery, artfully exaggerating the number of his troops, summoned him to surrender under pain of an assault ; aware that the Americans could not much longer maintain their position, he stood calmly but firmly upon the defensive. Nothing therefore remained to Montgomery and Arnold, but to try the last cles^^erate chance of an assault. To retire from before the city without striking a blow, even if it should prove unsuccessful, would be alike ruinous to their own reputation, and mournfidly discouraging to the American cause. It was arranged therefore, that while one body of the troops were to make a feigned attack upon the upper iorwn from the Plains of Abraham, Mont- gomery and Arnold, at the head of their respective divisions, should endeavour to storm the lower town at tAvo opposite points, and, in the event of success, unite their forces and proceed to invest the upper town and citadel. It was on the last day of the year seventeen hundred and seventy-five, in the thick gloom of an early morning, while the snow was falling fast, and the cutting wind whirling it about in heavy drifts, that Montgomery, at the head of his New York troops, proceeded along the narrow road leading under the foot of the precipices from Wolfe's Cove into the lower town of Quebec. At the entry of the street, crouching beneath the lofty rock of Cape'Diamond, was planted a block-house, its guns pointed carefully so as to sweep the ap- j) roach. This post was manned by a Captain Barnsfare, with a few British sea- men and a body of Canadian militia. As Montgomery approached in the dark- ness, along a roadway encumbered with heaps of ice and snow, he encountered a line of stockades, part of "VAhich he saAved tlu'ough Avith his OAvn hands, and having at length opened a passage, exclaiming to his troops, " Men of New York, you will not fear to follow where your general leads," he rushed for- ward to storm the block-house. But the vigilant officer had faintly descried the approach of the besiegers, and Avhen they Avere Avithin a fcAV paces, the fatal match was applied, a hurricane of grape-shot swept the pass, and the gallant Montgomery fell dead upon the spot. AVith him were struck down Captains Cheesman and M'Pherson, his aides-de-camp, and several among the foremost soldiers. Cheesman had repaired to the attack Avith a fuU presenti- ment he should never smwive it; he arose for a moment, staggered wildly ouAvards a fcAV paces, and sunk upon the snow -^ corn^e The rest nf thp di- 1775.] . ARNOLD OBLIGED TO RETIRE. 373 vision, panic struck at witnessing tlie fall of their leaders, gave np all hopes of success, and retreated in confusion back to the spot whence they had started. Arnold, meanwhile, at the head of the other division, had pushed along through the snow-drifts to the narrow street called " Sault an Matelot," de- fended by a two-gun battery ; and here, while impetuously urging forward his men, he was completely disabled by a musket-wound in the knee, and carried back to the hospital, where he learned that Montgomery had already fallen. Morgan now succeeded to the command, and fought so bravely Avith his riflemen, that in spite of the storm of grape-shot and musket-balls, he car- ried the first barrier, and hurried on to the assault of the second. Here a severe conflict took place ; the small body of the Americans, in the heart of a hostile city, for three hours bravely kej)t up the attack ; they stormed the bar- rier, and were preparing to rush into the town, when they were intercepted by the bayonets of a powerful detachment sent out by Carleton to take them in the rear and cut off their retreat, and compelled to surrender themselves as prisoners of war. Thus ended the famous assault of Quebec, which, desperate as it "would well seem, might nevertheless have succeeded, had not Montgomery perished at the very outset, and his column been forced to retreat. , As soon as the fight had ended, search was made for his body, but the American orderly sergeant, Avho lingered for another hour, would not acknowledge that his general was dead^ and it was not until the corpse was recognised by one of the American officers, that Carleton received the assurance that his gallant adversary was in- deed no more. He manifested evident symptoms of sincere and generous emotion, nor did he fail to acquire the general respect of his adversaries by the humanity which he disj)layed towards his American prisoners. The death of Montgomery caused the most genuine sorrow throughout the colonies. Not only were his military talents most promising, and his bravery distinguished, but his gentleness and humanity rendered him universally be- loved by his own soldiers, who almost worshipped him, and no less by all classes of persons with whom he came in contact. His early fate might well call forth tears of commiseration and gratitude from the Americans. Happily settled in New York, devotedly attached to his family and friends, he left the bosom of domestic tranquillity to sacrifice his life to the cause of his countrymen. His last words to his wife, when he left to assume the command of this ill-fated expedition, were, " You shall have no cause to blush for your Montgomery ! " He nobly redeemed his pledge, and though the expedition was a failure, his memory is justly revered by the grateful posterity of those for whom he gave his life. His body, at first interred with every honour at Quebec, Avas afterwards removed to Ncav York, Avhere a monument erected to him on the Avail of Trinity church, attracts the eye of the traveller as he ad- vances up the principal street of that great commercial emporium, a memento of the sacrifices at which the independence of America was achieved. Nor were the English themselves less generous in appreciating the noble qualities 374 THE AMERICAN ARMY LEA VES CANADA. ' [1775. of an enemy, for Chatham, Burke, and Barre pronounced a glowing eulogium upon Montgomery in the English parliament. After his disastrous re^^ulse, Arnold, now promoted to the rank of briga- dier-general, retired with his small remaining force to a distance of about three miles from Quebec, and endeavoured to maintain during the rest of the winter a sort of blockade ; while Carleton remained quietly within the walls of the city, awaiting the Arrival of troops from England. Congress continued to send reinforcements, until the army was at length swelled to three thousand men, and General Wooster arrived to take the chief command, when Arnold, unwilling to serve under this officer, obtained permission to retire to INIontreal. The rest of the campaign was but a constant succession of disasters. General Thomas, who succeeded to Montgomery, arrived early in May, and after calling a council of war, was in the act of removing his forces to a greater distance from the city, when one morning several ships were seen to enter the harbour and throw fresh troops into the town ; and at one o'clock Carleton made a sortie at the head of a thousand men, capturing all the stores and sick, whom he treated, as he had done his other prisoners, with the utmost humanity. General Thomas retired to the Sorel, where he fell a victim to the small-pox, then raging violently in the American camp. Sullivan, who succeeded Thomas, made an ineffectual attack upon a British corps, while another American post, at the Cedars, shortly afterwards surrendered. Burgoyne, pressing forward with a vastly superior body of troops, finally drove the American army before him out of Canada, to use the words of John Adams, " disgraced, defeated, discontented, dispirited^ diseased, undisciplined, eaten up with vermin, no clothes, beds, blankets, nor medicines, and no victuals but salt pork and flour." INIontreal, with Ports Chambly and St. John's, were recovered by the English ; Avhile the American army retreated down Laiie Champlain to Crown Point, where its dis- organized battalions were placed under the command of Mnjor-Gcncral Gates. Thus terminated this romantic but unfortunate campaign, in which the young and ardent spirits of the revolution had displayed a bravery and endurance equal to any recorded in history. Its failure was regarded at the time as a great misfortune, while in reality it Avas perhaps rather an advantage to the Americans, who could ill have afforded to spare the forces necessary to have maintained so extensive a line of operations. The failure of the Canadian expedition led in fact to the capture of Burgoyne. Meanwhile Washington remained at Cambridge, occupied with the reorgan- ization of the American army. The time was drawing near when ths troops, by agreement, were free to depart to their homes, and a large proportion were inclined to do so. The first impulse of patriotic fervour had abated, the rigour of military discipline was irksome, and the tedium of inaction intolerable. To this subject Washington had earnestly drawn the attention of congress, and a convention, of which Pranklin was a member, was appointed to confer with him upon it, who readily adopted his j)roposal, which had been already well considered in concert with his officers. The principle of the arrangement was, that the American army ought to be twice as large as that of the enemy in 1 775, 76. ] WA SHING TON'S DIFFIC UL TIES WITH THE A RMY. 375 Boston, and to consist of twenty-six regiments, besides corps of riflemen and ar- \ tillery, amounting in all to about twenty-two thousand men. Of these regiments Massachusetts was to furnish sixteen, Connecticut, five. New Hampshire three, and Rhode Island two. The officers were to be selected by Washington, as far as possible, out of those aheady in service. This proved to be a task both delicate and difficult. In the ill-compacted state of the army, which threatened to dissolve itself like a rope of sand, it was indispensable to con- ciliate the soldiers, who refused to renew their engagements unless permitted to serve under officers to whom they had become attached, but who neverthe- less might not be tfie most fitted for their respective posts. It was also neces- sary to adjust the number of officers to that of the troops furnished by the re- spective colonies, jealous as they were of each other's precedency and influence. By a mind less deeply imbued with patriotism, or a temper less firm and yet conciliating, than that of Washington, such a task might have been well thrown up in disgust. As it Avas, he could not fail sometimes to complain of aii egre- gious want of public spirit, and of " fertility in all the low arts of obtaining advantage," which the settlement of these intricate and conflicting claims had so unhappily called forth. The task of managing his new recruits is also feelingly alluded to by him. " There is great difficulty," he observes, " to support liberty, to exercise government, and maintain subordination, and at the same time to prevent the operation of licentious and levelling principles, which many very easily imbibe. The pulse of a New England man beats high for liberty, his engagement in the service he thinks purely voluntary, therefore when the time of enlistment is out, he thinks himself not holden without further engagement. This was the case in the last war. I' greatly fear its operation amongst the soldiers of the other colonies, as I am sensible this is the spirit and genius of our people." These discouraging anticipations were fully justified. With aU his eflbrts and concessions, enlistments could only be procured for a single year, the Connecticut regiments marched oflfeven before their time was up, and it became necessary to supply the gap by calling in the local militia. This step, though absolutely necessary, occasioned no little uneasiness and jealousy. The same dread of military domination to which we have already alluded, haunted the minds of the patriots, and to allay suspicion it became necessary to arrange that the comniander-in-chief should obtain the consent of the executive of each colony bei'cre he called out its militia. Every way he was hedged in and crippled. Add to this, that the supply of ammunition still remained very defective, that the artillery de- partment was miserably organized, and it will be evident that nothing but extreme fortitude and perseverance could have enabled Washington to sur- mount such accumulated and discouraging obstacles. To render his situation more distressing, he very well knew that the public, ignorant of his real situation, were growing impatient at the inaction of the army, and anxious to see the enemy driven from Boston by some brilliant and striking exploit. Aware of the general state of feeling, corgrcss had already pointedly suggested, that, " if he thought it practicable to defeat the 376 WANT OF AMMUNITION AMONG THE AMERICAN S.[lTih,lQ. enemy and gain possession of the town, it would be advisable to make the attack upon the first favourable occasion, and before the arrival of reinforce- ments." Yet with the slow progress of the recruiting, and above all, with a deficiency of arms and ammunition so serious that it became necessary to conceal it even from the army itself, such a step would have been little short of madness. Washington has been generally called the American Fabius, and it has been supposed that his temperament and policy rendered him averse to active measures. So far from this, the very reverse was the case, and had he sufifered his inclination to outweigh the dictates of prudence, there is little doubt but that he would have seized the earliest opportunity of attacking the enemy. But upon calling a council of war, the most experienced officers opposed themselves to this plan. Conscious that by these delays the enthu- siasm of the country was likely to grow cold, and his own reputation to be imperiled, his feelings broke forth with bitterness in his correspondence. " Could I have foreseen the difficulties," said he, " which have come upon us, could I have known that such backwardness would have been discovered by old soldiers to the service, all the generals upon earth should not have con- vinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston until this time." " I know," he says in another letter to a friend, "the unhappy predicament in which I stand. I know that much is expected from me. I know that, with- out men, Avitliout arms, Avithout ammunition, without any thing fit for the ac- commodation of a soldier, little is to be done; and what is mortifying, I know that I cannot stand justified to the world Avithout exposing my own weakness, and injuring the cause by declaring my wants, which I am determined not to do, further than unavoidable necessity brings every man acquainted with them. My situation is so irksome to me at times, that if I did not consult the public good more than my own tranquillity, I should long ere this have put every thing on the cast of a die. So fiir from my having an army of twenty thousand men well armed, I have been here with less than half that number, including sick, furloughed, and on command, and those neither armed nor clothed as they should be. In short, my situation has been such, that I have been obliged to use every art to conceal it from my own officers." Besides the superintendence of the army, there devolved on Washington, in the present unsettled, state of affairs, the necessity of arming vessels to obstruct the supplies received by the enemy, and to procure those required by the continental army. Already had the British cruisers commenced that career of vindictive destruction, which envenomed the feelings of the colonists beyond the power of healing, and sowed the seeds of an animosity which -has not wholly died out, even at the present day. The loading of a royal mast ship having been obstructed at Falmouth in Massachusetts, Captain Mowatt was detached by Admiral Graves, Avith several armed vessels, in order to demand redress. The inhabitants were required to deliver up their arms and ammunition, to send on board a sujDply of provisions, four carriage guns, and several of the principal inhabitants as hostages that they Mould not engage in active opposition to the English. These conditions were refused by the 1775, 7G.] CONDITION OF THE ENGLISH IN BOSTON. 377 towns-people, who occupied the night in the removal of their families and effects. The next morning the place was bombarded, and the inhabitants, standing upon the neighbouring heights, were doomed to witness the remorseless con- flagration of their homes. Mowatt attempted to land, but the inhabitants stood to their arms, and gallantly repulsed him. Other towns on the coast were compelled to furnish a supply of provisions to escape a similar fate. These hostilities speedily led to the equipping of vessels to harass and inter- cept the English store-ships, and also to prevent the enemy from obtaining supplies along the coast. Massachusetts, as usual, took the initiative, by passing a law to encourage the fitting out of privateers, and a court for the trial and condenniation of j)irates. Several vessels were sent out by Washington, but manned by officers and men from the army, and commissioned, as " a detach- ment of the army," to cruise against the enemy's ships. It was but natural that many of these officers should have proved incompetent, but there were some remarkable exceptions. Captain Manly of IMarblchead, in the schooner Lee, captured an ordonnance brig from Woolwich laden with cannon and am- munition, which proved highly serviceable to Washington's army. The as- sembly of liliode Island, whose coasts were peculiarly exposed, now called the attention of the colonial congress to the subject of a naval force. A INIa- rine Committee was appointed, regulations drawn up, and several frigates ordered to be built, — the nucleus of that American navy, which has suice ob- tained so brilliant and world-wide a reputation. Meanwhile the position of the English in Boston became every day more critical. The post of Lord Howe was far from being enviable. He was un- able to adopt offensive measures, and could not hope much longer to maintain himself in the city. During the winter the troops had suffered severely from the want of fuel and fresh provisions. Large supplies had been sent from England for their relief, but many of the vessels bearing them had been intercepted by the American privateers, and it was found to be almost im- possible to levy contributions on the coasts. Provisions became excessively scarce and dear, and before the winter was over horseflesh was not refused by such as were able to obtain it. The soldiers who remained all the season on the bleak slope of Bunker's Hill, in canvass tents, suffered intensely. It became necessary to strip the churches of their benches and wood-work, and even to pull down uninhabited houses, in order to procure fuel. Several hundred of useless mouths were sent out of the city. The old south church, the scene of so many popular meetings, was emptied and turned into a riding school, and the British officers amused themselves with getting up balls and theatri- cals. Cooped up and starved in this city, Avhich was besides too far north to form a good centre of military operations, General Howe would have eva- cuated it before the winter set in, but for the want of vessels. To expel him by force was now earnestly desired by congress, and they warmly urged Washington to make a vigorous effort for this important object. But Wash- ington needed no urging on their part. By dint of constant exertion, he had by this time brought the army into a better condition ; and so soon as the ice 3 c 378 WASHINGTON BEGINS TO BOMBARD THE CITY. [177G. had formed, which occurred about the middle of February, he called a coun- cil of his oihcers, and proposed to cross over and make an immediate attack upon the city. This project however was considered imprudent by the council, the fortifications having been greatly strengthened by the British. At this disappointment Washington was deeply chagrined. " Though we had been waiting all the year for this favourable event," said he, " the enterprise was thought too dangerous. Perhaps it was ; perhaps the irksomeness of my situation led me to undertake more than could be warranted by prudence. I did not think so, and I am sure yet, that the enterprise, if it had been under- taken with^i-esolution, must have succeeded; without it, any would fail." A less hazardous but no less effectual method of expelling the British was sug- gested by Ward and Gates. Dorchester heights, as we have already observed, situated to the southward of Boston, completely commanded the town and harbour. To raise batteries upon that point must therefore inevitably compel Lord Howe either to evacuate the city, or come forth to attack the intrench- ments ; and in this event Washington determined to profit by the abstraction pf the English forces, and to make an attempt upon Boston. This plan was carried out with extraordinary activity, and crowned with complete success. A vast quantity of fascines and gabions had been prepared, and to cover their design, and distract the British, some powerful batteries established at Cop's Hill and other places, were opened on the 2nd of JNIarch, and began to bombard the city, which was soon in flames in various places, though the fire was extinguished by the activity of the soldiers. This cannonad- ing was kej)t up the next two nights, and on the evening of the 4th of March, amid the prevailing confusion, while the thunder and smoke of the artillery prevented their movements from being heard or seen, a consider- able detachment under General Ward, furnished with abundant munitions, prepared to set out on this important adventure. It was a mild night for the season, but the ground was frozen impenetrably hard, as the troops passed stealthily across the low peninsula, leading from the mainland to the heights, — exposed, should they be discovered, to a sweeping cannonade from the British men-of-Avar in the harbour. Not a soul however perceived them ; they rapidly ascended the heights, and set to work with such extraordinary activity, that before ten at night they had already constructed two redoubts snfiicient to protect them from musketry. They laboured on strenuously until morning, and as the mists gradually rolled ofl", the new in- trenchments, constructed in a single night, loomed upon the astonished eyes of the British officers, as they afterwards declared, like the work of an oriental necromancer. It was no dream however, but a substantial reality, and soon as the admiral had reconnoitred the works, he declared that unless the enemy were promjitly dislodged from them, it would be impossible for his vessels to remain in the bay without running the most imminent risk of destruction. The city and isthmus were no less exposed to the provincial artillery, and Lord Howe had therefore no alternative but to despatch a body of three thousand troops under Lord Percy to exj)el the Americans from the heights. 1770.] THE BRITISH EVACUATE BOSTON. 379 In anticipation of tliis result, the intrencliments were completed with care, the militia of the neighbourhood assembled, and signals arranged on the chain of heights round the city for the more rapid transmission of orders. Wash- ington exhorted his soldiers to remember Bunker's Hill. In case the enemy should fail in their attack, he had aj)pointed four thousand chosen men under the command of Sullivan and Greene, Avho should profit by the tumult and confusion, to cross over and assault the city. Lord Percy and his detachment prepared to cross over to Dorchester heights, where the Americans awaited them with enthusiastic determination, but the sinking of the tide and a violent wind rendered the embarkation impossible. The night was extremely tem- pestuous, and in the morning the agitated sea and heavy rain occasioned another unavoidable delay; and the Americans profited by this interval to increase the strength of their intrencliments, until they had become exceed- ingly formidable. The British general perceived that the attempt to storm them would be attended with considerable risk, and that, should his efforts be crowned with success, it would be a dear-bought and almost useless victory, inasmuch as it would be impossible to maintain himself much longer in the city. He therefore called a council of war, at which it was resolved to evacuate Boston, if suffered to retire without further molestation. This done, he summoned the principal inhabitants and informed' them of the resolution he had adopted, threatening at the same time that he would destroy the town, if disturbed during the embarkation of his soldiers. With this informal mes- sage he counselled them to repair to Washington, and a tacit understanding took place that the British should be allowed to retire peaceably. This being arranged, the embarkation was commenced at once, and occupied eleven days. The soldiers, five thousand in number, were doubtless glad to escape from what they had long felt to be a dishonourable prison, in v/liich they were suffer- ing severe privations; but it was far otherwise with the unhappy band of loy- alists, a thousand or fifteen hundred in number, members of the council, commissioners, custom-house ofEcers, clergymen, merchants, and mechanics, who were compelled to abandon for ever the homes of their fathers, leaving their property to be confiscated by the victors, and A^ith no other means of subsistence than the scanty rations allowed to the soldiers. During these gloomy days the disorder in the city was frightful. Fathers laden with baggage, mothers bearing their children, ran weeping towards the ships, the sick and the wounded, old men and children, hurrying together to the shore, with the licence of an infuriated soldiery, who plundered the houses, and wantonly destroyed what they could not carry a-\vay, j)resented one of the most fearful episodes of the miseries of civil war. During this scene of misery the Americans had constructed a redoubt on Nook's Hill, which commanded the peninsula at Dorchester. The situation of the army became critical in the extreme, the embarkation was hurriedly brought to a close, and at ten in the morning of the 17th of March, the fleet departed from Boston. Scarcely had the rearguard embarked, when Washington entered the city in triumph, and was received with enthusiasm by the patriotic inhabitants, who, 3 c 2 330 THE AFFAIRS OF VIRGIXIA. [1776. cut off for sixteen months from all commnnication with their brethren, had been exposed to the severest privations, and to the insults and outrages of the soldiery. Many of those who had been compelled to leave the city, dependent on charity for their support, noAv joyfully returned to their homes. Such loyalists as had ventured to remain behind were declared traitors to their country, and their property, with that of their departed brethren, was confis- cated and put up to sale for public benefit. A considerable quantity of can- non and stores had been reluctantly left behind by the British, who had spiked several guns and thrown others into the sea. AVhile in the northern States the dispute had proceeded even to bloodshed, in the southern also matters had been carried to a point of incurable hostility. The prominent part taken by the Virginians, ever since the beginning of the dissensions, has been already traced, and will have sufficiently shown the at- titude of mutual defiance in which the governors and people then stood. Lord Dunmore, who had greatly distinguished himself by his defence of the frontier against the Indians, was a man of great energy and activity of character, but who, far from being endued with that tact and supj)leness necessary to allay the popular irritation, by his rash, inconsiderate, and vindictive conduct, hurried it forward to the highest possible pitch. The provincial congress of Virginia having ordered a levy of volunteers, Dunmore secretly removed the public powder by night, and when its restoration was energetically demanded by the people, he refused it upon the ground that they were in a state of virtual rebellion. He incautiously let fall the most violent threats, talked of liberating the negro slaves, and rallying them around the standard of the king. In the midst of the excitement thus produced, arrived the news of the rout of the English troops at Lexington. On learning the removal of the powder, a body of volunteers, headed by Patrick Henry, marched ujion Williamsburg, for the purpose of obtaining its .recovery by force, and did not retire until they had obtained bills to the amount of the stores carried away. The governor retorted by issuing a proclamation declaring Henry and his com- panions to be rebels, a proceeding which, while it intimidated nobody, on the contrary tended still further to exasperate the great body of the people. Matters remained in this uneasy state until the arrival of Lord North's conciliatory measure, which Dunmore laid before the assembly with the lingering hope that it might allay the general agitation. But here, as in the other colonies, this insidious measure was contemptuously rejected, and the people, their minds being fully made uj), determined to take the redress of grievances into their own hands, and they proceeded to attack the arsenal, to obtain the recovery of the jiublic stores. The governor, alarmed for his personal safety, retired on board a ship of war with his family, whence the assembly invited him to return to Williamsburg and resume his functions. This he however refused to do, and this refusal being regarded by the as- sembly as a virtual abdication of his office, from that moment the royal government in Virginia may be said to have come to an end, being immedi- ately succeeded by apo^aular convention, with an executive committee of safety. 1776.] COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES. 381 HIgMy exasperated by tliis expulsion from his government, and fully counting upon the co-operation of a large body of loyalists, Lord Dunmore now commenced an ignoble system of hostilities, resembling rather the preda- tory attacks of a horde of corsairs than the proceedings of civilized warfare. Having collected a considerable naval force, he proclaimed martial law, de- clared that all slaves belonging to the rebels were henceforth free, and invited them to join the royal standard ; thus endeavouring to add the horrors of a war of races to that aheady subsisting between men of the same blood and language. In consequence of this proclamation, a considerable number of fugitive slaves soon joined his standard, with a large body of loyalists, which it required the utmost eiforts of the Virginia convention to keep in check. Having collected a considerable force, the ex-governor then proceeded across the Great Bridge, a long and narrow pass, which formed the only access to the tovv'n of Norfolk, then become the most flourishing sea-port of Virginia. Here he endeavoured to establish himself with his adherents, and fortified the bridge end for this purpose. A vigorous and successful assault was made uj)on it by the Virginia militia, and Dunmore, finding the position untenable, was compelled to retire again on board his ships. The most bitter animosity now raged between the patriot and the loyalist parties. On the evacuation of Norfolk a large body of the latter took refuge on board the fleet, while those who remained behind were exposed to all the rancour of their victorious enemies. Their bitter complaints reached Lord Dunmore, who, being joined by a frigate, threatened, unless they ceased to fire upon his ships, and sent to him a supply of provisions, to lay the town in ashes upon the following morning. Meeting only Avith a refusal, he pro- ceeded to bombard Norfolk, and thus one of the most flourishing sea-ports in America fell a prey to the horrors of civil war. Meanwhile Dunmore had left no means untried of raising a party for the royal cause. He had commissioned one Conolly as lieutenant-colonel, and sent him into the back provinces of Virginia to raise a regiment from among the settlers, and even, it was said, to induce the Indians to take part in the disjiute. Conolly however A\as intercepted, and sent prisoner to Phila- delphia. Unable as he was to reduce the province to obedience, Dunmore continued during the whole summer to carry on a system of vengeful depredations upon the estates of such of the patriots as, from their situation on the banks of the numerous rivers with Avhich Virginia is intersected, lay helpless and open to attack. He burned the houses of the planters, ravaged their estates, and carried ofl" their slaves, and after inflicting an iinmense amount of wanton in- jury, pursued from place to place, was at last compelled to retire from the province, accompanied by the general detestation of the people over whom he had once presided with honouT, having, as the sole result, eradicated from the breasts of the patriotic party in Virginia the last lingering vestiges of loyalty, and greatly precipitated the growing feeling in favour of inde- pendence. 382 LOYALIST RISING IN NORTH CAROLINA, [1776. The disasters of the Americans in Canada were counterbalanced by their successes in the southern provinces. After the departure of the English troops from Boston, General Clinton had been despatched from Halifax with a body of troops destined for the coast of Carolina. In the province of North Caro- lina a considerable body of Scotch higlilanders had settled, animated by a strong feeling of loyalty, as were also the " Regulators," already spoken of. With the aid of these men, together with a large body of troops which were shortly expected from Ireland, and the detachment of Clinton, Governor Martin had confidently expected to reduce the colony to obedience. Two highland officers, named M'Donald and M'Leod, succeeded in raising a body of loyalists, with which they attempted to march down to the coast and await the expected succours. In order to do this it was necessary to pass over Moore's Creek bridge, near Wilmington, which had been strongly occupied by a j)arty of the continental militia. Advancing bravely at the head of his men to carry this bridge, M'Leod fell mortally wounded, and the whole of his column were either killed or taken prisoners. Clinton, in the mean while, after touching at New York, where his arrival occasioned considerable alarm, repaired to the rendezvous at Cape Fear, but on learning the disastrous issue of the loyalist rising, determined to await the arrival of the reinforcements, which, after a wearisome delay, at length made their appearance. They consisted of ten ships of war under Admiral Sir Peter Parker, having on board seven regiments, commanded by Lord Cornwallis and other distinguished officers. Clinton now assumed the command, and as there was now no hope of acting advantageously in North Carolina, it was resolved to strike a still more decisive blow by the capture of Charleston, an operation considered to be by no means difficult in itself, and which would have the effect of rendering the English entire masters of South Carolina. Had the meditated attack been suddenly made there can be little doubt that it must have proved successful. But on the contrary there occurred a considerable delay, and having been informed of the project through some irntercepted letters to Governor Eden, congress had time to despatch General Lee to Charleston to put the place into a state of defence. At the first alarm, various regiments had marched down to the city, increasing its garrison to about six thousand men. Assisted by the inhabitants and their negro slaves, they laboured most indefatigably to complete the fortifications. All the roads running down to the sea were blockaded, the streets barricaded, the magazines destroyed, intrenchments raised, and every possible means adopted to obstruct the advance of the English. With all this, however. General Lee could entertain no very sanguine hopes of defending the city against the imposing force with which it was threatened. On June 4th, the English fleet made its appearance off Charleston Bay, and having passed the bar, anchored about three miles from Sullivan's Island. General Clinton despatched a summons to the inhabitants, threatening them with the utmost vengeance of an irritated government, unless they submit- ted, offering at the same time a complete amnesty to such as should lay 1776.] UNSUCCESSFUL BOMBARDMENT OF CHARLESTON. 383 down tlieir arms ; but this proceeding being entirely ineiFectual, lie prepared for an immediate attack upon the city. There was a fort upon Sullivan's Island, which, as it entirely commanded the difficidt channel leading up to the city, had been strengthened with pecu- liar carc^ and armed with thirty-six heavy guns, as well as twenty-six others of inferior calibre. The building was constructed of a soft and spongy wood, which deadened the effect of a cannon-ball, and was commanded by Colonel Moultrie, at the head of about three hundred and fifty troops, and some militia. To silence this fort was of course the first object of the British commander, and for this purpose he landed a large body of troops on Long Island, adjacent to Sullivan's Island, and only separated from it by a narrow channel, often fordable, with orders to cross over and attack it while the fleet cannonaded it in front. Great difficulty was experienced in the outset in getting the heavy ships of war over the bar, which could be effected only by taking out their guns. At length, on the 28th of June, the whole fleet placed themselves in line and began a furious cannonade on the devoted fort. Three of these ships, the Sphyx, Acteon, and Syren, were ordered to take up a position to the west- ward, where they could enfilade the weakest part of the works, and at the same time intercept any succours that might be sent from the city. Had this manoeuvre been successful, it would have been impossible for the fort to have held out; but fortunately for the Americans, the three vessels grounded on a shoal called the Middle Ground, two being with great diffi- culty got off, and one burned on the following day. This fortunate accident encouraged the spirit of the besiegers to the highest pitch, although but recent recriiits, and exposed for several hours to a most tremendous cannonade. Amidst a perfect hail-storm of bombs and balls, they coolly and resolutely stood to their guns, and returned the fire of their assailants, until their am- munition failed. As an instance of their daring intrepidity, the flag-staff being shot aAvay, a sergeant, named Jasper, leaped down upon the beach, and in the midst of the hottest broadside deliberately replaced it ujion its post. General Lee visited the garrison in the midst of the action, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm. The soldiers, shot down at their posts, exhorted their surviving comrades to stand firm. " I die," said Serjeant M'Donald, " for a glorious cause, but I hope it will not expire with me." So steady and well-directed was the American fire, that the English men-of-war were most severely handled. The Bristol, fifty -gun ship, was twice in flames, her captain was killed. Lord Campbell, the ex-governor, who served as a volunteer, was mortally wounded, and at one time Sir Peter Parker was the only one unhurt on deck. The troops intended to ford the channel and attack the fort in flank, were unable to pass over on account of the unusual depth of water, occasioned by a long prevalence of easterly winds. The flank attack by the vessels had also failed, and thus the Americans were enabled to pass over fresh ammunition and succours from the city into the fort. The engagement had lasted from eleven in the morning till nine in the evening, when the British, owing to the 384 ENMITY BETWEEN THE CITIZENS. [1:73. accidental failuro of two jjarts of tlicir plan, and the intrepid resistance of tlie Americans, were forced to retire from the scene of action, and on the follow- ing day set sail, discomfited, for New York. Meanwliile, as the dispute with the jDarent country grew more envenomed, and all prospect of accommodation more hopeless, the hrcach between the two parties in the colonies became proportionally wider, and their animosity more inveterate and fearful. Many of the loyalists had at first sincerely disapproved pf the proceedings of government and sympathized Avith the discontented; but as the latter overstepped what seemed the limits of le- gitimate resistance, as the designs of the democratic leaders became more, evident — they hastened to retrace their steps, and range themselves on what they believed to be the side of lawful and time-hallowed authority. It is well observed by Guizot, that " sincere and honourable sentiments, fidelity, affection, gratitude, respect for traditions, and the love of order, were sjjccially the origin of the loyalist party, and comj^osed its strength." This party every where comj)rised a large proportion of the wealthy and respectable pro- prietors and merchants, the Episcopal clergy, the Quakers of Pennsylvania, and the Scotch Highlanders of New York, Carolina, and Georgia. Its great- est strength was however in the state of New York, and especially in Tryon county, so called after Governor Tryon, and where Guy Johnson, son of Sir "William Johnson, possessed a preponderating influence. Of this numerous class, the members more active in taking the side of government soon be- came the special objects of odium, and were exposed to the outrages of the populace, Avith whom it was a favourite amusement to tar and feather them, and expose them to the general derision. These proceedings ge- nerated a spmt of mutual hatred and revenge, Avhich by degress inflamed tlie breasts even of such of the Tories as desired at first to embrace a peaceful neutrality. After the assumption of political poAver by congress, the breach became incurable, neutrality no longer possible, the du'eful necessity that revolution brings with it, compelled every citizen to declare himself either the friend or foe of the popular side. At first congress obserAxd an extreme mo- deration towards the Tories, but as the quarrel proceeded, and every one's hand Avas against his fellow, as families Avcre diA'idcd, and a man's Avorst foes were those of his own household, it became unavoidable to observe a greater degree of rigour. Committees of safety — agents appointed to watch over the malignants — confiscations and imprisonments, became common. Private malevolence was often indulged under the guise of zeal for the public good. The peaceful and unoffending Avere dragged into the quarrel. The A\hole frame of society Avas rent asunder, till brothers were ready to imbrue their hands in each other's blood. The Tories Avere forced to make up by intrigue Avhat they wanted in strength. The centre of their machinations was Ncav York, Avhei'e the provincial assembly had at first refused to send delegates to the continental congress, but were outA-otcd by the popular party. GoA-ernor Tryon, Avho Avas much re- spected in the province, had recently returned from England, and it is a sin- 1775.] THE FINAL PETITION OF CONGRESS. 385 gular instance of tlie divided state of the city, tliat about the time tliat Wash- ington passed tlirougli New York on Ms way to Boston, to assume the command of the army, the same escort of honour was appointed both for the royal governor and for the American generaL Tryon however had at length seen fit to retire on board the Asia man-of-war, which lay opposite to the city, ready to open upon it on the occasion of any emergency. So lukewarm were the committee of safety, that it was thought prudent to detach some troops of Connecticut, under the command of General Lee, to insure the possession of this important post. The captain of the Asia, hearing of the approach of Lee's trooj^s, threatened to fire upon the city, if they were sufiered to take up their quarters. Lee retorted with a threat that displays the excited feelings of the time, " that if he set fire to a single house in consequence of his coming, he would chain a hundred Tories together by the neck, and make that house their funeral pile." On the following session of parliament, which opened in October, 1775, the measures of the ministry were severely canvassed by their opponents. The increasing gravity of the dispute envenomed party animosity to the highest pitch. Even some of the adherents of the ministry resigned their places rather than take part in their arbitrary measures. Petitions against the war flowed in from the mercantile interest. The citizens of London, who from the outset of the dispute had shoAved themselves the warm advocates of the rights of the colonists, and had raised subscriptions to relieve the sufferers by the Boston Port Bill, were loud and vehement in their complaints. Not- withstanding this storm of opposition the ministry, having a great majority, and supported or rather urged on by the king, were inflexible in their deter- mination to reduce the rebellious colonists by force. The Earl of'Efflngham, and the eldest son of Lord Chatham, had resigned their commissions in dis- gust, and as the recruiting of fresh forces went on but slowly, a body of Ger- man troojDS from Brunswick and Hesse were hired to make up the deficiency. No step during the whole of the dispute with America occasioned greater animadversion from the opposition, or sunk so deeply into the minds of the colonists themselves. The final petition of congress had been intrusted to the hands of Governor Penn, and presented to Lord Dartmouth, who informed him that no answer would be returned to it. When examined before the House, Penn gave it as his opinion that no designs of independency had hitherto been formed by congress, as none had indeed at that time been openly avowed; but the ministry Avere in possession of letters by John Adams, which plainly indicated the designs entertained by the popular party. The Duke of Pichmond moved that the petition of congress might be made the basis of a further reconciliation, and Burke introduced and powerfidly 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. Besides the military invasion of the colonies, the ministry proceeded to prohibit all trade with them, and to declare their ships and goods, and also those of any trading Avith them, laAvful prizes. The cre^^'s of such vessels 2, H 386 CHANGE IN THE OBJECT OF THE COLONISTS. [1775. were to be seized and treated as slaves, — they were to be made to serve on board British ships of war ; a measure justly characterized by an indignant op- position as a "refinement in cruelty, " " a sentence worse than death," obliging the unhappy men who should be made captives in that predatory war to bear arms against their families, kindred, friends^ and country, and after being plundered themselves to become accomplices in plundering their brethren. The ministry proceeded in their cause, sustained as they were not only by the royal influence, and a preponderating majority in the House, but also, it must be confessed, by the general voice of the country , and to this infatuation, which closed the last avenue to hope, must be attributed the decisive measures shortly afterwards adopted by congress, and scission of the colonies from the empire of England, The contemptuous rejection of the petition of congress showed but too plainly that all hopes of accommodation were vain, and that nothing but the absolute submission of the colonists would satisfy the king and his ministers. The voting of a band of foreign mercenaries to carry fire and sword into America, formed the climax of a long list of grievances and injuries, which had gradually eaten away the last lingering vestiges of loyalty. The king of England was formerly regarded as the father of his childi'en in America ; he had now become their sanguinary and implacable foe, and had pledged his royal word to overcome theu' obstinacy, and to reduce them to obedience. Blood had been shed, angry and vindictive feelings every where called into action, and a cordial reconciliation had become impossible. And even should the present difficulties be accommodated, what security would there be for the future ? Hitherto, in the hope of ultimate reconciliation, a large body among the Americans had deprecated any intention to throw oflf the yoke of the parent country, but by the measures of government their minds had become gradually prepared for a change, and noAV that the last hope of accommodation had vanished, it was felt to be high time to quit their present false position, and assume that which the altered aspect of the quarrel imperatively required. Nothing could in truth, as it has been well observed, be more incongruous than the position of the colonies at that time towards Great Britain. " The war which they had vigorously waged for an entire year was directed against a king to whom protestations of loyalty were in ccesantly renewed, and the very men who were engaged in acts of rebellion shrunk from the name of rebels. In the tribunals justice was still administered in the name of the king, and prayers were every day offered up for the preservation and welfare of a prince whose authority was not only ignored, but against whom a determined and obstinate contest was maintained. The colonists pretended that they only desired to resume their ancient relations, and re-establish the royal government in its original shape, when in fact the repubhcan system had long been introduced. They declared it to be their wish to arrive at a certain end, while they recurred to every means which tended to conduct them to the contrary one. Never, in a word, had there been seen before such inconsistency between words and actions." Doubtless, as will have abeady appeared, there 1775.] FIR8T THOUGHTS OF INDEPENDENCE. 387 ■was from the first a party more far-sighted and determined, wlio not only secretly desired but incessantly laboured to bring about a result in itself so desirable, and necessary to the development of tbeir country, as independence. This however was far from being generally the case. However inconsistent with their actions, the wishes of the majority had hitherto been undoubtedly for a reconciliation. They looked to the old country with affection, they were proud of their connexion with her, and they felt it to be painful, perhaps criminal, to break so ancient a bond. It was at this critical period, while this feeling, though inoperative, yet lin- gered in the minds of the people, and when, although the thing itself had become familiarized to most minds as equally necessary and desirable, every one held back from boldly pronouncing the word independence, that there appeared a pamphlet called " Common Sense," written by Thomas Paine, the celebrated author of the Rights of INIan, who had recently emigrated from England, and ardently embraced the American cause. Perceiving this hesi- tation in the public mind, he set himself to the work of dissipating it by a clear and convincing statement of the actual position of affairs. He plainly exposed the impossibility of a lasting reconciliation with England, and showed that in- dependence had not only become the only safe or honourable course, but that it was as practicable as it was desirable. PevicAving the British constitution, he attributed to the element of royalty alone the numerous evils which attended its working, evils by which the Americans themselves had already suffered so deeply, and of which they had it now in their power to get rid. This pamphlet, written in a popular and convincing style, and expressly adapted to the state of public feeling, produced an indescribable sensation. The ice was now broken ; those who, although convinced, had hitherto held back, came boldly forward, while many who had halted between two opinions now yielded to the force of necessity aiid embraced the popular side. When once the idea of independence began to be generally entertained, its fitness to the circumstances of the country must have rendered it irresistible. It opened to the people magnificent visions of the future greatness of America, when untrammcled by foreign control. She had grown up to full maturity, her resources were boundless as her territory, the different colonies had to a con- siderable degree merged their local jealousies in the common cause, they had become acquainted with their own strength and resources, and could no longer brook their degrading dependence upon a distant and arbitrary power. The time was ripe, circumstances propitious, the hand of Providence plainly visible. The cause of America was regarded abroad with a sjonpathy inflamed by jealousy of the colossal and overgrown power of England. France, her ancient and implacable foe, burned to avenge her Canadian disgraces, and to humble the glory and weaken the resources of her victorious rival. Her assistance might certainly be counted on. Every motive then — the sense of cruel oppres- sion, the conviction of the hopelessness of reconciliation, the flattering desire of independence, and the confident assurance of foreign support — seemed to show conclusively that the decisive hour was come. 388 HESITATION TO DECLARE INDEPENDENCE. [1776. For a long time past circumstances Kad irresistibly tended to tlils result. As the royal authority was virtually abrogated in all tlie colonies, it became absolutely necessary to substitute some other system of government, and on this point the citizens of New Hampshire apjilied to congress for their advice. This furnished that body with a welcome opportunity of suggest- ing, on the motion of John Adams, to the different assemblies and conven- tions, to rstablish su.ch form of governments as seemed suitable to their altered circumstances, all authority exercised under the crown of Great Britain being abrogated as unlawful, and the powers of government vested under authority from the j)eople. As this was virtually, though not nominally, a declaration of independence, some of the colonies yet demurred at carrying it out. The con- vention of Virginia had, however, already appointed a committee to di-aw up a Frame of Government ; while their delegates in congress were instructed to jDropose a formal Declaration of Independence, — an example shortly afterwards imitated by the representatives of INIassachusetts and the New England States. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland, in which the royalists were very numerous, instructed their delegates to oppose it. And such, after all, was the reluctance in the minds of many to take a step so irrevocable, for once taken, the honour and dignity of the country required that it should be maiiltained at all events, such the lingering scruples of loyalty and the fear of closing all avenue to an accommodation, such, in short, the apprehension of a new and untried state of things, of the predominance of democratic influence, • — that not without a considerable struggle was this momentous measure finally carried. It was Richard Henry Lee, Avho, on the seventh of June, in pursuance of the instructions of his constituency, first brought forward the motion, " that the United Colonies are, and ought to be, fi'ee and independent States, and that their political connexion with Great Britain is, and ought to be, dis- solved." Next day the motion was debated with closed doors, by the whole house, being earnestly seconded by Wythe, and also by John Adams, who, after his many hesitations, now decisively made up his mind. Dickinson, Livingston, and Rutledge, with many other members, opiiosed it, either in the anxious hope of a settlement, or because they thought the time was not come to ven- ture upon so bold a step. So strong indeed was the opposition, that the motion j^assed but by a majority of seven States to six. The final consideration of the subject was now, for a short time, postponed, in order to give time for public opinion to pronounce itself more decidedly. The Pennsylvania assembly was obliged to give way to the popular feeling, and instruct its delegates to support the measure. New Jersey and Mary- land also sent in their adhesion. A committee of five, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, a young Virginia lawyer of remarkable abilities, now rapidly rising into notice, together with John Adams, Franklin, Livingston, and Sherman, was appointed to draw up the " Declaration," itself the produc- tion of Jefferson, but with considerable modification in committee. Some of the most violent paragraj)hs attacking the king and ministry were ju- 1776.] THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 389 dicioiisly omitted ; and it must he confessed tliat, on tliis head, the document still remains tolerably severe. Another circumstance, noted by Hildreth, is especially worthy of remark. The profession, that " all men are alike free and independent " — the basis of the new political creed — was then, at least, ingenuously felt to be utterly inconsistent with the existence of slavery among those Avho adopted it. An emphatic denunciation of that system, and a charge against the king for having prostituted his negative for the defeat of all legis- lative attempt to prohibit or restrain " that execrable traffic," was therefore originally included in the resolutions, but afterwards struck out in compliance with the interests of some of the southern States. With these omissions, this celebrated paper, which we here give in full, was adopted by a large ma- jority. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. " "VVlien, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requii'es that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. " We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers- in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and tran- sient causes ; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of go- vernment. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establish-, ment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 390 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. [177(3. " He lias refused h.is assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. " He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. " He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature ; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. *' He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measiu'es. *' He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. '^ He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise ; the State remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convul- sions within. " He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. " He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for estabhshing judiciary powers. '' He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries, " He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and to eat out their substance. " He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. '* He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. " He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation : — " For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : " For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States : " For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : " For imposing taxes on us without our consent : " For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury : *' For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences : '■ For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring pro- vince, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its bound- 1776.] THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 391 aries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing tlie same absolute rule into these colonies : " For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments : " For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. " He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us, " He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our to^vviis, and destroyed the lives of our people. " He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbar- ous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. " He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. " He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. " In every state of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms : our repeated petitions have been answered only by re- peated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. ** Nor have we been wantinsr in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the cir- cumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connexions and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be. Free and Independent States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and that, as free and independent states, they have power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances^ establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. 392 RECEPTION OF THE DECLARATION. [1776. And for the support of tliis declaration, with a firm reliance on the protectioa of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our for- tunes, and our sacred honour." Thus, not by any deep-laid design of their own, but by the working of that providential law which overrules the errors and passions of men for the ac- complishment of its secret designs, had the Americans been led on to an issue, which, though absolutely necessary for the future development of their coun- try, and to which the under-current of public opinion had long irresistibly tended, they would but a short period before have shrunk from contem- plating. We must admire the heroism with which Congress prepared to com- mence a struggle that promised to be long and arduous, no less than the skill with which they grappled the difficulties that beset them. It was not only the native energy of the men, drawn forth into sublime relief by their trying and perilous circumstances, but also the habit of self-government, to which they had so long been accustomed, that could enable them, with all their differ- ences of opinion, to pull together, and to organize the new institutions required by their altered position. Without loss of time, they set their hand to the work. A committee was appointed to draw up the terms of confederation, and to define the powers of Congress ; which proved to be a work of time and dif- ficulty, for the sejoarate States were jealous of each other's pre]3onderance, and all were unwilling to surrender to Congress more power than was absolutely indispensable. A board of war was established, of which John Adams was appointed chairman. A secret committee for foreign correspondence had been for some time in operation. Issues of paper money were made to meet the growing demands. Nor was Congress alone active, the different States had to remodel their respective governments, and to make the necessary preparations of men and money, respectively required at their hands. They had to watch over and keep in check the intrigues of their domestic enemies. An immense and complicated machinery had to be created and kept in motion, and the centre of that machinery was Washington. The news of the "Declaration of Independence " was received throughout the Union of the Thirteen United States with the greatest enthusiasm by far the greatest body of the people. " The day is past," writes Adams to his wife — " the 4th day of July will be a memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illu- minations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward for ever. You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure that it will cost us to main- tain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, tln-ough all this gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory — I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that our posterity will triumph. BOOK III. FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. 177G. CONSPIRA CY OF THE ROYALISTS IN NEW YORK. 395 CHAPTER I. CAMPAIGN OF 1T76. — BATTLE OF GOWANUS. — RETREAT OF WASHINGTON THROUGH NEW JERSET.— ENGAGEMENT ON LAKE TICONDEROGA. — SUCCESS AT TRENTON. — BATTLE OF PRINCETON, ETC. After the evacuation of Boston, Lord HoAve had retired to Halifax, with the view, as was justly aj^prehended by Washington, of directing his next attack against New York. That city had always been the chief seat of Tory influ- ence, and though ex-governor Tryon had been obliged to fly, he still remained on board a vessel at Sandy Hook, and Avas in constant communication with the royalists. It was suspected, and not without reason, that the most danger- ous plots were being hatched in secret, wliile the provisional congress seemed to remain either itnconscious or paralysed. No sooner had Washington arrived at New York to assume the command of the forces, than his attention was directed to this alarming state of things ; and tlirough his earnest expostulation, a secret committee was appointed with power to apprehend suspected persons. This providential foresight led to the discovery of an insidious scheme, which, had it succeeded, might have given a totally different issue to the impending struggle. Tryon's agents were found to be actively engaged in corrupting the American soldiers with British gold, the mercenary infection had even seized upon Washington s OAvn guard, and a j)lan had been formed for seizing and carrying him on board an English ship. One of the soldiers was found guilty by a court-martial, and executed ; some of the guilty suspected were thrown into prison, among whom was the mayor himself. The head of the confederacy was broken ; but there yet re- mained enough of the Tory leaven to occasion disquietude and justify a vigilant severity. Meanwhile every thing had been done, consistent with the limited means at Washington's command, to protect New York against Howe's anticipated attack. Putnam had sunk obstructions in the North and East rivers ; batteries had been established in the islands and passages; and two forts had been hastily erected, to command the comparatively narrow passage of the Hudson, i few miles above the city, and before it expands into the broad lake-like basin jf the Tappan sea. These were Fort Washington, at the northern end of New York island, and Fort Lee, on the opposite shore of New Jersey. The .roops already at New York, Congress had determined to reinforce by thir- teen thousand eight hundred militia from New England, New York, and New Jersey ; while ten thousand more from Pennsylvania, DelaAvare, and Maryland were to form " a flying camp," to cover and protect the neigh- bouring State of New Jersey. With these imperfect defences, and this body 3 E 2 396 PROPOSALS FOR A RECONCILIATION. [1776. of ill-organized, and, as lie must liave known tliem to be, inefficient levies, Washington anxiously, but firmly, awaited the approach of his more power- ful adversary. At length, on the 28th of June, the British ships appeared off New York, and a few days after General Howe landed on Staten Island, where he was warmly welcomed by the Tories, and received the promise of co-operation from the loyalists of Long Island and New Jersey. A few days after his arrival, and whilst an attack upon New York might be daily expected, Wash- ington received the news of the passing of the Declaration of Independence, which raised the spirits of the army to the highest pitch. The regiments were paraded and the Declaration read, amidst the most enthusiastic plaudits. The picture of the king, which had hitherto stood like a tutelary genius in the Town Hall, was torn down and destroyed, the royal effigy converted into revolutionary bullets. The expected attack was however for some time deferred. The English ministry had despatched Admiral Lord Howe from England, with large rein- forcements, such as, together with the loyalist rising, upon which they seem ever to have counted, would prove, they imagined, amply sufficient to suppress the insurrection. He now arrived to his brother's assistance, furnished also with proposals for an accommodation, which were to be tried before resorting to further hostilities. A circular letter to the royal governors, stating the terms proposed for a reconciliation, together with a general offer of pardon, were sent on shore under a flag of truce, and were forwarded by Washington to Congress. It is possible that had Howe's arrival been somewhat earlier, these proposals might have in some degree protracted the hesitations in that body, and have sown division in the jDublic mind ; but could have hardly produced any decided effect, inasmuch as they left the matters in dispute main- ly untouched, and offered no security but the royal clemency. As it was, the Kubicon had been passed — the Declaration of Independence put forth, and the only effect of the proclamation was to unite the people more closely toge- ther. Indeed, so far from dreading its effects. Congress caused it to be pub- lished in the newspapers, in order " that the few v^hom hopes of moderation and justice had still kept in suspense, might now be convinced" that the valour alone of their country is to save its liberties. Although provided with an army and fleet sufficient, as it might well seem, to put down resistance by force, both General Howe and his brother were sincerely anxious to eflect if possible a peaceable solution of the quarrel. The Admiral, as generous as he was brave, had undertaken the command of the fleet Avith marked reluctance. In his place in parliament he had warmly and feelingly descanted upon the horrors of civil war, and declared that " he knew no struggle so painful as that between a soldier's duties as an officer and man. If left to his own choice, he should decline serving ; but if commanded, it be- came his duty, and he should not refuse to obey." Having, to their great regret, failed in their appeal to the American public, the Howes next endea- voured to open a personal communication with Washington. For tiiis pur- 1776. ] FAIL URE OF NEGOTIA TI0X8 WITH WASHINGTON, 397 pose a boat was sent witli a letter addressed " George Washington, Esq.," under whicli superscription it was however returned. They next despatched Colonel Paterson, adjutant-general of the British army, who was introduced into the presence of the American commander, and presented another letter similarly addressed. But this also ^^''ashington declined to receive, upon the ground, that as his public capacity was well known, the letter ought to be suitably di- rected, or that it would aj^pear to be a merely private communication. A conference on the subject of the disputes then took place between the Colonel and Washington, but though conducted with perfect courtesy on both sides, it terminated in nothing satisfactory. " I find," said Washington, " you are only empowered to grant pardons : we have committed no oifence, we need no pardon." Soon after, Colonel Palfrey, paymaster-general of the American army, repaired on board Lord Howe's ship to negotiate a change of prisoners. His lordship took this occasion to lament that the fear of displeasing the king had prevented his public recognition of the rank of General Washington, for whom he professed the highest respect. He remarked, with evident emotion, that " Congress had greatly hurt his feelings by reminding him, in one of their publications, of the esteem and respect they had for the memory of his brother, drawing, by manifest inference, a contrast between the sin-vivors and deceased ; that no man could feel more sensibly the respect shown to their family than himself and the General, that they should always esteem America for it, and particularly Massachusetts Bay ; and that he hoped America would one day be convinced that, in their affection for America, he and his brother were also Howes. With these courteous overtures terminated for the present all prospect of a reconciliation. Two months had elapsed since the English general landed on Staten Island, and he had now been joined by all his reinforcements, swelling his army to lr\venty-four thousand men, well trained, well provided, and led by able and experienced officers. INIeanwhile Washington's forces had increased, by the arrival of militia, to about the same number, but vastly different in organiza- tion and equipment. A heterogeneous medley, hurriedly gathered together from the different States, they brought along with them their sectional jealousies and disgusts — the wealthy gentlemen of the middle and southern States re- volting at associating, on a footing of equality, with the officers of the northern and eastern militia, Avho, though inferior to none in genuine chivalry, were often of a low rank in society, and in manner and bearing hardly raised above the level of their fellow comrades from the plough. Overbearing contempt on one hand, and wounded pride on the other, bred quarrels and disorders which threatened the most serious results, and called for vigorous but kindly remon- strance on the part of Washiiigton. We are reminded here, as at every step, of the immense moral influence which he had already acquired over the minds of his countrymen — an influence alone able to conciliate and to con- trol the ever-recurring discords and discouragements which beset the in- fancy of the republic. '' The General most earnestly entreats the officers and soldiers to consider, that they can no way assist our enemies more effectually 398 POSITION OF AMERICAN TROOPS IN BROOKLYN. [1776. than by making divisions among themselves, that the honour and success of our army and the safety of our bleeding country depend upon harmony and good agreement with each other, that the provinces are all united to oppose the common enemy, and all distinctions sunk in the name of an American. To make this name honourable, and to preserve the liberty of our country, ought to be our only emulation, and he will be the best soldier and the best patriot who contributes most to this glorious work, whatever his station, and from whatever part of the continent he may come." This spirited appeal had for the present the effect of putting a stop to dissensions, which could only be effectually repressed by a more efficient organization of the army. In the expectation that Howe would direct his attack by way of Long Island, a body of nine thousand men had been encamped at Brooklyn, pro- tected by a line of works executed under the superintendence of General Greene, extending from Wallabout Bay on the East river to Gowan's cove on New York Bay. In advance was a range of wooded heights, crossed directly by two roads, while a third turned their eastern extremity near the shore of the bay, and a fourth, by falling into the Jamaica road, the western. The central passes, leading over the hills, were guarded and fortified, and orders had been given carefully to watch over them all. But General Greene, to whom the command was intrusted, and who perfectly understood the ground, happened to fall ill, and the command devolved on Putnam, who was not so well acquainted with it, and by some neglect, or want of foresight, the Jamaica road was left without adequate protection, neither was a proper system of comnumication kept up betweeia the different posts. Such was the position of the Americans when the British troops landed on Long Island, extending their line along the southern side of the heights which intervened between them and the American camp. Opposite the middle of the heights was De Heister Avith the centre composed of Hessians, the left wing under General Grant prepared to attack by the lower road, while General Clinton, supported by Earl Percy and General Cornwallis, ad- vanced at the head of the right wing towards the unprotected Jamaica road, with the purpose of turning the American left, placing them between two fires, and cutting off their retreat to the camp. This combination, as sagaciously planned as it was vigorously executed, proved, notwithstanding the most resolute bravery on the part of the Ameri- cans at particular points, entirely successful. About nine o'clock at night Clinton's division advanced steadily and swiftly towards the Jamaica road, and after capturing a patrol, a little before day-break had attained this spot, the key of the position, without obstacle. Grant meanwhile advanced at midnight along the lower road, and thus came into contact with the American troops under Lord Sterling, while at day- break De Heister assaulted the American centre posted upon the crest of the hills. One of the ships meanwhile kepf thundering on the American right. The object of the English was to draw the attention of their enemy from what was passing on their left, but no sooner were they aware that Clinton stood 1770.] COMPLETE DEFEAT OF THE AMERICANS. 399 prepared to act on the offensive, tlian they advanced to the attack with vigour, and after a strenuous resistance, succeeded in forcing the passages, and gradually driving in their opponents. Meanwhile Clinton, unopposed on the Jamaica road, marched rapidly through Bedford, and threw himself upon the left flank of the Americans, who finding themselves in a way to be cut off", endeavoured to retreat to the camp, but were intercepted and driven back upon the Hessians, or forced to fly into the woods. Cornwallis at the same time pushed round to cut ofl" Lord Sterling, who was taken prisoner, his corps with great difliculty effecting their retreat. Sullivan, hemmed in as he was by De Heister on one side and Clinton on the other, was obliged to surrender. The defeat of the Americans was complete at all points, and upwards of a thousand prisoners remained in the hands of the enemy. Such as escaped fell back within the lines at Brooklyn, closely pursued by the victorious English. Inexperienced as were the Americans in the science of war, having so extensive and broken a line to defend, without cavalry, and attacked by a vastly superior and highly disciplined force, the issue of the combat might have been foreseen, and Washington, it is evident, almost an- ticipated it. Speaking of his soldiers before the struggle, he observed, " The superiority of the enemy and the expected attack does not seem to have depressed their spirits. These considerations lead me to think that, though the appeal may not terminate as happily as I could wish, yet that the enemy will not succeed in their views without considerable loss. Any advantage they may gain I trust will cost them dear." He was not, however, prepared for so com^jlete a discomfiture as this ; and his anguish, at witnessing it, is said to have been extreme. During the action he had crossed over to the camp at Brooklyn, now crowded with disheartened fugitives, and menaced with an immediate attack by the English, flushed with victory and eager to be led on to the assault. The moment was fearfully critical. Had the counsels of the English officers been as vigorous as the temper of their troops was excited, the lines would have been at once stormed and probably carried. But whether General Howe dreaded the result of thus attacking a desperate foe, or supposed that with the co-operation of the ships the enemy could not escape him, he preferred to make regular approaches, and began immediately to open trenches. The rain poured incessantly for two days, and the Americans were exposed to it un- sheltered. Had the English ships advanced up the East river, and stationed themselves between Brooklyn and New York, nothing could have saved the camp ; but a strong north-east wind had hitherto prevented them from doing so. Every moment was precious, when a sudden shift of wind would cut off* the possibility of flight. It was known besides, that Clinton was threatening to send part of his army across the sound, thus menacing New York. Washington called a council of war, at which it was resolved to retreat instantly. The hour of eight in the evening of the twenty-ninth of August was fixed upon for the embarkation. Every thing had been 400 THE AMERICAN ARMY LEAVES BROOKLYN. [1776. prepared, and the troops were ready to marcli down, but the force of the wind and ebb tide delayed them for some hours, and seemed as if it would entirely frustrate the enterprise. The enemy, toiling hard at the approaches, were now so near, that the blows of their pickaxes and instruments could be distinctly heard, while the noise of these operations deadened all sound of the American movements, which were carried on in the deepest silence. Abo\it two in the morning, a thick fog settling over Long Island prevented all sight of what was going on, and the wind shifting round to the south-west, the soldiers entered the boats, and were rapidly transferred to the opposite shore. So complete were the arrangements, that almost all the artillery, with the provisions, horses, waggons, and ammunition safely crossed over to New York. Washington, who, from the commencement of the action till he had seen the troops placed out of danger, had never closed his eyes, and been rarely out of the saddle, was himself the last to quit the shore. Scarcely had the fog cleared off, when the British saw with amazement the last American boat, which had returned to fetch off some munitions, fast nearing the opposite bank of the East river. Washington had saved his army. Several thousand men were still assembled in New York Island, but their leader was but too sensible how little reliance could be placed upon them. A highly disciplined force may succeed in bearing up against even a series of reverses, but to the undisciplined a single one is often enough. The suc- cesses of Lexington and Bunker Hill had so excited the spirits of the American soldiers, that they undervalued the importance of military tactics, and believed that in native valour and determined covirage they would prove an overmatch for the mercenary, if better trained, soldiers of the king. The recent defeat had opened their eyes to this mistake, and they now, by a na- tural revulsion, fell into the opposite error. In spite of all his influence, Washington beheld his army falling rapidly away. He had long felt that, with the present system of limited enlistments, and necessarily imperfect dis- cipline, it would be impossible to maintain the conflict ; and he resolved to turn his present distresses to account, by making a vigorous appeal to Con- gress for the establishment of a standing army. " Our situation (thus he wrote to Congress) is truly distressing. The check our detachment sustained on the 2Tth ultimo, has dispirited too great a pro- portion of our troops, and filled their minds with apprehension and despair. The militia, instead of calling forth their utmost efforts to a brave and manly opposition in order to repair our losses, are dismayed, intractable, and impa- tient to return. Great numbers of them have gone off; in some instances, almost by whole regiments, by half ones, and by companies at a time. This circumstance of itself, independent of others, when fronted by a well-ap- pointed enemy, superior in number to our whole collected force, would be sufficiently disagreeable ; but, when their example has infected another part of the army, when their want of discipline, and refusal of almost every kind of restraint and government, have produced a like conduct but too common to the v>^hole, and an entire disregard of that order and subordination neces- 1770.] THE HOWES TRY TO EFFECT A PACIFICATION. 401 sary to tlie well-doing of an army, and wliicli had been inculcated before, as veil as the nature of our military establishment would admit of, — our condi- tion becomes still more alarming ; and, with the deepest concern, I am obliged to confess my want of confidence in the generality of the troops. " All these circumstances fully confirm the opinion I ever entertained, and which I more than once in my letters took the liberty of mentioning to Con- gress, that no dependence could be put in a militia, or other troops, than those enlisted and embodied for a longer period than our regulations heretofore have prescribed. I am persuaded, and as fully convinced as I am of any one fact that has happened, that our liberties must of necessity be greatly hazarded, if not entirely lost, if their defence is left to any but a permanent standing army ; I mean, one to exist during the war. Nor would the expense, inci- dent to the support of such a body of troops as would be competent to almost every exigency, far exceed that, which is daily incurred by calling in succour and new enlistments, Avhich, when efifected, are not attended with any good consequences. Men who have been free and subject to no control, cannot be reduced to order in an instant ; and the privileges and exemptions, which they claim and will have, influence the conduct of others ; and the aid de- rived from them is nearly counterbalanced by the disorder, irregularity, and confusion they occasion." Whilst Washington, on one hand, was urging the adoption of more vigor- ous measures ; the Howes, on the other, taking advantage of the discourage- ment in the American army, which they naturally concluded avouIcI induce Congress to lower their tone, despatched then a prisoner. General Sullivan, to Philadelphia, with further advances towards a pacification. Unable of- ficially to recognise or treat with Congress, the British commanders expressed their desire of confen'ing with some members of that body, as private gentle- men, to efifect if possible some amicable settlement of the dispute. The Congress replied, that as representatives of the American confederation, they were unable consistently to send any of their members in their private capacity, but would depute a committee to wait upon the Howes, upon whom they might look in whatever light they pleased. Meanwhile, the prospects of accommodation, thus opened to Congress, occasioned considerable debate, which terminated in the resolution, the die being now cast, to maintain their independence at all hazards, and in spite of all reverses. With this view, Franklin, John Adams, and John Rutledge were deputed to confer with the Howes, at Staten Island. Nothing could be more friendly than the disposition of the Howes ; but, as before, they were unfurnished with any proposals beyond a promise of pardon, and vague promises of the royal bene- volence, and of a revigion of the subjects in dispute. But even a distinct promise of the reversal of all the obnoxious acts of parliament would not now have proved enough. The terms that would once have been gladly welcomed, it was now too late to listen to. The honour of the American nation was pledged to the maintenance, at all risks, of a resolution so solemnly entered into in the face of the world. The conference therefore terminated as might have 3 p 402 WASHIXGTON' 8 HEAD-QUARTERS AT MORRISANIA. [1776. been expected. The deputies declared, "That the associated colonies could not accede to any peace or alliance, but as free and independent States. As such, they were ready to enter into a treaty of pacification with Great Britai n, but not otherwise." Regretting that they were unable to negotiate upDU these terms, the Howes broke off the conference. Appealing from the stub- bornness of Congress to the people at large, they next issued a proclamation, promising them a revisal of the obnoxious Acts, and urging them to return to tb'eir allegiance. Nothing therefore now remained to ^Yashington, but to resume hostilities, which had commenced so inauspiciously for the Aanerican cause. Perhaps no one but himself would have had the moral firmness steadily to look his dis- couragements in the face, and to persevere in spite of them ; and it is certain that no one else could have exercised that moral influence, so far beyond mere generalship, which could alone hold together the disjointed elements of the army. The character of the struggle, he had the sagacity to see, must be tedious, desultory, and painful, redeemed by few of those brilliant exploits requisite to dazzle the public mind and sustain the enthusiasm of his coun- try. With so ill-compacted a force, it must be long ere he could hope to face the enemy in a pitched battle with any chance of success ; all he could expect was to impede his march, cut off his supplies, and harass his progress ; forced to retreat from prudential motives, when his natural temj^er would have led him to solicit the combat ; blamed for inevitable defeats, and looked to for impossible victories. By his recent triumph Howe had acquired the possession of Long Island, and was preparing to pass over the East river and menace New York ; but where the blow would fall, what were the numbers, plans, and dispositions of the English army, Washington knew not with any certainty. To prevent sur- prise, he had removed the main body of his army to the heights of Harlem north of the city, overlooking the Harlem river, sending across a portion of the stores and baggage, and establishing his head- quarters at Morris'inia, whence he could better watch the movements of the English on the opposite side of the strait. A considerable force still remained in the city under the command of Putnam, ready either to act in its defence or retreat, as the case might require. To obtain a knowledge of the enemy's plans was now of the highest im- portance, and Washington made known his wish to Colonel Know] ton, one of the bravest and most resolute of his officers, who commanded a regiment of light infantry, which formed the van of the American army. Knowlton called together his subordinates, and stated' to them the wish of the general. The appeal was responded to by Nathan Hale, a native of Con- necticut, educated at Yale College, an excellent scholar, winning in his man- ners, possessing a fine taste, and animated above all with the most ardent enthusiasm in his country's cause. After the battle of Lexington, he had obtained a commission in the army, and had already given excellent promise as an officer. Contrary to the remonstrances and forebodings of his friends, lie determined to assume the perilous mission. 1776.] NATHAX HALE EXECUTED AS A SPY. 403 Having disguised Kimself, lie crossed over to Long Island, passed tlirough. tlie camp of the enemy, obtained the necessary information, and had even step- ped into the boat in order to return, when he was apprehended on suspicion, and carried before Sir William Howe. Immediately placed upon his trial as a spy, he was convicted upon his own confession, and, according to military law, ordered to be hanged on the following morning. Far from any sympathy being exhibited towards him, his treatment during his last hours was harsh and cruel in the extreme. The provost marshal, whose office it was to carry the sentence into effect, was himself a refugee, and animated by the bitterest hatred. The attendance of a clergyman and even the use of a Bible were denied the unhappy captive, and his last aifectionate letters to his mother and sister were destroyed. For this last piece of cruelty the provost marshal assigned a reason, which ought rather to have excited admiration than called forth malevolence towards its ob- lect ; '' He would not have," he said, " the rebels to know, that they had a man in their army Avho could die with so much firmness." Unknown and unfriended, young Hale met his ignominious fate with unflinching cour- age, regretting only with his latest breath that he had but one life to lay down in the cause of his country. Not long after this unhappy episode, HoAve's designs became apparent enough, and they were crowned with entire success. He declined bombarding the city, which contained a great number of adherents, and would be desir able as quarters for his army. Instead of this, sending several ships up the North and East rivers, the fire from which swept entirely across the island, he began, under cover of it, to land his troops at Kip's Bay, about mid- way between New York and Harlem. Works had been thrown up on the spot, sufficient at least to maintain a resistance till further succour could arrive ; but no sooner did the English set foot on shore, than the troops posted in them were seized with a panic, broke, and fled, communicating their terror to two New England brigades, who on the first alarm of a landing had been despatched to their support. It was at this moment that Washing- ton, hurrying to the scene of action, fell in with the entire party retreating in disorder Avithout firing a single shot. The sight was too much for his ex- cited feelings, and for once his equanimity gave way before a sense of the almost hopelessness of his task. He galloped to and fro among the fugitives, entreating them to face the enemy, he struck them with the flat of his sword, snapped his pistols at them, and utterly unable to stay the rout, dashed his hat on the ground, exclaiming, " Are these the men with whom I am to de- fend America ' " Abandoned by all, and rooted to the spot, he seemed not merely incapable of saving himself by flight, but even as though he invoked destruction ; and had it not been for his officers, who seized his bridle and forcibly dragged him off the field, he would, in all probability, have been shot or taken prisoner. As the fugitive troops retired, they encountered a reinforcement hastening to their support, and, ashamed of their former panic, faced about and desired 3 F 2 404 LORD HOWE ENTERS NEW YORK CITY, [1776. to be led against tlie enemy. But unable as he was to place any firm reliance upon them, Washmgton judged it more prudent to fall back ujjon Harlem heights. By this time the British officers had landed all their forces, and had they pushed vigorously forward would, by placing themselves across the island midway between Washington at Harlem and Putnam in New York, have effectually cut off the latter, and compelled him to surrender. Orders had been despatched to him instantly to evacuate the city, and in the midst of hurry and confusion he took the lower road by Greenwich, leaving behind him his heavy artillery and a large quantity of stores and provisions. The delay of the British, generally attributed to the general's stopping for refresh- ment, alone prevented his being cut off with his entire division, and as it was, three hundred of his men fell into the hands of the enemy. No sooner had he departed than a detachment of the royal troops entered the city, where they were warmly received by the Tories. The bitterest feel- ing existed between the two hostile parties, and it Was fearfully exemplified by means of an accident that occurred a few nights after the occupation This was a fire, which broke out in the dead of night, and owing to the drought of the season and a strong south wind, increased with alarming rapidity. Up- wards of a thousand buildings were consumed, and but for the exertions of the soldiers and sailors the whole city would probably have been destroyed. In the excited state of party feeling, it was said that the " Sons of Liberty " were the incendiaries, with a view to drive out the army, and several sus- pv"cted persons were hurled into the blazing buildings by the soldiers. General Howe, in the mean while, had taken up a position with the main body of his troops in front of Washington's intrenchments at Harlem, extending across the island from the East to the North river, supported at each extre- mity by his ships. AVithin their intrenchments the " morale " of the Ame- rican troops revived, they reflected with shame on the events of the day, and deterinined to retrieve their character on the first opportunity. Volunteers came forward next morning, and under the command of Colonel Knowlton went out to reconnoitre the enemy. A party of the British came forward to meet them, and a spirited skii-mish ensued, in which the very same men who the day before had fled so disgracefully, behaved with such spirit as decidedly to have the best of the encounter, though at the loss of their gal- lant commander, who had led them into action. This incident revived the drooping confidence of the troops, and was no less encouraging to Washing- ton himself, after his recent and bitter mortification. He occupied himself diligently with strengthening his lines, which Howe considered too formida- ble to be attacked with prudence, until he had obtained reinforcements. While the two armies thus remained inactive in face of each other, Wash- ington was earnestly engaged in correspondence with Congress. The state of his army, though somewhat raised from despondency by the recent success, was deplorable. Hospitals Avere wanting to receive the numerous sick, who were exposed almost unsheltered to the inclemency of the weather. Deser- 177G.] ARRANGEMENTS FOR A STANDING ARMY, 405 tions were constantly taking place, and the very next reverse miglit occasion the entire dissolution of the army. The feelings of Washington were thus expressed to Congress. " There is no situation upon earth less enviable, or more distressing, than that person's who is at the head of troops regardless of order and discipline, and unprovided with almost every necessary. In a word, the difficulties, which have for ever surrounded me since I have been in the service, and kept my mind constantly upon the stretch ; the wounds, which my feelings as an officer have received by a thousand things, that have happened contrary to my expectations and wishes ; the effisct of my own con- duet, and present appearance of things, so little pleasing to myself, as to render it a matter of no surprise to me if I should stand capitally censured by Congress ; added to a consciousness of my inability to govern an army composed of such discordant parts, and under such a variety of intricate and perplexing circumstances ; — induce not only a belief, but a thorough convic- tion in my mind, that it will be impossible, unless there be a thorough change in our military system, for me to conduct matters in such a manner as to give satisfaction to the public, which is all the recompence I aim at or ever wished for." Reluctant as Congress had been to establish a standing army, they had now drawn the sword and cast away the scabbard, and the recent losses seconded so powerfully the expostulations of Washington, that a scheme was drawn up in harmony with his suggestions, with which a committee of delegates re- paired to the camp at Harlem, in order to confer wdth him on the subject. The new army was to consist of eighty-eight battalions, to be provided for by the respective States in due proportion, and the soldiers, who received a bounty for enlistment, were required to serve for the whole war, — the system of limited enlistments having been found the great obstacle to discipline. Great difficulties however were still to be surmounted. The selection of officers for their respective quotas was at first to be left to the States them- selves, instead of confided to the commander-in-chief; but a midway course was afterwards agreed upon, by which the States were to send commissioners to arrange the appointments wdth him. While engaged in deep and anxious conference with the delegates of Con- gress, Washington had also to keep a watchful eye on the movements of his skilful adversary. The two armies had now maintained the same posi- tion for three weeks, when Howe, finding the lines at Harlem too strong to be attacked with any chance of success, determined iipon a change of tactics. He first sent some ships of war up the Hudson, which, in spite of the American batteries, succeeded in forcing a passage, thus intercepting the communication, and preventing supplies from reaching Washington by the river. Leaving behind him a force to cover New York, he transferred the rest of his army to Pell's Point on Long Island Sound, and took up a position on the neighbouring heights of New Rochelle. Hence, having received a strong reinforcement of Hessians and Waldeckers under General Knyphau- sen, he threatened a movement in the rear of Washington, so as to cut him 406 HOWE MARCHES AOAIXST FORT WASHINGTON. [1776. off from all communication eitlier by land or water, or compel him to a general action. A council of war was now called, when, to traverse this design, it was resolved to evacuate the island and advance into the interior. The question arose, whether a garrison should be left behind in Fort Washington, a mea- sure which seemed of little use, inasmuch as the British had obtained the command of the river. "Washington and Lee were opposed to this plan, but it was strenuously urged by Greene, who considered the fort to be sufficiently strong to resist an attack from the enemy. It was supposed too that the be- sieged would always be able to escape, if needful, by crossing the river; and a garrison of two thousand men was accordingly left on it, under the commajid of Colonel Magaw. The American army, deplorably wanting in draught cattle to remove their baggage and munitions, advanced to the northward, along the heights above the river Bronx, which separated them from the columns of the enemy, who followed after on close pursuit. Washington halted at White Plains, Avhere he concentrated his forces in a strongly fortified camp. No sooner had they come up with him, than the British attacked a detached body of Americans, posted on a hill in the neighbourhood of their camp, and succeeded in driving them in. A general assault Avas momentarily expected to take place. For political reasons, however, afterwards stated before the House of Commons, Howe was induced to remain inactive at this critical moment, and Washington took advantage of his delay, to remove his whole force by night to a much stronger position, on the neighbouring heights of North Castle, where the American army stood secure against all further attack. Having thus failed to enclose his enemy, Howe suddenly altered his plans, and advancing to the southward, hastened to invest Fort Washington, and menace New Jersey and Philadelphia. This movement called for a corresponding change on the part of Washington. Accordingly, leaving General Lee at the head of about four thousand men, including the New England militia, whose term of enlistment was about to expire, he ordered all the forces west of the Hudson to make a tedious circuit, and cross the river at King's Ferry, at the entrance of the Hudson Highlands, the enemy's ships occupying the lower part of the river. He next visited the strong posts in the Highlands, ordered fi'esh works to be thrown up, and crossing the river, joined his troops at Hackinsac, near Fort Lee, exactly opposite to Fort Washington, which the enemy had already invested. The policy of maintaining this post had always seemed exceedingly doubtful ; but it was now too late to evacuate it — the troops could not 'be. got off m face of the enemy. Colonel INIagaw had already been summoned to surrender, but replied, that it was his intention to defend the post to the uttermost. The evening before the attack, Washington was crossing the river to visit the garrison, Avhen he met Greene and Putnam coming over from it, who assured him the men were in high spirits and would make a good defence, which induced him to return with them to the camp. The fort stands on bold ground, overlooking the magnificent Hudson, and 177G.] RETBEAT OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. 407 the approach to it on the land side is difficult, and obstructed with wood. !N'ext morning, the enemy unexpectedly attacked it in four columns, at as many different points. Notwithstanding the most strenuous resistance on the part of the Americans, who firing from behind the rocks and trees, which impeded the ascent, cut off four hundred of their assailants, such was the vigour of the attack, and the emulation between the Germans and English, that the outworks were successively carried, and the skirmishers driven back in tumultuous confusion within the body of the place. During the approach of the enemy, Washington, with Putnam, Greene, and other officers, had crossed the river, and were ascending to the fort, when seeing that they were running the risk of capture for an insufficient object, they returned. It is said, that from the post whence he intently watched the onset, Washington could see his soldiers bayonetted, when imploring mercy on their knees, and was unable to restrain his tears. The assailants having forced their way within a hundred yards of the fort. Colonel Magaw was again summoned to surrender. With a confused and disheartened crowd of fugitives, who could not be brought to man the lines, he had no alternative but to comply ; and thus two thousand men, with a considerable quantity of artillery, fell into the hands of the victori- ous English — another limb lopped off the feeble and disorganized American army ! Scarcely had Fort Washington fallen, when a body of six thousand men, under Lord Cornwallis, one of the most active and energetic of the British officers, crossed the Hudson to Fort Lee, to pursue the American army. The fort was hurriedly abandoned, Avith a heavy loss of provisions and stores, and the garrison joined the main body, which rapidly retreated before the English. Such was the profound discouragement occasioned by the then recent suc- cesses, that Washington found his army rapidly falling to pieces, and in danger of utter and speedy dissolution. During the march, the term of en- listment of the corps forming the " Flying Camp," for the protection of New Jersey, expired, and no persuasion could induce them to enlist. Destitute of every necessary, broken by repeated defeats, and so closely pursued by a victorious enemy, a feeling of despair succeeded to the overstrained enthu- siasm which had at first animated them, and the only wonder is that even the shadow of an army should have remained on foot. Earnestly entreating the support of Congress, and the governor of New Jersey, AVashington retreated across the Passaic and the Raritan with Lord Cornwallis pressing so closely at his heels, that the van of the British army entered Newark, and Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton, just as the Ameri- can rear had left. The destruction of the bridge over the Raritan arrested the enemy's advance for some hours, and probably saved the baggage and artillery. A delay of several hours took place at Brunswick, beyond which point Cornwallis had been ordered not to advance. Had that active officer been left unfettered, it can hardly be doubted that he would have suc- ceeded in overtaking Washington, and capturing his entire force, w^hich 408 GENERAL LEE TAKEN PRISONER BY THE ENOLISH.lll'iQ. had melted away to between fourteen and fifteen hundred men, when he suc- ceeded in placing the Delaware between himself and his pursuers. Having at length come uj), Howe prepared to pass the river, but all the boats had been removed, save one large flour barge, which had accidentally been overlooked, and which was only discovered and carried off just in time to prevent the British from making use of it to get a party across, seize the boats uj)on the opposite side, and pass over their entire army. Baffled at this critical moment, they had still the means of making rafts and pontoons, and why they neglected to do so, when by one bold stroke they might have crushed the enemy and put an end to the war, seems perfectly inexplicable. Washing- ton at all events had fully expected it, and declared in his despatch to Con- gress, that nothing could have saved him but this inaction of the enemy. Since the beginning of the campaign there had been little else' than a series of disasters ; Long Island, New York, and the whole of New Jersey had fallen into the hands of the victorious English, the army had dwindled' to a feeble handful, and seemed incajiable of ever being reorganized. The royal commanders probably thought they had well nigh crushed the insur- rection, and that the Americans w^ould see the hopelessness of attempting any further resistance. By many indeed the cause was believed to be irrecover- ably lost. Taking advantage of this state of things, the Howes issued another proclamation, promising pardon to all Avho should abandon their op- position, and within the space of two months swear allegiance to the king. Those provinces which had been the theatre of the campaign, already con- tained a large proportion of loyalists, who gladly welcomed the re-establish- ment of the royal authority. The lukewarm and timid, seeing the country overrun by the enemy's troops, and the miseries of civil war already com- mencing, trembled for the security of their families and homes, and for several days after the proclamation, hundreds came in and took the oaths. During his retreat Washington had despatched repeated messages to General Lee, who, it will be remembered, he had left behind in the State of New York, to join him immediately with all his forces. With this requisi- tion Lee complied with great reluctance and tardiness. Conscious that he was almost the only thoroughly educated officer in the American service, he medi- tated some exploit which should confer on him a special distinction, and wished to retain his separate command, and to watch the contingencies that might offer. Compelled at length to obey, he moved in the direction of Philadelphia ; but, having taken up his quarters one night in a detached building, was, through the information of a Tory, suddenly surprised by a party of English horse, and carried prisoner to the camp. As the most ex- aggerated idea of his abilities was entertained, so that by many he was called the Palladium of America, his loss at this critical juncture deepened the de- pression of the patriot party, and it was even suspected, though unfairly, that he had adopted this expedient to abandon a sinking cause and return to his natural allegiance. The command of his detachment now devolved on Sullivan, who repaired with it to the assistance of "Washington. 1776.] WASHINGTON 3IADE MILITARY DICTATOR. 409 in anticipation of a speedy attack by the enemy, Washington, at this alarm- ing crisis, pressed upon Congress the necessity of more vigorous measures for the re-organization of the army. " The enemy," he observes to the pre- sident, " are daily gathering strength from the disaffected. This strength, like a snowball, will increase by rolling, unless some means can be devised to check effectually the progress of the enemy's arms. Militia may probably do it for a while, but in a little while also the militia of those States, which have been frequently called upon, will not turn out at all, or if they do, it will be with so much reluctance and sloth as to amount to the same thing. Instance New Jersey ! Witness Pennsylvania ! Could any thing but the river Dela- ware have saved Philadelphia ? Can any thing be more destructive to the recruiting service, than giving ten dollars bounty for six weeks' service of the militia, who come in you cannot tell how, go you cannot tell when, and act you cannot tell where, consume your provisions, exhaust your stores, and leave you at last at a critical moment ? These, sir, are the men I am to depend upon ten days hence, this is the basis on which your cause will and must for ever depend, till you get a large standing army sufficient of itself to oppose the enemy." Notwithstanding the unfortunate reverses that had lately attended his arms. Congress had by this tin:e acquired so profound a confidence in the character and abilities of Washington, such, besides, was the manifest imminence of the peril, that throwing aside their lingering apprehensions from the establishment of a standing army, they at once empowered Wash- ington to raise and embody one, conferring on him at the same time, for the period of six months, the authority of a military dictator. " Happy is it for this country," said Congress in their letter to him on this occasion, " that the general of their forces can safely be intrusted with the most un- limited power, and neither personal security, liberty, or property, be in the least degree endangered thereby." Leaving Washington to obtain a little breathing time before sustaining fresh attacks, let us turn our attention to the northern army, which, as before observed, after the daring but unsuccessful attack upon Quebec, had been driven discomfited out of Canada, and taken refuge on the shores of Lake Champlain. Upon the first distribution of commands, Philip Schuyler, a wealthy and influential gentleman in the neighbourhood of Albany, had been appointed general in the northern district. The same mutual jealousies which had already been so rife in Washington's camp, prevailed between the sol- diers of New England and New York ; and Schuyler, as a leading inhabitant of the latter province, had become unpopular with the former. Owing to the arts of the New England delegates in Congress, Gates had been ap- pointed to the command of the northern army over his head. His enemies having even accused him of treachery, he offered his resignation, which Con- gress however refused to accept, and in his subordinate position he continued zealously to labour for his country's cause, and eventually rendered her the most vital services. 3 G 410 PREPARING FOR AN ENGAGEMENT. [177G. General Carleton, tlae :ible governor of Canada, having obtained reinforce- ments from England, had advanced to the northern extremity of Lake Champlain with thirteen thousand troops!, with which he was eager to pursue and destroy the disorganized American army, now reduced by malignant diseases and continual desertion to a feeble body of five thousand men. But all the boats on the lake had been withdrawn, and the American force, abandon- ing Crown Point, had been judiciously secured witliin the walls of Fort Ticonderoga. The entire lake thus intervened betwixt the two armies ; its shores, still covered with thick forests, were impassable by land. As there was no doubt that Carleton would speedily equip a flotilla to pursue the Ameri- cans, Gates resolved to prepare another Avith which to imj)ede his progress. The design was carried out with indefatigable perseverance, ship carpenters and stores were brought from the New England sea-ports, and in the course of three months, by the middle of August, sixteen vessels of different burden "were ready to contest possession of the lake. A new opportunity was thus opened to Arnold, ready to meet any odds so that he could but gratify that thirst for distinction, that love of daring and desperate enterprise, of which he had already given such signal proofs in the romantic expedition to Quebec. Although susjjected of dishonesty, and dis- liked for his restless, jealous, and turbulent character, his courage and conduct were unquestionable, and as he had moreover formerly been a shipmaster, he received from Gates the command of the little flotilla. Carleton, meanwhile, had been no less active than his opponents, and as the resources at his command were much greater than theirs, the results were proportionably imposing. The frames of five large vessels, prepared in Eng- land and brought across by land from Montreal to St. John's, were soon put together on the lake. A large number of gun-boats were also brought from the St. Lawrence and dragged over the rapids of the Sorel at Fort Chambly. This flotilla was worked by seven hundred seamen from the British ships, whereas the American was manned by soldiers drafted from the army. Cautiously advancing up the lake, Arnold, aware of the disadvantage he would be placed under in the open expanse with so inferior a force, posted his vessels with great judgment in the narrow channel between Valcour Island and the shore, so that he could neither be surrounded nor attacked except in front by a portion of the enemy's flotilla. Early on the morn- ing of the 11th of October, they came in sight, led by Captain Pringle in the Inflexible, the youthful Edward Pellfew, afterwards so brilliantly distinguished as Lord Exmouth, being among his officers. Sweeping round the southern point of the island, the English vessels were soon engaged with the American, and the combat raged for fon.r hours with the most desperate fury. Arnold had posted himself on board the " Congress " galley, he pointed every gun with his own hand, and cheered on his men with his characteristic enthusiasm. His men fell dead around him, the hull of his ship riddled with cannon-balls, the mainmast shattered, and the rigging cut to pieces, yet still he continued to fight on. The position he had chosen 177G.] THE AMERICANS DEFEA TED ON LAKE CHAMP LAIN. 411 greatly neutralized tlie superior force of the enemy, and thus the battle was yet undecided, when night closed in upon the scene. One of the American vessels had been burned, another sunk, and the lest had suffered very severely. To renew the combat on the morrow Avas so obviously hopeless, that Arnold and his officers, after holding consultation, determined upon falling back to Crown Point. This however was much easier to resolve on than to execute, for the British commander had disjDosed his ships in a line from the island to the shore, so as to prevent the retreat of his enemy till daylight should enable him to attack and overpower him. But the night happened to be unusually dark, it blew a stiff breeze from the north, and as soon as the English sailors had retired to rest after a hard- fought day, the American ships hoisted their sails, and slipped unperceived be- tween those of the foe, Arnold fetching up the rear in the battered and crazy " Congress," and by daylight had placed full ten miles between them- selves and their too powerful opponents. No sooner was the flight discovered, than the English, full of shame and vexation, crowded all sail in pursuit. A contrary wind bafHed them during the day, but on the following morning they were close upon the fugi- tives. The foremost ships continued their flight and succeeded in effecting their escape, but the rear, consisting of Arnold's galley, with the " Wash- ington " and four gondolas, were attacked with redoubled fury. The "Wash- ington " was soon obliged to strike, but Arnold continued to fight on till his ship was reduced to a mere wreck and surrounded by the enemy's squadron. He then ran the "Congress " and the four gondolas on shore, set them on fire, and wading on shore with his men, drew them up in line to guard the burning vessels against the approach of the enemy, lest they should be carried off as trophies. Having waited till they were consumed, he effected his escape through the woods to Crown Point, narrowly escaping an Indian ambush which was posted to cut him off only an hour after he passed. The result of this protracted encounter was disastrous for the Americans, who lost eleven vessels, and for those of the British. Carleton immediately advanced to Crown Point, with the intention of attacking Ticonderoga, but the garrison had by this time been increased to eight thousand men, it was now the middle of October, and the English general was reluctantly obliged to retire into winter quarters. The year 1776, so disastrous to the Americans, was now drawing to a close. Howe and Cornwallis had returned to New York, and the English army, distri- buted in cantonments on the Delaware and its borders, considered the campaign was at an end. Three regiments of the much-dreaded Hessians, tinder Colonel Ralle, a brave and distinguished officer, together with a ti'oop of British light-horse, lay at Trenton, and smaller detachments in the neigh- bouring forts of Bordentown, Burlington, Black Horse, and Mount Holly. The festivities of Christmas were at hand, and in presence of an enemy they looked upon as virtually crushed, it was justly anticipated by Washington that the British would give themselves up to enjoyment, and their usual vigilance 3 G 2 413 WASHINGTON SURPRISES THE HESSIANS. [1776. would be relaxed. Being by this time reinforced by the arrival of Lee's division, and other succours, he determined to take advantage of this state of things, to strike a blow that might redeem an unfortunate campaign, and in- spire the army and tke country with renovated courage. Having matured his plans, he divided his forces into three corps, Avith the first of which, ac- companied by Greene and Sullivan, he proposed to pass the Delaware at M'^Konkey's ferry, nine miles above Trenton, and fall upon the Hessians in that town. The second division, under General Irwin, was to cross over at Trenton ferry, and by stopping the bridge over the Assumpink, cut off the enemy's retreat; while the third, under General Cadwallader,was to cross lower down from Bristol over to Burlington. Had the plan been executed at all points it must have resulted in the capture of the whole line of British canton- ments, but owing to invincible obstacles it turned out but partially successful. The evening of Christmas day, for obvious reasons, was chosen as the most propitious for a surprise. It proved to be most bitter even for that incle- ment season, the cold so intense that two of the soldiers were frozen to death. The night was very obscure, it snowed and hailed incessantly, and the gloomy waters of the Delaware half choked with masses of ice, crashing against the distant rocks with a sound like thunder. But the worse the weather, it was so far better for the purpose, that the enemy would be lulled into deeper security. The soldiers were exhorted to redeem their previous fiilures, and reminded that the fate of their country depended upon their firmness and courage, and they marched down to the place of embarkation with a feeling of enthusiastic determination. Washington had expected that the passage of his division might have been effected by midnight, but the dreadful weather, the encumbered state of the river, and the difficulty of getting across the artillery, occasioned so much delay, that it was four o'clock before the whole body were in marching order on the opposite shore. The darkness of a winter morning was still further deepened by a heavy fog, and the road was rendered slippery by a frosty mist. As it would be daylight before they coidd reach Trenton, the main object of the enterprise seemed to be disconcerted ; but there was now no alternative but to proceed. Washington took the upper road, Avhile Sullivan commanded the lower ; and about eight in the morning both parties encountered the pickets of the enemy, who keeping up a fire ft'om behind the houses, fell back upon the town, and aroused their comrades. The Americans followed them up so closely, that they were able to open a battery at the end of the main street, before the drowsy Hessians could offer any cfifectual re- sistance. , It is said, that on the morning of the surjjrise. Colonel Balle, who had been carousing all night after an entertainment, was still engaged at cards, when a warning note, forwarded by a Tory who had discovered the approach of the Americans, was handed to him by the negro porter, as being of par- ticular importance. • He thrust it into his pocket and continued the game, till aroused at length by the roll of the American drums and the sound 1776.] THE HESSIANS OBLIGED TO SURRENDER, 413 of musketry, he started to his legs, hurried to his quarters, mounted his horse, and in a few moments was at the head of his troops, vainly attempting to stem the progress of the Americans. In a few moments, he fell to the ground mortally wounded, and was carried away to his quarters. All order was noAV at an end ; the Germans, panic-struck, gave way, and endeavoured to escape by the road to Princeton ; but were intercepted by a party judi- ciously placed there for the purpose, and compelled to surrender at discre- tion, to the number of about a thousand men. Six cannon, a thousand stand of arms, and four colours adorned the triumph of Washington. In this mo- ment of brilliant success, purchased at the expense of others, he was not un- mindful of the duties of humanity ; but, accompanied by Greene,. paid a visit to the dying Hessian leader, and soothed his passage to the grave by the ex- pression of that grateful and generous sympathy, which one brave man owes to another, even when engaged in opposite causes. Had Irwin been able to cross at Trenton ferry, and occupy the Assumpink bridge, the English light-horse must also have been cut off; but such was the accumulation of the floating ice at this particular point, that he had found it impossible to perform his portion of the plan, and thus the division above mentioned hurried across the Assumpink, in the direction of Bordentown, and escaped. The same obstacle prevented Cadwallader from crossing over to Burlington ; he succeeded indeed in landing a body of troops, but the state of the ice prevented the artillery from being got ashore ; and unable to pro- ceed without it, he was obliged to recross the Delaware. As considerable bodies of the English were at a short distance, and his troops were exhausted with fatigue and cold, Washington thought it prudent immediately to recross the river with his prisoners. The effect produced upon the drooping spirits of the Americans by this daring and successful achievement, especially in Philadelphia, was indescribable. On the alarming news of Washington's retreat from the Hudson, and the near approach of the British, Congress had thought prudent to leave the city and retire to Balti- more. The citizens, expecting to be shortly attacked, were in a state of great excitement — the partisans of the royal cause eager to witness its triumph by the capture of the city, while the friends of Congress were proportionally alarmed. To overawe the former, and encourage the latter, the Hessians were paraded with military pomp through the streets of the city, the people scarcely be- lieving their eyes, when they saw these dreaded foreigners defiling as cap- tives before them — trophies of the valour of that army which some had hoped, and others feared, was irrecoverably disgraced and broken. Nor were the English commanders less astonished and confounded, when they heard that the enemy whom they had fondly believed to be crushed, had turned and routed his pursuers. They discovered that they had to do with a commander no less daring than he was cautious, whose steady determination no defeat could shake ; who, on one hand, was prepared to retreat, if needful, even to the fastnesses of the Alleghanies, and on the other, ready to take advantage of the least oversight on their OAvn part, to convert defeat into victory. 414 THE AMERICANS LEA VE TRENTON BY NIGHT. [1777. Cornwallis, who was about to embark for Europe, was immediately de- spatched to take the command of the troops in New Jersey. On arriving there, he found that Washington had again crossed over to Trenton, and was pre- pared to act upon the offensive. It happened that the term of several regi- ments had expired, and the men were anxious to return to their homes, but by persuasion and a bounty, had been induced to remain in the service. The whole American force, now concentrated at Trenton, amounted however only to about four thousand men. Having obtained reinforcements at Brunswick, Cornwallis, with his usual celerity, pushed on to attack Washington, who, on his approach, retired into intrenchments behind the river Assumpink, the bridge and ford over which were carefully guarded. The whole day attempts were made, but in vain, to pass the stream, and a cannonade was kept up against the intrenchments. The following day, Cornwallis intended to storm the works, and should he, as was but too probable, succeed, the American army, with the Delaware behind them, must inevitably be captured. To abide his attack would therefore be an act of foolish temerity, while to attempt to recross the river in presence of his army would be still more hazardous. A council of war was called, at which the bold design was adopted of getting into the rear of the English, falling upon their magazines at Brunswick, and carrying the war again from the neighbourhood of Philadelphia into the mountainous interior of New Jersey. Not a moment was to be lost. The superfluous baggage was sent down the river to Burlington, the watch-fires were kept up, the patrols ordered to go their rounds, and, still further to deceive the enemy, parties sent out to labour at the intrenchments within hearing of their sentinels. About mid- night the army silently defiled from the camp, and marched off in a circuit- ous and difficult road towards Princeton. It was a brilliant winter morning when they drew near that town, and General Mercer was sent forward by a by-road to seize a bridge at Worth's mills, so as to cut off" any fugitives, and also check any pursuit on the part of Cornwallis. Three British regiments, destined to reinforce the latter, had passed the night in Princeton, and two of them, the 17th and 40th, under Colonel Mawhood, had already set out, when they suddenly came in sight of the approaching Americans, with whom they were almost immediately in action. The Americans, posted behind a fence, poured in a heavy and well-directed volley, after receiving which, the British, with fixed bayonets, charged them with such impetuosity, that abandoning their shelter they broke and flc-d pre- cipitately, closely pursued by their victorious enemies. Both fugitives and pursuers, however, were suddenly arrested by the sight of the troops under Washington, who, beholding the rout, hastened on, colours in hand, to rally the discomfited Americans. At no time in his life, perhaps, was he exposed to more imminent hazard. The Americans immediately rallied, the English re-formed their line, both levelled their guns and prepared to fire, while Washington, whose ardour had hurried him forward into a most perilous pre- dicament, stood like a mark for the bullets of both. Fitzgerald, his aide- 1T77.] WASHINGTON'S VICTORY AT PRINCETON. 415 de-camp, dropjjed the reins upon his horse's neck, and shuddering, drew his hat over his face, that he might not see his leader die. A tremendous volley was heard, then a shout of triumph, and when the trembling officer ventured to look up, the form of Washington was dimly seen amidst the rolling smoke, urging forward his men to attack the enemy. Fitzgerald burst into tears, and putting spurs to his horse, dashed after his beloved com- mander. The British, however, did not await the onset. Mawhood, already severely handled and seeing reinforcements about to come up, abandoned his artillery, wheeled off, and regaining the Trenton road, continued his march to join CoruAvallis without any further molestation. Washington now advanced to Princeton, encountering in his way the British 55th, which after a brave resistance, finding it impossible to follow the 17th, retreated in the direction of Brunswick, accompanied by the 40th, which had been but very partially engaged. On entering Princeton a part of this regiment was found to be in occupation of the college, who made some show of resistance, but on cannon being brought up, and the door of the building forced in, they were obliged to surrender themselves prisoners. In this battle the Americans had to deplore the loss of the gallant General Mercer, an officer much beloved by the army and Washington, with whom he had served in the American and French wars. Dismounting from his horse to rally his broken column, he was struck down by a blow from a musket, and the enemy, mistaking him for Washington, exclaimed, " The rebel general is taken ! " Several soldiers pushed forward, exclaiming, " Call for quarter, you d — d rebel." " I am no rebel," cried Mercer, endeavouring to defend himself with his sword ; upon which he was instantly pierced with several bayonets, and left, as the soldiers imagined, in the agonies of death. He was carried off the field to a neighbouring house, where he lingered for some days in extreme suffisring. As soon as Washington received the news, he despatched a flag to Cornwallis by the hands of his nephew Captain Lewis, requesting that the latter might remain with the sinking hero till he died, a request which was immediately granted. His body was transported to Phila-- delphia, and now reposes in the beautiful cemetery at Laurel Hill. Short time was given to Washington to profit by this success at Princeton. It is said that Lord Erskine had urged Cornwallis the evening before to attack the Americans at once, lest Washington should escape him in the night, but this he believed to be impossible. Next morning the distant sound of artil- lery, and the empty intrenchments in front of him, proved but too plainly that Erskine's prognostications were realized. The English general was in- stantly in motion, and as the Americans were ready to leave Princeton, was close upon their traces. Worn out with a night march and a hard- fought battle, famished with hunger, some barefoot and bleeding, and all miserably provided with necessaries, they were in no condition to await his approach. Aware that Cornwallis would immediately follow him, Washing- ton detached a party to break down the before-mentioned bridge at Worth's mills, and they had partly succeeded in demolishing it, when the British 416 THE AMERICANS RETIRE TO MORRISTOWK [1777. came in sight. They instantly opened a fire upon the Americans, who had already loosened the planks, Major Kelley, their leader, continuing to cut away a log on which they rested, while the balls were whistling about his ears. At length it fell into the stream, and he with it, and was afterwards cap- tured, but the communication was effectually stopped for the present. Corn- wallis ordered his soldiers to ford the swollen waters, breast deep and filled with ice ; • they obeyed, and advanced towards Trenton, but kept in check by a battery and the necessity of reconnoitring the enemy, were some time in reaching the town ; and when they did, they found that the American army had a second time escaped their clutches. Washington pushed on in the direction of the fugitive regiments, and when three miles north of Princeton, held a brief council on horseback with his officers. With an exhausted and inferior force, it would have been mad- ness to carry out their original design upon the British stores at Princeton, it was well indeed if they could even save the troops. Cornwallis was close upon their heels, they struck into a by-road, crossed the river at Kingston, and breaking down the bridge after them, retreated, as fast as their enfeebled condition would permit, towards the hilly country to the nortlnvard. Many dropped on the road from fatigue and fell asleep. They reached Pluckemin that evening, and on the following day retired still farther back to Morris- town, where Washington put his suffering troops into winter qviarters. By a brilliant and successful movement, he had redeemed the inauspicious opening of the campaign, and by his mingled caution and daring, had acquired the title of "the American Fabius." CHAPTER XL PROCEEDINGS OE CONGRESS. — CAMPAIGN OF 1777. — BATTLE OF THE BRANDYWINE. — OCCUPATIGjr OF PHILADELPHIA. — EXPEDITION AND SURRENDER OF BURGOYNE. — BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN. — CONWAY CABAL. — WINTER ENCAMPMENT AT VALLEY FORGE. To insure the triumph of the Americans, in the face of the most formidable obstacles, three things, it is evident, were indispensable — first, the patriotic zeal of the people ; secondly, the firmness and ability of Congress ; and thirdly, that rare union of noble qualities which adorned the commander-in- chief. It is hardly too much to say, that had any one of these conditions been wanting, the cause of the republic must inevitably have failed. Happily, the men who had assumed the helm of affiiirs at this momentous juncture, were fully equal to their task. Having m vain laboured to procure an honourable reconciliation with England, and taken the decisive measure 1777.] DIFFICULTIES IN SUPPORTING THE ARMY. 417 of renouncing her supremacy, tliey had resolved that no temporary dis- couragements should induce them to surrender their cause. Their spirits, on the contrary, rose with the emergency, their powers were called forth, and the energy and vigour of their counsels responded to the perils which threatened to overwhelm their country. One of their first difficulties was, besides organizing a standing army, to furnish money for its pay and support. There was but one expedient at their command, namely, the emissions of bills of credit ; and during the eighteen months which had elapsed since the breaking out of hostilities, they had authorized an issue of twenty millions of dollars. Besides this general bur- den, the different States had issued largely on private account ; and at length it became obvious, that a depreciation could no longer be prevented. Loan offices were accordingly opened in the different States, to borrow five millions of dollars, to be reimbursed in three years; but as this was far from meeting the difficulty. Congress were reluctantly obliged to resort to fresh issues. The depreciation continued to increase so rapidly, that a resolution was passed, declaring that their bills ought to pass current in all transactions for the same value in Spanish dollars, and that all persons refusing to take them as such, were to be deemed enemies of their country, and rendered liable to forfeitures and fines. Among the stringent powers devolved on Washington, was also the enforcing of this regulation. As the natural effect of these measures was to bring about a rise in prices, measures no less arbitrary, though justified by the necessity of the moment, were enacted, to fix the prices of all articles re- quired by the army, and even to compel the traders to furnish them when able, though unwilling, to do so. The pressure of the occasion also compelled Congress to seek for support from foreign powers. The position of Great Britain was at that time so proud and threatening, that all Europe felt jealous of her increasing influence, and secretly desired her humiliation. Especially did France, her hereditary enemy, stung by the recent loss of her Canada, labour to promote dissension between the Americans and their rvilers. Franklin had observed, w^hen at London, " that this intriguing nation would like to blow the coals of discord, but he hoped no occasion would be offered them." The case, however, was now widely different, and the secret offers of the French were eagerly re- sponded to by Congress. During November, 1775, at Philadelphia, they were told that a foreigner was desirous of obtaining a private co7\ference. The application remained for some time unnoticed ; but at length a committee, consisting of John Jay, Jefferson, and Franklin, was appointed to receive his communications. The agent, an old French officer, told them that the king of France rejoiced at their exertions in the cause of liberty, that he wished them success, and when circumstances permitted, would openly espouse their cause. " (jentlemen,"' he said, " ii' you want arms, you shall have them ; if you want ammunition, you shall have it ; if you want money, you shall have it." Observing that these assurances were most imjjortant, the com- mittee then sought to obtain some more definite authority for them ; but this 3 B 418 CONGRESS SENDS COMMISSIONERS TO FRANCE. [1T77. the old agent evaded, by drawing his hand across his throat, with the ex- l^ressive addition, " Gentlemen, I shall take care of my head ! " After this meeting he disappeared ; but the hint was not lost upon his auditors. It was evident that Louis, while anxious to promote the cause of the colonists, wished to avoid committing himself to a war with Great Britain, until it had been proved that their resolution was to be depended upon. Arthur Lee, who still remained at London, occupied in watching the move- ments of the English, entered into relations with the French ambassador, soon after the breaking out of hostilities. Through their contrivance, Ver- gennes, the French minister for foreign affairs, had sent Beaumarchais, the celebrated dramatist, to concert a plan for surreptitiously forwarding supplies of arms and stores to America, under the disguise of a fictitious trading firm. Shortly afterwards, Silas Deane was sent over to Paris, ostensibly as a private merchant, but in reality as political agent. Congress having at length re- solved upon a treaty with foreign powers, with whom their commercial rela- tions, no longer under the restrictions of dependency on Great Britain, were every day becoming more important; it was determined to appoint Franklin, Ueane, and Jefferson, as commissioners to the French court. Jefferson being prevented from accepting the post, Lee was appointed his substitute. Frank- lin went over in the Reprisal, the first American frigate that had 3ver ap- peared on the shores of Europe, and was soon joined by Lee from London, Though not openly accredited by the French government, they were treated with distinction, and privately supplied with funds for the purchase of arms and military stores. Some of these were intercepted by the British cruisers, but others arrived at their destination, and were found to be a very seasonable relief. The scientific reputation, benevolent temper, and venerable appearance of Franklin, attracted genuine regard, and he became the object of universal attention. Much enthusiasm was awakened among the young and ardent in France, and throughout Europe, for the cause of the oppressed and gallant . Americans, and many prepared to go over to their assistance, some merely military adventurers in quest of pay and promotion, but others animated by an enthusiastic love of freedom. Such was Thaddeus Kosciusko, of a noble Polish fiimily, who had received a military education, and becoming ac- quainted with Franklin at Paris, went over to America with a recommenda- tion from him to General Washington. On liis arrival he rej^aired to the commander-in-chief, who inquired his object. " I come," he said, " to fight as a volunteer for American independ- ence." " Wliat can you do?" said Washington. " Try me," was the simple reply : and the general, delighted with him, appointed 'him one of his aides. He afterwards obtained the grade of Colonel of Engineers, and rendered im- portant sei-\dce in fortifying West Point, in the Hudson Highlands, where a monument has been erected to his memory. After the revolutionary war he returned to fight the battles of his own country, and was taken prisoner by the Russians. The emperor, eager to obtain the services of such a hero, offered him his own sword, which he returned with the saying, " I no longer need a 1777.*] LAFAYETTE JOINS THE AMERICANS. 419 sword, since I have no longer a country to defend." A no less illustrious volunteer was the youthful Marquis de La Fayette, afterwards so conspicu- ous and disinterested an actor in two successive revolutions. Fired, at the age of nineteen, with the story of American resistance to British oppression, he left a young wife to whom he was tenderly attached, and, spite of the prohibition of the French ministry, anxious to avoid openly assisting the Americans, he purchased a vessel, and, with a chosen body of military com- rades, reached America in safety, and presented his credentials to the Com- mittee of Foreign Affairs. Owing to the numerous applications for employ- ment, he received at first a very discouraging answer ; but when he expressed his desire to serve as a volunteer, and receive no pay, his claims were admitted, and he shortly afterwards received the grade of major-general. He was at once received into unrestrained intimacy by Washington, who desired him to consider the head-quarters as his home, and the friendship thus founded endured without interruption until death. The winter passed ;iway at INIorristown amidst considerable privation on the pai't of the American army, and anxious care and continual correspond- ence on the part of Washington. The recruiting made but slow progress, and the organization of the new army was a Avork of difficulty. There was a great deficiency of stores, and to crown all, the small pox broke out in the camp. It was iiuperatively necessary to stimulate the different States to the performance of their respective duties, and to reconcile the jarring claims of candidates for precedence. Many of the States had either sent in their con- tingents without making the necessary appointments, or had made them with so little judgment that their rectification became indispensable. It re- quired the utmost tact on the part of Washington to exercise the absolute powers invested in him, in such a manner as at once to strengthen the public service and conciliate the feelings of the numerous aspirants. Meanwhile the state of the country, and more especially of the seat of war, now became daily more distracted. When the British had triumphed in New Jersey, many, as before said, had taken the oaths of allegiance in the hope of escaping the miseries of civil war. They had been bitterly deceived in this expectation. The Hessians, it was found, overran the country like a con- quered province, plunder and outrages of the worst description became com- mon, female virtue was exposed to insult, and in these excesses but little dif- ference was made between friend and foe. It was not in the power of Howe altogether to repress this military licence on the part of his German allies, and it soon worked a powerful reaction in favour of the republican cause among those who had at first hesitated or refused to embrace it. Stung to madness by these outrages, the farmers combined with Washington's troops to harass the royal army, make prisoners of detached bodies, cut off" their supplies, and to expel them from the open country, so that they were now little better than prisoners where they had so recently found themselves conquerors. Nor were the royal mercenaries alone to blame in this respect. Taking advantage of party excitement and the growing disorganization, many of Washington's 2 H 2 420 A PROCLAMATION AGAINST NEUTRALITY. [1777. troops Indulged in similar licence at tlie expense of parties who had ohservcd a peaceful neutrality, and Washington had repeatedly to issue the most stringent orders " against the infamous practice of plundering the inhabitants under pretence that they are Tories." Neutrality, however, was no longer possible. In reply to Howe's proclamation requiring allegiance to the king, Washington now issued a counter one, commanding " all persons who had re- ceived protections from the British commissioners, either to give them up and swear allegiance at all hazards to the United States, or in thirty days to withdraw themselves and their families within the enemy's lines." Ow- ing to this arbitrary order, which excited murmurs from the New Jersey legislature, and which political necessity could alone justify, the neutral were forced to choose a side ; exposed, should they embrace the popular cause, to the outrages of the British, and if they preferred the British, to reprisals on the part of their own countrymen. Moreover, by a recommendation of Livingston, the state legislature of New Jersey decreed that the estates of all such refugees as did not return within a limited period, were to be confiscated. Thus were the most moderate compelled to become partisans, while mutual animosity was inflamed to the highest pitch. We are here called upon to distinguish a second time between that class of Tories, who from principle adhered, though passively, to the cause of the mother country, and were unwilling, till compelled, or ill-treated, to take part in the quarrel, and that more active body who, regarding the republicans as rebels, pursued them with the most implacable and vindictive animosity. It was by these men, rather than the British themselves, that the prisoners in New York, shut up in convict ships, were treated with the most unfeeling cruelty, against which Washington felt it to be his duty to protest, and in which Howe strenuously denied any wilful participation. The most indefatigable of the latter class was Tryon, the governor of New York, who had been appointed major-general in the British service. As soon as the spring was sufficiently advanced, he was intrusted with an expe- dition to Danbury, an inland town in Connecticut, to destroy a quantity of provisions which had been there collected for the use of the American army. Landing between Fairfield and Norwalk, he reached the place without op- position, and succeeded in entirely efiecting his object, after which he endea- voured to make good his retreat. General Wooster however intercepted him with a corps of militia, and while encouraging his men, in a narrow pass, " not to mind the random firing of the enemy," fell mortally wounded with a chance bullet. Here was another o]3portunity for the imj)etuous Arnold, who happened to be in the neighbourhood, and repairing to the scene of action, blockaded the road, and with two hundred men confronted for a quarter of an hour as many thousand, till his horse was shot dead under him. The Americans, seeing their leader fallen, took to their heels, and a Tory rushing np to the prostrate Arnold with his bayonet exclaimed, '' Surren- der ! you are my prisoner." " Not yet," exclaimed Arnold, as he started to his feet, shot dead his assailant, escaped amidst a shower of bullets, and 1777.] DESTRUCTION OF STORES FOR THE ARMIES. 421 hurried forward to animate another body of militia by his example. In so doing, a second horse was shot under him, but Tryon with difficulty succeeded in get- ting back to his ships. The gallantry of Arnold was justly appreciated, and a horse, handsomely caparisoned, was presented to him by order of Congress. If Washington at this period had to struggle with complicated difficulties, neither was the British general exempt from them. He had been unable to terminate the war in a single campaign, and his requisitions to the ministry at home for reinforcements were but tardily responded to. The ministers had all along laboured under an illusion, that the partisans of the royal cause were far more numerous and influential than they proved to be, and would enlist in considerable numbers. The vigorous measures of Congress had however intimidated them, and but few came forward and enrolled them- selves in the ranks. Supplies too of all kinds, in a hostile country, must be derived from England at vast expense and with very considerable delay. OAving to these difficulties, Howe had been compelled to remain almost inac- tive, and to contract his operations until further sujccour should arrive. All that he was able to accomplish was the sending out one or two expeditions to destroy the American stores. Of these a considerable quantity had been accumulated at Peekskill, a vil- lage situated on the Hudson river, just at the entrance of the romantic High- lands, which had been diligently fortified by Washington, and as a post of great importance defended by a detachment from the American army. As the command of the river was open to the English, they were enabled to suc- ceed in their enterprise without much difficulty ; and a considerable quantity of stores and ammunition fell into their hands. The Americans reciprocated by seizing a quantity of provisions deposited by the British at Sagg Har- bour, on Long Island, confided to the charge of a schooner with twelve guns and a single company of infantry. This gallant exploit was successfully performed by Lieut.-Col. Meigs, at the head of a body of Connecticut recruits. These mutual annoyances, together with desultory skirmishes at the outposts, ushered in the momentous campaign of the year 1777. But before commencing its narration, we should not omit to notice a cor- respondence between Washington and Congress, which strikingly displays both his prudence and humanity. Upon the capture of General Lee, Howe persisted in regarding that officer as a deserter from the king's service, al- though he had resigned his commission before joining the Americans, and on this ground subjected him to an unusual rigour of treatment. Congress de- termined to retort by inflicting similar treatment upon their British and Hes- sian prisoners. Against a system so unwise, as well as unjust, Washington did not fail to remonstrate earnestly. " In point of policy, he observed, imder the present situation of our affairs, this doctrine cannot be supported. The balance of prisoners is greatly against us, and a general regard to the happi- ness of the Avhole should mark our conduct. Can we imagine, that our ene- mies will not mete the same punishments, the same indignities, the same cruelties, to those belonging to us in their possession, that we unpose on theirs 422 OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1777. [1777. in our power ? AVliy should we suppose tliem to possess more humanity than we have ourselves ? Or why should an ineffectual attempt to relieve the dis- tresses of one brave unfortunate man, involve many more in the same calam- ities ? " While thus opposing the vindictive policy of Congress, he did not fail to remonstrate against the inhuman treatment of the American prisoners. Many of these, when released upon exchange from the crowded and loath- some jails of New York, could scarcely stand from debility, and died soon after, in consequence of their cruel sufferings. Washington refused to ren- der back an equal number of able-bodied British and Hessians for these martyrs to their country's cause, respecting whom he observed, " that though they could not, from their wretched situation, be deemed proper for an ex- change, yet humanity required that they should be permitted to return to their countrymen." The spring Avas far advanced before Howe was in a position to open the campaign, and Washington, from his camp at Morristown, anxiously watched for the first movements of the enemy. It was known that General Burgoyne had assumed the command in Canada, but as yet his intentions were unde- veloped. A quantity of vessels and pontoons, it was ascertained, Avas also provided at New York, apparently for an impending attack upon Philadelphia. In order to cover that city, Washington now moved down to a strong camp at Middlebrook, with an army increased to forty-three regiments, but so im- perfectly filled u]3 that the number of troops was only about eight thousand. It was not till the "middle of June that Howe marched out of New Bruns- wick, ostensibly to attack Philadelphia, but in reality, if possible, to draw Washington from his defences, and bring on a general engagement, which his opponent was equally anxious to avoid. With this view he artfully made a retrograde movement towards Amboy, which drew down Washington from the high ground as far as Quibbletown, when Howe, as suddenly turning round, endeavoured to cut him off from the hills ; but his wary adversary made good his retreat to Middlebrook. Foiled in this object, Howe retired to Staten Island to meditate a fresh attack. Information having reached the English general of Burgoyne's meditated expedition from Canada, of which we shall presently speak more fully. Sir Henry Clinton was left at New York, with four thousand men, in order to co-operate with him, while Howe embarked Avith the main body of his army, intending to attack Philadelphia in another direction. As Washington soon received authentic ncAVS that Burgoyne Avas advancing upon Ticonderoga, this moA^ement of HoAve's occasioned him the greatest perplexity. It Avas uncer- tain Avhether he meant to ascend the Hudson, and co-operate with Bur- goyne, to sail up the Delaware, or even to attack Boston. Supposing it was the first, Washington advanced toAvards the Highlands ; but when the ships had been, by his spies, reported steering to the southward, he directed his march toAvards Philadelphia. The fleet, however, instead of ascending the DelaAvare, had been seen sailing to the eastward, a moA^ement Avhich re- quired fresh attention ; finally, it was again descried to the soutliAvard^ until 1777.] POSITION OF THE AMERICAN AEMY. 423 it was tlie general impression that it was gone down to Cliarleston. During these movements and counter-movements, Washington had repaired to Phila~ delphia, where he had an interview with Congress, and had marched down his army to GermantoAvn, in order to be ready for any casualty. It was not until the 22nd of August, that certain information came in that the British ships had entered the Chesapeake, and landed the troops at the head of Elk river, whence, as soon as his stores and, baggage were landed, Howe directed his march upon Philadelphia. Although inferior even in numbers, and still more in the quality of his troops — some of whom indeed had already seen some service, but a consider- able portion were raw recruits, but lately arrived at the camp, Washington was well aware how great would be the public discouragement, were he, after all the efforts made by Congress to organize an army, to retreat without oifering bat- tle in defence of Philadelphia. He determined therefore to do so at all events. After some preliminary manojuvring, the American army was drawn up on the heights above the Brandywine, a small river falling into the Delaware, near Wilmington, and which it was necessary that the enemy should pass, to continue their march on Philadelphia. The principal passage at Chad's Ford was defended by General Wayne, having under him Lincoln's division of militia ; and the rest of the army, commanded by Washington in person, ex- tended in a line above the river. On this occasion, the English general determined to put in practice the same rnse which had already been crowned with such signal success at the battle in Long Island, and strange to say, although foreseen by the enemy, it proved, through accidental circumstances, a second time decisive of victory. Accordingly, when advanced within seven miles of the field of battle, having divided his army into two columns, he sent forward one, under General Knyphausen, by the direct road to Chad's Ford, while the second, led by CoruAvallis, and accompanied by himself, made a considerable circuit, for the purpose of crossing the river higher up at the Forks, where easily ford- able, and turning the right wing of the Americans. Washington, suspecting this movement, posted patrols to guard the fords and give notice of the ene- my's movements. While anxiously awaiting intelligence, the advanced posts of Knyphausen's division approached Chad's Ford, and were immediately at- tacked by General Maxwell, with a body of light troops. Though these were driven in, and much desultory skirmishing and noisy cannonading took place, with a view to distract the attention of the Americans, the German general still delayed the passage of the river, till he had ascertained that the other party, under Cornwallis, had first. effected it. Patrol after patrol came in to Washington, with the most perplexing and contradictory statements. At first, they reported that a body of the enemy had been seen on their march to the Forks ; and Sullivan, who commanded the American right, was ordered to cross the river to intercept them. This intelligence was shortly after contradicted, and the movement countermanded. At last, about two o'clock, arrived undoubted news, that Cornwallis had 42-1 THE BATTLE OF THE BRANDYWINE. [1777. really crossed at the Forks, and was hastily coming down upon the American right flank. Sullivan was now immediately detached to meet him, while Greene's division, accompanied by "Washington, took up a central position between Chad's Ford, still defended by Maxwell, and the advancing columns of Sullivan. No sooner had Cornwallis come up with this latter division, which, from the hurry occasioned by confused and conflicting accounts, had got but imper- fectly into line, than he attacked it with such irresistible impetuosity, that it speedily began to give way. Some of the older troops stood their ground manfully, till borne down by superior numbers ; but the new levies of militia soon broke and fled, in spite of all the efforts of their officers. Among the latter, Deborre, an old French general, was wounded in endeavouring to rally a brigade of Maryland troops, which proved the first to flinch. Being afterwards called to account by Congress, he retorted, that "he had used every exertion in his power, and if the Americans would run away, it was very hard to hold him accountable for it." The confusion spread along the line, which retired before their assailants, still rallying at certain points, and covered by Greene's division, which opened its ranks to receive the fugi- tives. Meanwhile, being assured by the cannonading that Howe's manoeuvre had proved successful, Knyphausen converted his feigned attack into a real one, passed the ford, drove in its defenders after a stout resistance, and by his advance comjjleted the discomfiture of the Americans. Greene'? division still continued to cover the retreat, till darkness overspread the scene of conflict, and probably proved the salvation of the fugitive army. The British halted upon the field of battle, while the disorganized American battalions retreated to Chester, and thence fell back upon Philadelphia. This was indeed a severe blow, yet, firm in the moment of peril. Congress appeared to be nowise disconcerted, but laboured to put the best face upon the business. The victory was represented as being neither important nor decisive ; and rewards were distributed to the most deserving officers. Count Pulaski, a noble Pole, who had displayed much gallantry at the head of the light-horse, was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, and received the command of the cavalry. Captain de Flury, who had a horse killed' under him, received another. La Fayette, who was disabled by a severe wound, came in for his share of applause. On the other hand, a rigid inquiry was also instituted into the conduct of Sullivan, who was, however, honourably acquitted. Foreseeing the necessity of speedily abandoning Philadelphia, Congress also removed the magazines and public stores, but still continued to protract their sittings, and maintain their authority to the latest moment. Finally — so far from showing any decline of confidence in "Washington, they invested him with still more ample authority than before. He was empowered to seize upon all provisions needful for the sustenance of his army, paying for them in the public certificates ; and even to try by court martial, and im- mediately execute, all persons giving any assistance to the British, or furnish- ing them with provisions, arms, or stores. A supply of blankets, shoes, and i:77.] THE BRITISH. ARMY ENTERS PHILADELPHIA. 425 clothing, was also required from the citizens of Philadelphia, before that city passed into the enemy's hands. These stringent powers, often painful to insist upon, were considered to be of inevitable necessity in the face of an advancing British army, and with the knowledge of a numerous body of sympathizing Tories or hesitating neutrals. Neither did Washington, after so painful a reverse, exhibit any diminution of his serene self-confidence and persevering steadiness, although the repidse at the Brandywine was followed by fi"esh disasters. The very evening after the battle, a British party surprised IVI'Kinley, the president of the State, at Wilmington, and captured a vessel containing the public records and money. A more distressing casualty was the surprise of General Wayne, who had concealed his party in the woods, with a view of harassing the British rear ; this design being discovered by a Tory spy, Major-General Gray was despatched to cut him off, and making his way through the woods with silence and celer- ity, fell suddenly upon his camp with fixed bayonets, and, with the loss of only eight men, killed, wounded, or captured three hundred of the Americans. As soon as the remains of the army were refreshed and reorganized, A\^ash- ington marched out of Philadelphia, and encountering the advancing British, about twenty miles distant from the city, prepared to offer them battle for the second time. The outposts begun the engagement, when a violent storm of rain came on, which lasted a whole day and night, and prevented the con- tinuance of the conflict. He made another unfavourable attempt to stop the onward progress of the British army, who, having crossed the Schuylkill, divided into two bodies, Howe himself encamping with the main body at Germantown, while Cornwallis with a strong detachment entered Philadel- phia in triumph, where he was warmly received by the numerous partisans of the royal cause. On his approach. Congress retired into the interior of Penn- sylvania, first to Lancaster, and afterwards to Yorktown, Avhere they remained until the evacuation of Philadelphia by the royal army. In this position let us leave Washington and his adversaries for the present. Among those acts, dictated by dire necessity, which particularly tended to exasperate the feelings of the republicans, was the system of pillage carried on for the supply of the royal forces. We have already noticed the destruc- tion of Bristol, in Narragansett Bay, by Admiral AV^allace, on account of the inhabitants refusing to comply with his requisiticns. That officer continued in Newport harbour levying contributions on the neighbourhood, until at length expelled by some batteries erected for that purpose. Other English cruisers came in from time to time with their prizes, but were compelled to retire into the open sea. From an early period in the war, the fitting out of priva- teers was actively carried on both here and in the other New England ports. These vessels occasioned such immense injury to English com merce that the rate of marine insurance rose enormously. They waylaid richly laden ships coming from the West Indies, and even ventured to infest the British coast ; carrying their prizes into the ports of Spain and Holland, and especially of France, where they found a welcome market. The losses 3 X 426 TYEA NA'Y OF GENERAL PRESCOTT IN NE WPORT. [1777. sustained by the British mercliants in 1775 and 1776, were estimated at about a million sterling. The British reciprocated by inflicting all the injury in their power upon American commerce, which, removed from the restric- tions under which it formerly laboured, had now largely extended its field of operations. After the departure of the English ships, Ehode Island remained unmo- lested, until, on the 26th of December, the very same day when AYashington surprised the Hessians at Trenton, the English fleet under Sir Peter Parker, having on board the troops returning from the unsuccessful attack upon Charleston, made their ajjpearance in Newport harbour. Two American frigates, and several privateers, narrowly succeeded in effecting their escape. The troops were unceremoniously quartered on the inhabitants, until Sir Henry Clinton marched with the greater part of them to New York, leaving the remainder under the command of General Prescott. The occupation of a hostile country, and the necessity of quartering troops and enforcing supplies from a reluctant people, always painful to an ofhcer imbued with generous sentiments, ought, one would think, in this case to have been rendered still more so by the consideration, that both parties were of the same blood and religion. But regarding the citizens as rebels, more- over being naturally harsh, imperious, and unfeeling, General Prescott took advantage of their defenceless situation to inflict on them all sorts of petty tyranny. He would stop them in the streets, and command them to take off their hats, menacing and even striking them if they refused to do so. He threw men into prison upon mere suspicion, and treated their relatives with insult and cruelty. The inhabitants, groaning under the yoke of Prescott, at length determined to get rid of him. Lieutenant-Colonel Barton, embarking from Providence, with a few stanch confederates, in four whale boats, passed with muffled oars through the midst of some British ships, lying off the de- tached house in which Prescott was quartered, surprised the lieutenant, and made their way to the sleeping-room of the general. The door was locked, but a powerful negro who was with the party, making use of his head as a battering-ram, dashed it in at a single blow. The general was then seized, un- dressed as he was, swaddled in a cloak, and marched down to the boats, which reached the shores unchallenged with the prisoner. Prescott was ke]3t in confinement till the following April, when he was exchanged for General Lee. He was afterwards restored to his command, and amply avenged him- self for his mortification by fresh acts of rapine and incendiarism. In the preceding August, during the absence of the main British army under Howe, General Sullivan made a sudden descent upon Staten Island, surprised two loyalist regiments, and carried off several papers of importance. These being communicated to Congress, led to the arrest of several of the lead- ing Quakers, who, with John Penn, the late governor, the same who had given testimony against the Stamp Act in parliament, and others who had conscien- tiously refused to swear allegiance to the new State government of Pennsyl- vania, were now subjected to confinement as a matter of political necessity. 1777.] EXPEDITION TO ISOLATE NEW ENGLAND. 427 We must now turn to the north, and narrate the progress and issue ot that expedition under Burgoyne to which allusion has more than once been made. The fruitless efforts that Carleton had made in the preceding autumn to re- duce Ticonderoga, and the concentration of the American troops at that fort, have been already narrated. Not apprehending further attack in that direction, a portion of these regiments had been withdrawn to the assist- ance of Washington, and thus a comparatively small body were in gar- rison at Ticonderoga, when it was menaced with a sudden and formidable attack. During the progress of hostilities, it had been a favourite j)lan with the British ministry to cut off the New England States from correspondence with the central and southern, and thus, by preventing a free communication, sever as it were the link that bound together the rebellious and hydra-headed confederacy. In order to effect this, a large force Avas to be sent by way of the St. Lawrence and the lakes, which, after reducing Ticonderoga, was to cross the few miles of forest intervening between that fort and the Hudson, and take possession of Albany; while another body, ascending the river, and reducing the fortresses on the Highlands, would effect a junction with the first. This plan seemed the more plausible, inasmuch as it required no exten- sive march through the interior, but, except a short interval of fifteen miles, could be executed on both sides by water carriage alone. It had been par- ticularly pressed upon the attention of ministers by Lieutenant- General Burgoyne, whose knowledge of the country, and above all the importunity with Avhich he besieged his patrons, at length procured him the desired ap- jpointment. Burgoyne was a natural son of Lord Bingley, and had at an early period of his life been devoted to a military career, and honourably distin- guished himself in foreign service. He had obtained the rank of brigadier- general, had served in parliament, and become a privy councillor. He had witnessed, though without sharing, the battle of Bunker Hill, and after taking a prominent share in the expulsion of the Americans from Canada, returned to London to carry out his plans for promotion. Of his skill and courage there was ample evidence, and animated as he was by an ardent de- sire of success in this enterprise, the ministers thought that 'its command could not be intrusted to better hands. Sir Guy Carleton, indeed, as having displayed consummate conduct and prudence in the government of Canada, possessing a thorough knowledge of the Canadians and Indians, and enjoying a high reputation for magnanimity of character among the Americans them- selves, might perhaps have been more fitted in many respects than Burgoyne, had merit and fitness alone influenced the decision of ministers ; but then Carleton and his claims were at a distance, while Burgoyne and his impor- tunity were on the spot. He succeeded in his designs, however, only to prove more painfully the inconstancy of fortune, and the danger of indulging in that " Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself^ And falls on the other side." 3 I 2 423 B URGOYNE ENGA GES THE HELP OF THE INDIANS. [1777. Early in May Burgoyne reached Quebec, where he devoted himself with intense activity to the completion of his preparations, a task in which lie was warmly seconded by the generous Carleton, though the latter, finding himself by this new appointment now reduced to a mere civil functionary, felt called upon to resign his government. The regular troops destined for this expedi- tion consisted of about eight thousand men, including a body of rangers under Colonel St. Leger, destined for a separate expedition against Fort Stanwix, or Schuyler, in the Mohawk country. Burgoyne was admirably seconded by several able officers, both English and German, particularly Generals Eraser, Phillips, Powell, Hamilton, Major-General Baron Eeidesel, and Brigadier- General Specht. A large body of Canadian auxiliaries to act as pioneers and scouts was also attached to the service of the army. The policy of also engaging the Indians as allies had by this time become riither questionable, their actual services being outweighed by the trouble they occasioned, while the cruelties they perpetrated upon their captives had reflected disgrace, often undeserved indeed, against their European or Ame- rican leaders. Indignant remonstrance had been made in England against the emi^loyment of these ferocious auxiliaries, but upon the plea, that unless employed in the royal cause they, would be engaged by the Americans, the ministers had insisted upon it, though Carleton, and even Burgoyne himself, both of them men of humane dispositions, were strongly opposed to the mea- sure. As, however, the ministerial orders were positive, Carleton exerted his powerful influence, and a considerable body of Indian warriors were soon prevailed upon to embrace the royal cause. At length, every thing being ready, this fine army, so well officered, and for its numbers unequalled in appointments and artillery, ascended Lake Champlain towards Ticonderoga. At the falls of the Bouquet, a short distance from its shores, four hundred Indians, of the Algonquin, Ottawa, and Iro- quois tribes, accompanied by a Roman Catholic priest, were assembled to join the troops. Here Burgoyne encamped and gave them a war feast, and afterwards addressed the plumed chieftains in a speech, vainly intended at once to excite their military ardour and to restrain their savage cruelties. " Go forth," he said, " in the might of your valour, strike at the common enemies of Great Britain and America, disturbers of public order, peace, and happiness, destroyers of commerce, parricides of the state." He praised their perseverance and constancy, and patient endurance of privation, and artfully flattered them by saying, that in these respects they oflered a model of imita- tion for his army. He then entreated of them, as the king's allies, to regu- late their own mode of warfare by that prescribed to their civilized brethren. " I positively forbid," he energetically said to them, " all bloodshed when you are not opposed in arms. Aged men, women, and children, nuist be held sacred from the knife and hatchet even in the time of actual conflict. You shall receive compensation for the prisoners you take, but you shall be called to account for scalps. In conformity and indulgence to your customs, which have affixed an idea of honour to such badges of victory, you shall be rm.]BURGOYNE'S PR0CLA2IATI0N TO THE AMERICANS. 429 allowed to take the scalps of the dead when killed by your fire and in fair opposition, but on no account, or pretence, or subtlety, or prevarication, are they to be taken from the wounded or even the dying, and still less pardon- able, if possible, will it be held to kill men in that condition on purpose, and upon a supposition that tliis protection to the wounded would thereby be evaded." The warriors listened in respectful silence, and an old Iroquois chieftain gravely arose. " I stand up," he said, " in the name of all the tribes present, to assure our father that we have attentively listened to his discourse. We receive you as our father, because when you speak we hear the voice of our great father beyond the great lake. In proof of the sin- cerity of our professions, our whole villages able to go to war are come forth. The old and infirm, our infants and wives, alone remain at home. With one common assent we j)romise a constant obedience to all you have ordered and shall order, and may the Father of Days give you success." Such were the promises of the Indians, but those who knew their nature might have seen how little reliance was to be placed upon them. The thirst of gold, and the thirst of blood, were the real motives that drew them forth from their forests ; when the former could no longer be gratified, their fidelity was at an end, and no human power could prevent them from the indulgence of the latter. A\1iile Burgoyne, on one hand, was engaged in this vain, though honour- able endeavour, he issued a proclamation to the " rebels," couched in the most bombastic and grandiloquent terms. He recapitulated their various crimes, reminded them of their oppressive treatment of the Tories, who, on account of their adherence to their principles, had been thrown into prison and deprived of their property, or forced to purchase tranquillity by taking oaths against which their consciences secretly revolted. He had come, he said, armed with irresistible power, to put down such outrages ; and while he promised protection to those who remained quiet, and payment to such as brought in supplies, he menaced all such as should be found daring enough to resist the terror of his arms, with penalties the most tremendous, especially with the bloody licence of those very savages he had so lately endeavoured to restrain. In this ill-judged manifesto, dictated no doubt by policy, Bur- goyne displayed consummate ignorance of the American, and especially the New England, character — far more likely to be nerved into increased hardihood and daring opposition, than terrified by such inhuman menaces. Accord- ingly, they hurled defiance in his teeth, and treated his vauiating proclamation with the most cutting sarcasm. Neither was it much better treated in England; it met with animadversion in parliament, became the subject of satirical parody, while its unlucky author received, in certain circles, the nickname of " General Swa^csrer." Having put forth this manifesto, Burgoyne advanced to Crown Point, the defenders of which retired to Ticonderoga. The British army, advancing up Lake Champ] ain in three divisions, one on each shore, and the other by water, was soon before the walls of that foitress, which suggested the dis- astrous recollection of the ill-fated attack of Abercrombie, in which so many 430 DEFENCE OF TICONDEROGA. [1777. of their gallant countrymen had fruitlessly perished. The ships were an- chored out of gun-shot from the works, while the land defences were closely invested on every side. As Burgoyne's plans had been so lately developed, and great exertions had been required to oppose General Howe in New Jersey, little attention, com- paratively, had been paid to the northern army, or to the defence of Ticon- deroga. General Schuyler, who, as before said, had been superseded by Gates, had been restored to his original appointment, and taken very much at a disadvantage, found himself almost unable to bring forward a force equal to stay the progress of his formidable adversary. General St. Clair, an officer of Scottish birth, who had served under Wolfe, and embraced the cause of the Americans, was then within the walls of Ticonderoga, with a body of only two thousand men. The New England militia had been hastily summoned to the rCscue, and the garrison might have been considerably increased, but for the deficiency of necessary stores. Perhaps, in a military point of view, it would have been wiser to have abandoned it altogether, but for the discouragement which such a measure would have produced on the public mind. The position of Ticonderoga, naturally strong both by land and water, had been carefully increased by art. Besides the principal fort, on the point of land commanding, on one hand, the narrow outlet, which, running up to Skenesborough, now IVliitehall, forms the termination of Lake Champlain ; and on the other, the narrow space intervening between this body of Avater and Lake George ; there was also another, occupying a still stronger position, on a neighbouring eminence, called Mount Independence. These Avorks, however, Avere still overlooked by loftier elevations, rugged and abrupt in outline, and covered Avith unbroken forests. One of these, in particular, so obAaously commanded the fort, that it had been proposed by the besiegers to occupy it ; but the garrison Avas already too small to man the extensive lines, and all that St. Clair could do, was to hope that the difficulties of the ascent might deter the British commander from attempting to seize it ; and that he would prefer to attack the fort in front, Avhere St. Clair Avould be enabled to offer a more successful resistance. But, on the morning of the 5th of July, as the rising sun lighted up the Avooded summits of the mountains, the scarlet regimentals of the royal troops Avere suddenly descried by the astounded garrison upon the summit of the peak above ; and further examination disclosed a train of artillery, ready to open upon the Avorks, Avhich the British so completely commanded, that not a single movement of the defenders could escape their prying scru- tiny. The mountain had been reconnoitred by Lieutenant TavIss, the chief engineer, and under his direction, by the indefatigable labour of the troops, a road had been cut through the forests in a fcAV hours, and a battery established, ready to thunder destruction on the fort. To this hill, whence they equally defied the Americans to dislodge them, or to evade their own attack, the English gave the name of "Mount Defiance;" while another 1777.] RETREAT OF THE AMERICANS. 431 vantage ground, upon wliicli General Eraser had established his corps, re- ceived the appellation of " Mount Hope." At this alarming crisis, with the momentary expectation of attack, General St. Clair called a council of war, at which it was agreed, as the only means of saving the army, to evacuate the fort as soon as nightfall should enable them to do so unperceived. This resolution was concealed from the troops until the moment for action should arrive. At length, when the twilight had sufficiently closed in, the order was given to load two hundred batteaux, in which, covered by a convoy of five armed galleys, with the munitions and stores, thus to be conveyed up the narroAV arm of the lake to Skenesborough, while the main body of the troops marched to the same spot by Castleton. A strong boom and bridge crossed this outlet of the lake to Fort Independence, which was in the command of the Americans, and thus they anticipated an undisturbed retreat by Avatcr. Every precaution was taken to conceal their movements, not a light was shown, and a cannon- ade was artfully kept up in the direction of Eraser's encampment. Although it was a moonlight night, the distance of the objects and the absence of fires prevented the movements of the Americans from being perceived ; and after much unavoidable delay and confusion, about three in the morning, St. Clair and the garrison filed out of the gates of Ticondcroga, and crossing the bridge unnoticed, conducted their steps to Hubbardton, flattering themselves that before morning dawned they should have stolen nearly a day's march on the unconscious enemy. At this moment, when all their operations seemed likely to be crowned with success, a sudden conflagration, kindled either by accident, or through the obstinacy of the commandant, burst forth on Mount Independence, and cast- ing its fiery glare over the lake, the fort, and the moantains, aroused the whole British camp, revealing at a glance all that was on foot, and striking confusion into the ranks of the fugitive republicans. Panic-stricken, they hastily continued their retreat to Hubbardton, whence the main body, under St. Clair, pushed forward for Castleton. The rear, under Colonel Warner, covering the re- treat, and giving time for any stragglers to come up, continued their hasty advance during the whole day, closely pursued by Eraser, who, at the first discovery of their escape, had hurried after them, General Reidesel and Colonel Breyman with the Germans bringing up the rear of the pursuit. Burgoyne himself, on board one of the vessels, was eager to follow and cap- ture the retreating batteaux, but was delayed for some hours, until, by the extraordinary efforts of the seamen and sappers, a passage was at length forced through the bridge and boom, Avhen his flotilla passed through in full chase of the heavy-laden boats, upon which they rapidly gained ground. At the same time a body of troops was landed, in order, by a shorter passage, to de- stroy the enemy's works at Skenesborough, and prevent their escape. About three the British vessels came up with the American barges, captured some, and burned others, while, to prevent the rest from being of any service to their enemies, the Americans set them all on fire, and fell back upon Eort Anne, 432 CONTINUED SUCCESS OF BURGOTNE. [I777. fiirtlier up the outlet, -where Schuyler was concentrating such militia as he could muster to oppose to the advancing British. Meanwhile the latter, vigorously keeping up the pursuit, about five on the morning of the seventh overtook the American rear-guard, who, in op- position to St. Clair's orders, had lingered behind and posted themselves on strong ground in the vicinity of Hubbardton. Fraser's troops were little more than half the number opposed to him, but aware that Reidesel was close behind, and fearful lest his chase should give him the slip, he ordered an im- mediate attack. Warner opposed a vigorous resistance, but a lai-ge body of his militia retreated, and left him to sustain the combat alone, Avhen the firing of Kcidesel's advanced guard was heard, and shortly after his whole force, drums beating and colours flying, emerged from the shades of the forest ; and part of his troops immediately effected a junction Avith the British line. Fraser now gave ord-^rs for a simultaneous advance with the bayonet, which was effected with such resistless impetuosity that the Americans broke and fled, sustaining a very serious loss. St. Clair, upon hearing the firing, endeavoured to send back some assistance, but the discouraged militia refused to return, and the American general had no alternative but to collect the wrecks of his army, and proceed to Fort Edward to effect a junction with Schuyler. Burgoyne lost not a moment in folloAving up his success at Skenesborough, but despatched a regiment to effect the capture of Fort Anne, defended by a small party under the command of Colonel Long. This officer judiciously posted his troops in a narrow ravine through which his assailants were com- pelled to pass, and opened upon them so severe a fire in front, flank, and rear, that the British regiments, nearly surrounded, with difficulty escaped to a neighbouring hill, where the Americans attacked them ancAV with such vigour that they must have been utterly defeated, had not the ammunition of the assailants given out at this critical moment. No longer being able to fight, Long's troops fell back, and setting the fort on fire, also directed their retreat to the head-quarters at Fort Edward. Thus far the progress of Burgoyne had been extraordinary, no campaign was ever opened in a more dashing, brilliant, and successful style. In a few days^ and with hardly any loss, he had compelled his adversary to evacu- ate Ticondcroga, had captured upAvards of a hundred pieces of artillery, de- stroyed great part of his pro\asions and stores, routed the rear of his flying army, driven the feeble remainder before him, dispirited and almost starving, and struck terror into the whole surrounding region. Had he been able in- stantly to press forward across the sixteen miles of forest that intervened be- tween Skenesborough and the Hudson, before the panic had subsided, or Schuyler had found time to interpose any obstacles to his advance, or any assistance could have been sent by Congress, he would have entirely succeed- ed in the object of his expedition. But he was detained some time waiting for his baggcige, and that time Avas turned to momentous account by Schuyler. That officer, and General St. Clair, when the ucaa's of these disastrous events reached Congress, were overwhelmed with unmerited reproaches. In- 1777.] SCHUYLER'S CONDUCT BLA3IED BY COXGRESS. 433 stead of attributing the misfortune to the deficiency of men and supplif^s, it "was at once assumed that nothing but the total "vvant of military conduct, and perhaps treachery into the bargain, could possibly have occasioned it. " We shall never be able to defend a post," privately wrote John Adams, now President of the Board of War, " till we shoot a general," — a most unge- nerous hint. Even "Washington himself, temperate and candid in his judg- ment, was so painfully affected, that he confessed himself at a loss to compre- liend how such misfortunes could have happened. But he overruled a hasty resolution of Congress, who talked of recalling the northern officers, and in- stituting an inquiry into their conduct. Schuyler therefore, happily for his country, was allowed to continue in her service, but through the influence of the NeAv England members in Congress Gates was a second time promoted to the chief command. Washington, who had declined personally to disj^lace Schuyler, suggested that Arnold should also be sent to the scene of action, in the hope that his sanguine temper and daring courage might reanimate the dispirited army. Two brigades were also despatched from the Highlands, and General Lincoln, a great favourite with the New Englanders, whose pre- judices against Schuyler were inveterate, was sent to assume their command. While thus exposed to detraction and suspected of treachery, that officer, whose magnanimity of character, akin to Washington's, was proof against all attack, was using every means to counteract the influence of Burgoyne, and to impede his further advance. The English general, taking advantage of the triumph of his arms, had issued another manifesto, calling upon the Americans to return to their allegiance. Schuyler retorted by a spirited counter-proclamation. But, aware that the great object was to gain time un- til assistance could arrive, he laboured incessantly to render the short interval betwixt himself and his adversary all but impassable. He declared his in- tention " to dispute every inch of ground with General Burgoyne, and retard his descent into the country as long as possible." With this view, extra- ordinary pains were taken to sink obstructions in Wood Creek, up which stream the English batteau.x must pass to convey provisions toAvards the Hudson. But his principal efforts were directed to blockading the road, a single line of cutting through a region of unbroken forest. He destroyed upwards of fifty bridges over the torrents and swamps, with which it was provided. Where it was so hemmed in by natural obstacles, that no side passage was practicable, he caused huge trees to be felled and thrown across it with their branches interlocking, which must be removed with infinite toil and difficulty before the enemy could effect a passage. All the cattle was driven off from the vicinity of the route. To one who attentively looks into the details of the war, these ijnpediments thrown into the way of Burgoyne, will appear to be at the root of all his sub- sequent difficulties, and Schuyler may thus fairly take the credit of having paved the way for the success of Gates. Burgoyne has been blamed for the slowness of his movements, but in the present instance it Avas evidently com- pulsory. He was afterwards criticised for not having at this junction, instead 3 K 434 SCHUYLER RETIRES TO COHOES FALLS [1777. of consuming much time by forcing his way from Skenesborough to Fort Edward J retraced his steps by water to Ticonderoga and up Lake George, and from thence directed his march upon the Hudson. He appears to have well justified himself, by contending that a movement apparently retrograde would have had the worst moral effect in the height of success ; and, more- over, that the Americans would not have failed to have opposed him on that route also, whereas by his present movement they had been compelled to give up Fort George and to leave the road open to his supplies. However this may be, the progress of his army, from Skenesborough to the Hudson, was excessively slow and toilsome. The soldiers, heavily laden as they were, had to clear the encumbered road and to rebuild the bridges ; a mile a day was as much as they could accomplish with their utmost efforts. It was not till the end of July that they emerged from the forests, and, with transports of delight, saw before them the beautiful river Hudson, the term, as they fondly supposed, of all their anxieties, and which they had nothing to do but to descend, driving the Americans before them, till Albany fell into their hands ; and by effecting a junction with Clinton, accomplish the objects of the expedition. As the British army advanced, increased by accessions from the Tories, who counted upon a signal triumph, the terrified inhabitants abandoned their comfortable homesteads and waving harvests, now ripe for the sickle, and fled from the path of the invader. Fort Edward being untenable, Schuyler, on the ajoproach of his enemy, evacuated it, and retired down the Hudson as far as Cohoes Falls, at its junction with the Mohawk, where he fortified Bome islands, and in this strong position, with his head-quarters at Still- water, awaited the arrival of Burgoyne. In the mean time, he used the most indefatigable exertion to induce the neighbouring militia to repair to his assistance ; his wealth and private influence contributed to his success, and matters around him were beginning to assume a hopeful aspect, when there arrived the news of fresh misfortunes. There was a small fort, named after himself. Fort Schuyler, upon the Upper Mohawk, a military out-post in this direction, and commanding the whole valley of the river, down to its junction with the Hudson. This dis- trict, called Try on county, was the same formerly occupied by the famous Sir William Johnson, already mentioned ; and when the revolution broke out, his nephew, Guy Johnson, a stanch royalist, was still the most influential person in the neighbourhood. A Mohawk sachem, called Brant, was the fast friend and ally of Johnson. By the eventual predominance of the repub- lican influence, Johnson was at length obliged to fly, with a large body of his partisans, to Canada, where his men were formed into a regiment, called the *' Johnson Greens," and destined by Burgoyne, in concert with a company of English troops, and a body of Indian allies, under Brant, to effect the re- duction of Fort Schuyler, garrisoned at that time by seven hundred men, irnder Colonel Gansevoort, including a regiment commanded by Colonel "VVillett. The command of this expedition was given to Lieutenant-Colonel 1777.] ST. LEGER BESIEGES FORT SCHUYLER. 435 St. Leger, who after reducing the place, and thereby exciting a Tory insurrcccionj was to descend the valley, and effect a junction with Bur- goyne. As soon as the English had invested the fort. General Herkimer assem- bled the republican militia, and proceeded to the relief of the garrison, who were at the same time directed to make a sortie and throw the besiegers into confusion, of which movement notice was to be given by a signal gun. Herkimer, not having heard the signal, and aware that the enem.y were in force, was unwilling to precipitate his march; but the militia, eager to press forward, began to reproach their leader with cowardice, and to insinuate that he was also a Tory. Stung with these reproaches, and warn- ing them that those who were now most eager to fight, would be the first to run away, he gave the word to advance. He had not proceeded far before, in passing a hollow ravine near Oriskany, his men fell into an am- buscade, consisting of Brant's Indians and the Johnson Greens, placed there by St. Leger, for the purpose of cutting him off. The vanguard, as had been prophesied, turned and fled, but the brave Herkimer continued to main- tain a desperate resistance, until he was mortally Avounded and carried off the field. The encounter, which proved to be peculiarly ferocious and san- guinary, was suspended a while by a tremendous storm ; this had no sooner cleared off, than the signal gun was heard, giving notice of the sortie by Willett, which proved entirely successful. The combat now raged afresh, imtil the Tories fled the field ; but the republicans had suffered too severely to realize the original design of forcing their way through the lines, and re- lieving the garrison. St. Leger, now confident of success, sent a messenger to Burgoyne, inform- inof him that the fort could not hold out much longer. He issued a sum- mons to surrender, in the same pompous style as Burgoyne's proclamation, with precisely similar results. An officer was then sent with a flag, and blind- folded, through the works, and introduced, in a lighted apartment, into the presence of Gansevoort and Willett, with other officers. He assured them that Albany was already in the hands of the English, that the fort must ine- vitably be taken, and hinted that he already found it very difficult to restrain the savage ferocity of the Indians. Willett, with the sanction of his superior, replied with spirit, " You come from a British colonel to the commander of the garrison, to tell him that if he does not deliver it up into the hands Oi your colonel, he will send his Indians to murder our women and children. You will please to reflect, sir, that their blood mil be upon your heads, not upon ours. We are doing our duty, this garrison is committed to our charge, and we will take care of it. After you get out of this, you may turn round and look at its outside, but never expect to get in again until you come a prisoner. I consider the message you have brought a degrading one for a British officer to send, and by no means reputable for a British officer to carry." Thus foiled, St. Leger sent a formal summons to surrender, which Gansevoort met with a peremptory refusal. As no direct impression could 3 K 2 436 HON YOST SCHUYLER DECEIVES THE ENGLISH. [1777. be made upon the fort, the besiegers were obliged to approach by sap— a pro- cess necessarily tedious. It was now of the last necessity to communicate their situation to Schuyler. Colonel Willett, accompanied by Lieutenant Stockwell, taking advantage of a dark and stormy night, stole out of the fort on their hands and knees, crossed the river, and eluding the patrols of the British, and the still more dangerous vicinity of the Indians at length reached the American camp in safety, and disclosed the perilous situation of the besieged. Schuyler, aware of the vast importance of maintaining this post, declared his intention of sending off reinforcements, but what was his chagrin at hearing it whispered among his officers, that he intended, no doubt with treacherous views, to weaken the army, then almost in presence of that of Burgoyne. Suppressing with difficulty his indignation, he asked which of the generals v."ould undertake the task of relieving the fort, and Arnold immediately pre- sented himself. But that officer, fearing that the force which Schuyler would venture to detach was insufficient, determined to resort to stratagem. Among the Tory prisoners was one Hon Yost Schuyler, who had been condemned to death, but whom Arnold agreed to spare on consideration of his implicitly carrying out his plan. Accordingly, Hon Yost, having made several holes in his coat to imitate bullet-shots, rushed breatliless among the Indian allies of St. Leger, and informed them that he had just escaped in a battle with the Americans, who were advancing on them with the utmost celerity. While pointing to his gaberdine for proof of his statement, a Sachem, also in the plot, came in and confirmed the intelligence. The Indians, already disgusted and discontented with the slow progress of the siege, prepared for flight, nor could all the entreaties of St. Leger prevail on them to delay an instant. Thus, aban- doned by his allies, and Avith a mere handful of men, the English colonel was himself obliged to fly, amidst a scene of recrimination and panic. The road was almost impassable, all order was at an end, and the Indians indemnified themselves for their disgust by killing and plundering the stragglers, and it was with infinite difficulty that the remainder succeeded in regaining Canada. Thus, by this extraordinary " ruse " of Arnold's, the affiiir, at first so pro- mising to the English, took at last a totally diflerent turn. Hitherto, notwithstanding the delay to which he had been subjected, the progress of Burgoyne to the Hudson had been uninterruptedly fortunate, but now the scene was suddenly reversed. The loss of time had entailed a proportionable consumption of provisions ; none could be drawn from the surrounding country, and he was obliged to obtain the whole of his stores from Lake George. The distance was short, but the road was abominable, and with the utmost efforts that could be made, it was now nearly the middle of August, and the army had but four days' provisions in advance. This de- lay, which was becoming intolerable, induced him, contrary to the advice of his most experienced officers, to attempt a coup de main, the failure of which proved the turning point of his fortunes, and gave a disastrous character to the rest of the campaign. 1?77.] STARE RETURNS TO HIS COMMAND. 437 At Bennington, a village about twenty miles from the Hudson, the Ameri- cans had collected a great quantity of provisions, cattle, and horses, the cap- ture of which would not only be of the greatest service to his army, but prove equally disastrous to the enemy. Skene, a leading Tory, then in Burgoyne's camp, with a considerable number of his confederates, asserted that the neighboui'hood abounded in loyalists, who, five to one of the republicans, would not fail to flock to his standard, and do all in their power to in- sure the success of the enterprise. Burgoyne, therefore, detached Colonel Baum, an able and experienced officer, with eight hundred of General Ecid- esel's dragoons on foot, a body of Canadian and Indian allies, and finally, Skene and his loyalists, to effect this important service. He was instructed to mount the dragoons, try the affections of the country, complete the corps of loyalists, and send back large supplies of cattle, horses, and carriages. He M^as then to scour the country, terrify the enemy, and finally effect a junction with the main army at Albany, where Burgoyne confidently declared he ex- pected to eat his Christmas dinner. Meanwhile, the eastern States had begun to recover from the panic in which they were thrown at first by the successes of the royal army, and had taken vigorous measures to oppose its further progress. Langdon, speaker of the New Hampshire assembly, in particular, had animated the spirits of his fellow-citizens by a noble display of patriotism. " I have," he said, " three thousand dollars in hard money ; I will pledge my plate for three thousand more. I have seventy hogsheads of Tobago rum, Avhich shall be sold for the most it will bring. These are at the service of the State. If we succeed in defending our fire-sides and homes I may be remunerated ; if we do not, the property will be of no value to me. Our old friend Stark, who so nobly sustained the honour of our State at .Bunker Hill, may be safely intrusted with the conduct of the enterprise." This officer, disgusted with being superseded by juniors, had left the service of Congress; — at the com- mand of his native State, he now returned to it, invested however with an independent command. On repairing to Manchester, twenty miles north of Bennington, where Colonel Warner was then recruiting the regiments that had been worsted in the battle of Hubbardton, Stark fell in with General Lincoln, who ordered him to join Schuyler, which however he flatly refused to do. No doubt he thus rendered himself guilty of a breach of discipline, which reported to Congress, elicited an expression of their disj^leasure ; but before it could arrive. Stark, by his fortunate insubordination, converted it into a vote of thanks. On the loth of August Baum left the British camp, and on the same day Stark arrived at Bennington. The progress of the German troops, at first tolerably prosperous, was soon impeded by the state of the roads and the weather, and as soon as Stark heard of their approach he hurried off" expresses to Warner to join him, who set off" in the course of the night. After send- ing forward Colonel Gregg to reconnoitre the enemy, he advanced to the rencontre of Baum, who finding the country thus rising around him, halted 438 SUCCESS OF THE AMERICANS AT BENNINGTON. [1777. and intrenched liimself in a strong position above the "VValloomscoik river, and sent off. an express to Burgoyne, who instantly despatched Lieutenant-Colonel Brcyman with a strong reinforcement. Daring the fifteenth, the rain prevented any serious movement. The Ger- mans and English continued to labour at their intrenchments, upon which they had mounted two pieces of artillery. The following day was bright and sunny, and early in the morning Stark sent forward two columns to storm the intrenchments at different points, and when the firing had commenced, threw himself on horseback and advanced with the rest of his troops. As soon as the enemy's columns were seen forming on the hill-side, he ex- claimed, " See, men ! there are the red-coats ; we beat to-day, or Sally Stark's a widow." The militia replied to this appeal by a tremendous shout; and, in fine, such was the vigour with which the dragoons, soon left to stand the brunt of the encounter, were attacked, that after two hours* desperate struggle with a superior force, during which the firing, as Stark said, " was one continued clap of thunder," they abandoned their intrench- ments and fled in disorder towards the river Hudson. The sound of musketry struck upon the ears of Breyman and his division, who hurried forward to the assistance of their countrymen. An hour or two earlier, and they might have given a different turn to the affair, but the heavy rain had delayed their progress. They met and rallied the fugitives, and re- turned to the field of battle. Stark's troops, who were engaged in plunder, were taken by surprise, and the victory might after all have been wrested from their grasp, but for the opportune arrival of Warner's division at the critical moment. The Germans, overwhelmed with numbers, at length aban- doned their baggage and fled. Colonel Baum, their brave commander, was killed. Nearly nine hundred and fifty, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, were lost to the British army by this untoward reverse. On this occasion the militia behaved with extraordinary spirit, displaying the same courage and determination in attacking a post as at Bunker Hill they had evinced in defending one. The patriotic devotion manifested by the people, was unsurpassed by the brightest examples of antiquity. One old man had five sons in the engagement, and on being told that one of them was unfortunate, exclaimed, " What ! has he misbehaved ? Did he desert his post or shrink from the charge ? " " Worse than that," replied his informant. " He was slain, but he was fighting nobly." " Then I am satisfied," said the old man, '^ bring him to me." AVhen the body of his son was brought in, the aged father wiped the blood from the wound, and said, M'hile a tear glistened in his eyes, " This is the happiest day of my life, to know that my five sons fought bravely for freedom, though one has fallen in the conflict." How vain, should tales like these have reached the British ministers, must ha"ve appeared the attempt to queU such a people by an appeal to arms ! The moral effect of tliis victory, after the panic and depression caused by BurgojTie's continued successes, was immense. The militia came forward cheerfully, and instead of shrinking from the idea of meeting the British, desired 17'?7.] GATES ASSUMES- COMMAND OF THE AMERICANS. 439 to be led against tliem. Ey this means, and by the arrival of the troops sent from the Highlands, the American army was increasing every day. It was at this moment, when the clouds began to lift, and a cheering ray burst forth on the hitherto discouraged provincials, that Schuyler, whose steady perseverance had prepared the change, was superseded by Gates, who, as abeady stated, had, by the intrigues of the New England delegates in Con- gress, been unjustly appointed in his place. The new commander found matters all ready to his hand. An army already outnumbering that of the British, was animated with an enthusiasm created by recent victory. The bril- liant, impetuous Arnold, was already at the camp, after his recent doings at Fort Schuyler. On the following day arrived Morgan, with his practised and daring riflemen. Schviyler himself was also there, remitting notliing of his activity, though removed from the chief command. Though feeling, to the bottom of his soul, the bitter indignity by which his zealous services had been rejoaid by Congress, he rose superior to all selfish considerations. He therefore received Gates with perfect courtesy, and said to him, — " I have done all that could be done, as far as the means were in my power, to inspire confidence in the soldiers of our own army, and I flatter myself with some success, but the palm of victory is denied me, and it is left to you. General, to reap the fruits of my labours. I will not fail, however, to second your views, and my devotion to my country will cause me with ala,crity to obey all your orders." Almost the first task that devolved upon Gates, Avas a correspondence with Burgoyne on the subject of a recent incident, which had struck both armies, and all the country round, with feelings of the liveliest horror, and which was cited, far and wide, Avith lively indignation at the British policy of emj)loying the savage Indians as allies. Notwithstanding all the eflJbrts of Burgoyne and his ofiS.cers to restrain their propensities, instances of cruelty had already oc- curred; even the loyalists themselves were alarmed at the keen thirst for blood and plunder which too often confounded friend with foe. The present occa- sion Avas peculiarly painful. A young lady named Jenny M'Crea, A^'ho resided with her brother, Avho was a republican, near Fort EdAvard, had a lover in the British camp, in the person of a young officer named Jones. She Avas awaiting his arrival, as it was said, at the house of a Mrs. McNeil, AAdien a party of Burgoyne's Indians burst into the house, killed and scalped her, the other effecting her escape. This incident occasioned an indignant and rather over- Avi-ought remonstrance from the American commander, and Burgoyne, much distressed, ordered an inquiry to be instituted. It was at first supposed that Jones had sent the two Indians to bring the young lady in safety to the Brit- ish camp, fearing lest her brother should carry her ofl^, that they quarrelled about the reward, and in a fit of fury murdered its subject. The young officer, however, who never recovered from the shock occasioned by the loss of his betrothed, denied all knoAvledge of such a plan, and the real truth, brought to light by the inquiries of the clever author of the " Field Book of the Eevolu- tion," seems to be singularly different from the ordinary version. According to his account, when the Indians burst into the house and carried off" the two 440 CAPTURE OF FORTS HOPE AND DEFIANCE. [1777. women, the alarm was speedily given by a runaway, and a party of Americans were sent in pursuit of the marauders. They fired, and shot Miss M'Crea ; and the savages, unable to convey her alive to the British camp, took off her scalp as an evidence of their intended capture. When we bear in mind Bur- goyne's express declaration that he would punish any Indian who scalped an unresisting enemy, this tale, related by the surviving fugitive herself, now a very old woman, seems far more conformable with truth. To the excited state of the public mind, however, the darkest version was the most congenial, and being speedily propagated over the whole country, inspired the deepest detestation of an enemy who could employ, or even tolerate, such barbarous and bloody auxiliaries. While the ardour of the Americans was perpetually on the increase, the failure of St. Leger's attack upon Fort Schuyler, and the defection of the Indians, with the disastrous affliir at Bennington, spread, on the other hand, like a cloud over the spirits of the British army, so lately excited with the sanguine expectation of triumph. The slow and toilsome rate at which their stores were conveyed from Lake George, compelled them to remain inactive in front of an enemy every hour increasing in numbers and spirit. The Indian allies, disgusted with this tedium, and with the restraint imposed upon them, rapidly fell off, some of them, indeed, even joining the Americans. Many of the Canadians and loyalists speedily followed their ex- ample. The Americans too had made a vigorous attempt to cut off the com- munication with Canada. General Lincoln, with a body of militia, after sur- prising the posts on Lake George, had seized Fort Hope and Fort Defiance, and endeavoured, though in vain, to recapture Ticonderoga. Nothing what- ever had been heard of the intended advance of Clinton up the Hudson. In view of all these circumstances, there were not a few among the British officers who hinted to their commander that it might be more prudent to retire upon the Lakes, or even upon Canada, than to advance into a position from which it would be ruinous, if not impossible, to retreat. Though Burgoyne could not be insensible to the perils so obviously thick- ening around him, both personal honour, and the express instructions of ministers, left him no alternative but to push on. Although no news of Clin- ton had been received, yet, as the co-operation of that general formed part of the original plan, it was hardly to be imagined he could have neglected to do so, and every day might bring the welcome intelligence of his approach. With- out calling, therefore, any further councils, which might disturb his resolution by their ominous forebodings, Burgoyne assumed the entire responsibility of his movements, and having with great labour collected a supply of provisions for thirty days, he determined to advance, and clear the way before him to Albany. It was now past the middle of September, the finest season in America, and the scene of hostilities was admirably fitted to display its beauties. The river Hudson in this part of its course, less majestic than below, yet still too broad and deep to be forded, flowed through a valley bordered by a chain of hills. s ^ i *"' ^ ^ ^ "■« i:i'l.]BURGOYNE C03IES UP WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY. 441 intersected with numerous ravines, and covered with woods now dyed in the most gorgeous autumnal colouring in the world. The continuity of the virgin forest was broken by a few farms, with their cleared fields, and a narrow strip of meadow land intervened between the river and the hills. By the advice of Kosciusko, Gates had formed an intrenched camp upon these hills at a spot above the river, called Bemis's Heights, occupied by his right, under his own command. The flat below, along which Burgoyne's artillery must pass, was protected by a trench and battery, v/hich served also to defend a floating bridge. The left, under Arnold, extended along the wooded heights about three quarters of a mile back from the river, and was covered by batteries and redoubts. In this strong position the American commander confidently aAvaited the enemy. As soon as he had resolved to advance, Burgoyne threw a bridge across the Hudson and crossed with his army, from the eastern to the western side of the river, along which Lay the direct road to Albany. Hence proceeding but slowly, on account of the badness of the road, he encamped on the 18th at Wilbur's Basin, about two miles from the American camp, which he pre- pared to attack upon the morrow. The morning was soft and brilliant, and at an early hour the British columns were seen by the American pickets forming for battle, amidst the irregular openings of the forest, in a line nearly parallel with that of their own army. The heavy artillery, under Phillips and Reidesel, forming the left wing, moved slowly along the river-side, while Burgoyne and Fraser ad- vanced over the irregular hills at the head of the centre and right. One or two broken ravines interposed between the opposite lines, and it was the design of these officers to pass them in separate parties, effect a junction, and fall in concert upon the American left, under Arnold. This done, at a pre- concerted signal, the artillery, under Phillips, was to advance along the flat and complete the discomfiture of the republican army. It would appear, at first, to have been Gates's intention to remain on the defensive within his lines, but such a proceeding ill suited the impetuous temper of Arnold, who thought that the bravest, and even the most prudent course, was to anticipate the attack of his adversary. At his earnest solicita- tion, Morgan was sent out with his riflemen, and after a spirited skirmish, drove back the Canadians and Indians, who covered the main body of the English. Fraser, meanwhile, was pushing onward as fast as the irregular and woody ground would permit, to turn the American left, when he was suddenly encountered by Arnold, meditating a similar design on hira. The latter, with his accustomed bravery, led his men with shouts to the attack, but was at length driven back by Fraser. Rallying again and joined by fresh rein- forcements, he threatened to cut off" his opponent's division from the main body; but Fraser parried this design by bringing up new i-egiments, while Phillips despatched four pieces of light artillery, under the command of Lieu- tenant Jones, to ' strengthen the point thus menaced. Thus, the conflict was for a while suspended, but about three o'clock it raged with increased fury, S L 442 PERILOUS POSITION OF THE ENGLISH. [1777. The British artillery thundered upon the enemy, but from the closeness of the forest produced but little effect. Their troops then advanced with the bayonet, driving the Americans within the woods, who again sallied forth and renewed the combat with desperate fury, and thus each party alternately bore back the other— the British guns being several times taken and re- taken, till the gallant Jones, who commanded them, at length fell dead at his jDOst. Terrible execution was done by the American riflemen, who climbed into trees and picked off the British officers ; Burgoyne himself having a most narrow escape. Arnold, who during the day had behaved with the most daring bravery, earnestly entreated Gates, towards evening, to let him attack the British with fresh troops, in the hope of achieving a complete victory, but the commander-in-chief refused to run any farther hazard. And thus night closed upon as obstinate an encounter, as, by the admission of the British generals, they were ever engaged in. They still occupied the field of battle, and claimed the victory, but as it was evidently their intention to force a pas- sage, their failure was practically a defeat, both in the elation which it caused to the Americans and the di couragement to their own trooj)s, who slej^t upon the field, ready, if needful, to renew the engagement on the following morning. By his daring bravery in this affair, Arnold had acquired general admira- tion, Avhich, however, Avas but coldly looked upon by Gates, who Avas offended with his forwardness, and feared, perhaps, some unfortunate result of his im- pulsive ardour. A dispute which arose, ended in Gates threatening to take away Arnold's command ; and the latter, maddened by his treatment, rec[uest- ing a pass to leave the army. On reflection, however, he determined to remain and act as a volunteer ; for on the arrival of General Lincoln with fresh troops. Gates gave up to that officer the command of the right wing, and himself assumed the command of the left. This decisive check convinced Burgoyne that it was almost hopeless to force the American lines, and that the road to Albany was closed to him. His situation now became exceedingly perilous, he could neither ad- vance nor retreat with safety, and his chance of escape entirely depended on the speedy appearance of Clinton. Repeated messengers had been de- spatched, but had been intercepted by the vigilance of the American pickets. At length, when impatience was at its height, a messenger arrived with a letter in cipher from Clinton, informing Burgoyne that about the 20th of the month he intended to advance up the Hudson and attack Fort IMontgomery, in the hope that this movement might alarm Gates, and compel him to retreat — more than that, he regretted to say, was not in his power to promise. Bur- goyne immediately despatched several emissaries by different Avays to Clinton, exposing his perilous position, and stating that his provisions would only hold out until the 12th of October. The ncAvs of Clinton's intended movement was also conveyed to Gates's camp, where it excited considerable apprehension. The day after the battle, such was the scarcity of ammunition in the American camp, that had Burgoyne been acquainted Avith it, he would not have failed to rencAv the combat, and might have obtained a decisive victory. 1777.] RENEWAL OF THE BATTLE. 443 But tlie dangerous secret was kept safely by Gates, until fresh supplies had come in. His troops M^ere now every day increasing, the whole country around rising with spirit, and hemming in, on all sides, the British army, which by losses and desertions was as rapidly falling away. Burgoyne now proceeded to throw up intrenchments, extending from the river along the hills, and defended upon the extreme right by a formidable re- doubt. In this position the army passed sixteen miserable days. It had been found necessary already to reduce the rations, and the capture by the Americans of a large convoy of provisions put the climax to their distress. It was now the sixth of October, and on the twelfth they must decamp. A council was held, at which it was decided to fight rather than starve, besides which, by a successful stroke, they might, peradventure, break through the enemy's lines, and extricate themselves from their perilous position. With the overwhelming force in front of him, Burgoyne could not venture to withdi'aw more than fifteen hundred picked men from his lines, and with these on the morning of the 7th he issued forth, partly to cover a foraging party, and also if possible to turn the American left, which, since the first bat- tle, had been considerably strengthened. After some preliminary skirmishing,, about two o'clock the conflict began in earnest. The British right was under Earl Balcarras, the left under Major Acland, and the artillery under Major Williams, while Generals Phillips and Reidesel commanded the centre. To General Fraser was confided the charge of five hundred picked men, destined, at the critical moment, to fall upon the American left flank. Gates perceiving this design, detached Morgan with his rifle corps and other troops, three times outnumbering Fraser's, to overwhelm that officer at the same moment that a large force attacked the British left. Such was the general position of the combatants, to follow their movements in detail would convey but a confused idea to the reader. Suffice it to say, the conflict between two armies of the same Anglo-Saxon blood and sinew, was waged with the desperate resolution that discipline and despair on the one hand, and on the other the consciousness that they were fighting to expel a foreign invader, could inflame the breasts of the combatants. The British artillery, from the broken and woody nature of the ground, could not be eflfec- tively brought into play, and the contest had to be decided by daring courage and dogged tenacity alone. As the Americans advanced to attack the British left artillery, they were received with a crashing storm of balls, which, however, from the nature of the ground, for the most part fell harmless. They then rushed to the as- sault with fury, but were confronted with equal determination. Five times one of the pieces was captured and recaptured. Colonel Cilley leaped upon a cannon, and, sword in hand, dedicating it to " the American cause," wheeled it round upon the British, an exploit which inflamed his men to the highest pitch. Yet it was not until Major Acland was wounded, and the captain of artillery taken prisoner, that the British were compelled to fall back. IMorgan meanwliile, with his fifteen hundred marksmen, had forced Fraser to give way, 3 JL 2 444 ARNOLD DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF. [1777. and then assailed the British right, "who were however rallied, while the centre as yet remained unshaken. Such was the state of affairs, when Arnold, no longer able to control his feelings, leaped on horseback, and though without a command, put himself at the head of some of his old regiments and rushed into the thick of the battle. Gates, fearing lest he should commit some blunder, sent his aide-de-camp in chase of him, but his movements were so erratic that he could not be over- taken. Waving high his sabre, and urging forward his followers with shouts, Arnold threw himself with irresistible fury upon the British centre, which was unable to support the shock. The engagement was now general, and raged on all sides with desperate fury, Fraser, foiled in his original design, became most conspicuous among the English leaders. As the line was broken he rallied it, and with eagle-eyed glance adopting a fresh dispo- sition, successfully parried all the movements of the enemy. Splendidly mounted, and in the full dress of a field officer, he dashed to and fro amidst the din of conflict, the soul of the British ranks, and seemed by his own pre- sence and example alone to uphold their resistance. The practice of picking off the British ofRcers had become a favourite one with the Americans ever since the commencement of the war, but it never appears to have led the former to shrink from the discharge of their duty. Arnold, it is said, first suggested to Morgan tlie necessity of cutting off Fraser, and Morgan calling around a file of his riflemen, thus addressed them : " That gallant officer is General Fraser, I admire and honour him, but it is necessary he should die ; take your station amidst that clump of bushes and do your duty." They clambered into the trees, and in a few moments a rifle-ball cut the crupper of the general's hors*, while another passed through his horse's mane. His-aide-de camp warned him that the enemy were taking aim at him, and urged him to defeat their purpose by removing. The gallant general was perfectly aware of it, but merely replied to this pressing solicita- tion, " My duty forbids me to fly from danger." The next moment he fell from his horse mortally wounded, and was carried off the field. Burgoyne now earnestly endeavoured to rally the discouraged English, overwhelmed at this critical moment by three thousand fresh troops. He had himself behaved Avith distinguished courage, and had several narrow escapes from the fate that had befallen Fraser, one bullet having passed through his hat, and another his coat. But all his efforts were in vain, the line gave way, and covered by PhiUips and Reidesel, retreated tumultuously within their intrenchments, closely pursued by the victorious and exulting Americans. Foremost in the attack was Arnold, who, intoxicated with success, and utterly reckless of danger, seemed determined at all events to carry the in- trenchments that very night. Foiled in one direction by the obstinate resist- ance of the English, he galloped off through the thick of the fire, till meeting another body of assailants, he put himself at their head and threw himself with fury upon that part of the line defended by the Germans. His voice rose above the tumult of battle, and in the fury of excitement he struck one of 1777.] DEATH OF GENERAL ERASER. 445 his own officers with, the sword, to urge him forward. At length, having found the gate of the intrenchments, he burst within, the panic-struck Ger- mans retreated with a parting volley which arrested his headlong career, wounding him in the same knee which had already been shattered at the battle of Quebec. As he was carried off the field he was encountered by the aide- de-camp bearing Gates's order for him to return to the camp, but not before he had achieved for himself a brilliant reputation. It was now getting dark — the Germans abandoned the outworks, and fled to the interior of the camp. Meanwhile another detachment of the Ameri- cans, under Lieutenant-Colonel Brooks, had assaulted the outworks at a dif- ferent point, defeated the Germans, killed Breyman their leader, captured their baggage and ammiinition, and established themselves within the lines. It was in vain that Burgoyne, who saw the imminent peril, endeavoured to dislodge them — the troops were now fairly exhausted, and night beheld the British forced within their camp, part of which was already in the power of the Americans, who only seemed to await the daylight to renew a combat, which, with their overwhelming numbers, could hardly have failed to be decisive. The miseries of that night were long and painfully remembered by the English. As his present position was clearly untenable, Burgoyne employed the hours of darkness in skilfully transferring his camp to some neighbouring heights ; where, with his back defended by the river, he was placed above the fear of immediate attack. During this operation, General Fraser was fast sinking. He had been carried to a house occupied by Baroness Beidesel, who, amid the roar of artillery and musketry, was expecting the arrival of her husband and Generals Burgoyne, Phillips, and Fraser to dinner, when the latter was brought in. Other wounded officers speedily followed, until the room of the baroness and her children was turned into an hospital for the dying. During the night Fraser often exclaimed, " Oh fatal ambition ! Poor General Bu.rgoyne ! Oh my poor wife ! " He expressed a wish to be buried at six next evening, in the great redoubt. About eight in the morning he expired. Although a retreat was now decided on, and delay was dangerous, yet the British commander could not but linger a few hours to comply with the request of his gallant companion in arms. The day passed away in skirmishes with the enemy, and in preparations for departure. At six in the evening the corpse of the departed general, wrapped in a sheet, Avas brought out, and the generals accompanied it in funeral procession to the mountain, in full sight of both armies. The English soldiers, by whom Fraser was greatly beloved, watched its progress with heavy hearts, while the Americans, who at first mistook its ' import, continued to throw balls upon the redou.bt. Having reached its summit, the funeral procession came to a halt, and the chaplain, while the sand flew over him, read through the impressive burial service fairly unto the end. While the sky became dark and lurid, the can- nonade suddenly ceased, and was replaced by the solemn booming of the mmute gun, plaintively echoing among the surrounding hills ; the tribute paid by the Americans to the memory of the gallant chief. 446 RETREAT OF THE ENGLISH TO SARATOGA. [1777. Scarcely had these obsequies been performed, than the soldiers, who had been i;ndcr arms now for nearly thirty-six hours, were immediately put in motion. The sick and wounded were abandoned to the mercy of the Ameri- cans, who treated them with great humanity. About nine o'clock the retreat began. The evening sky had threatened a storm, and before midnight the rain began to fall in torrents, the darkness was profound, the road horrible. At six in the morning the army came to a halt ; the soldiers, worn out as they were, fell asleep in their wet clothes — the officers were little better off — and the ladies accompanying the army were compelled to submit to the same pri- vations, Avhich they endured with unflagging cheerfulness. The bridge over the Fishkill Creek was broken down, and to cover the retreat, Burgoyne ordered General Schuyler's house and mills to be set on fire. What with the weather and other drawbacks, the army did not reach Saratoga, a distance of only six miles, until evening on the following day. To escape was now the one absorbing idea, and no attempt, however desperate, was left untried to accomplish it. But Gates, anticipating the re- sult, had sent forward parties to guard all the fords of the Hudson, and had formed an encampment in the rear of Burgoyne, directly in his path to Lake George. A party was sent forward to repair the bridge at Fort Edward, across which the army might effect their passage up the Hudson; but they returned Avith the disheartening intelligence that the Americans were already in force upon the opposite side. At this crisis occurred an incident, which had nearly altered the w^hole posi- tion of affairs. Gates, who had slowly followed up his enemy, supposing that the main body of the British troops had advanced towards Fort Edward, and that the rear-guard alone was before him, had planned an attack upon it, which Burgoyne learning, placed his forces in ambuscade, and prepared to over- whelm him wath the entire army. The American van was already advancing, when a deserter from the British camp came in and revealed the plot, only just in time to save the Americans from a certain defeat. This disappointment might well be considered by Burgoyne *' as one of the most adverse strokes of fortune during the campaign." All avenue to escape was too evidently closed. Not a line had been received from Clinton. The scouts had tried all the fords and passages, and found them vigilantly guarded. An army of three times their number environed the English on three sides, while their own, by deaths and desertions, was reduced to half its original number. The soldiers were constantly under arms, and ex- posed to the balls of the enemy, which continually flew into the camp. The women alone, upon whom the Americans refused to fire, dared go down to the river to fetch water ; and thirst, as well as hunger, began to distress the soldiers. Provisions for three days alone remained, and there was not the remotest chance of any further supply. The men, althoiigh not a murmur escaped them, and they bore their sufferings with firmness, were exhausted with their toils and privations. The trials of the officers' wives were only equalled by the courage and constancy with which they were endured. " A 1777.] SUFFERINGS IN THE ENGLISH CAMP. U7 terrible cannonade," says the Baroness Reldesel, ''was commenced by the enemy against the house in which I sought to obtain shelter for myself and children, under the mistaken idea that all the generals were in it. Alas ! it contained none but wovmded and women. We were at last obliged to resort to the cellar for refuge, and in one corner of this I remained the whole day, my children sleeping on the earth with their heads in my lap, and in the same situation I passed a sleepless night. Eleven cannon balls passed through the house, and we could, distinctly hear them roll away. One poor soldier, who was lying on a table for the purpose of having his leg amputated, was struck by a shot, which carried away his other ; his comrades had left him, and when we went to his assistance we found him in a corner of the room, into which he had crept, more dead than alive, scarcely breathing. My reflections on the danger to which my husband was exposed now agonized me exceedingly, and the thoughts of my children, and the necessity of struggling for their pre- servation, alone sustained me." The cellar was filled with terrified women and wounded officers, upon whom the baroness attended with devoted zeal, resigning even her own food to relieve their more pressing wants. One day her husband and General Phillips came over to see her, at the imminent risk of their lives ; the latter declaring as he Avent away, " I would not for ten thousand guineas come again to this place, my heart is almost broken." In this forlorn situation they remained for several days, until released by the cessation of hostilities. At length, with feelings of the bitterest mortification, Burgoyne was obliged to call a general council of his officers. The American shot whistled about the tent in which they held their deliberations, and a cannon- ball flew across the table at which the officers were sitting. The council was brief and sad, for there could be but one opinion on the subject. In the evening a flag was sent to General Gates, and ten o'clock on the following morning was fixed upon to arrange the terms of a capitulation. At ten o'clock next morning the British adjutant-general proceeded to the American quarters, and delivered the following note : " After having fought you twice, Lieutenant-General Burgoyne has waited some days in his present position, determined to try a third conflict against any force you could bring against him. He is apprized of your superiority of numbers, and the dispo- sition of your troops to impede his supplies, and render his retreat a scene of carnage on both sides. In this situation he is impelled by humanity, and thinks himself justified by established principles and precedents of state and war, to spare the lives of brave men upon honourable terms. Should Major- General Gates be inclined to treat upon that idea. General Burgoyne would propose a cessation of arms during the time necessary to communicate the preliminary terms, by which in any extremity he and his army mean to abide." In anticipation of this result, Gates had already prepared a statement of terms, in which he required that the British army should surrender as pri- soners of war, and deposit their arms in their own camp. To these hard conditions Burgoyne would not submit, and Gates was the less careful to insist on thenij that he well knew the English succours were not far distant. 448 CLINTON STARTS FROM NEW YORK, [1777. and that it was desirable to conclude the business without delay. He re- mitted therefore the most objectionable clauses, and the following conven- tion was at length agreed upon : That the army should march out of the camp with all the honours of war, and its camp artillery, to a fixed place, where they were to deposit their arms and leave the artillery ; to be allowed a free embarkation and passage to Europe, from Boston, on condition of their not serving again in America during the present war ; the army not to be separated, particularly the men from the officers ; roll-carrying and other duties of regularity to be permitted ; the officers to be admitted on parole, and to wear their side-arms ; all private property to be retained, and the pub- lic to be delivered upon honour ; no baggage to be searched or molested ; all persons, of whatever country, appertaining to, or following the camp, to be fully comprehended in the terms of capitulation, and the Canadians to be re- turned to their own country, liable to its conditions. AYliile Burgoyne had been anxiously looking for the arrival of Clinton, the latter general had been as anxiously awaiting at New York the arrival of fresh troops from England in order to co-operate with him. Here occurred another of those delays so fatal to the British, so providential to the American cause. The ships, already long expected, were three months on their passage* and did not arrive until the beginning of October, when the army at Sara- toga were already in the greatest straits. Without losing a moment, Clinton now prepared to make a powerful diversion. Between New York and Albany the magnificent Hudson traverses a ro- mantic mountain pass, denominated the Highlands, extending from near New- burgh on the north to Peekskill on the south, a distance of several miles. The majestic stream, here compressed into a narrower bed, flows in a sinuous course, between lofty mountains clothed with wood to their very tops. Some- times, descending abruptly into the water, they forbid all progress along its edge ; at others, presenting bold promontories and platforms, offer excellent positions for defensive works. As the pass, by commanding the Hudson and its communications, was most important in a military point of vicAv, it had been at an early period carefully fortified, and a detachment of the army was always left to guard it. On the present occasion it had been necessaiy to withdraw a considerable portion of the usual contingent, and thus when Clinton ascended the Hudson, General Putnam, the commanding officer then stationed at Peekskill, could muster but about two thousand men with which to oppose his enemy. Sir Henry Clinton, with five thousand t? oops^ ascended the river in barges within a few miles of Peekskill, and landing his troops, appeared to menace that place, where large stores were usually collected. "VYhile Putnam, de- ceived by this demonstration, was thinking only how to defend himself, Clin- ton, leaving part of his troops behind, crossed over in a fog with a strong column, and piloted by a Tory over a lofty mountain called the Dunderberg, suddenly appeared before Forts Montgomery and Clinton. These forts, near the southern entrance of the Higlilands and on the western shore, stood o 1777.] CLINTON TAKES THE HUDSON PASS. 449 close togetlier on two bold eminences above tbe river, and with another called Fort Independence, a little loAver down on the eastern side. A strong boom thrown across the river, and some frigates and sloops stationed on the further side of it, completed the southern defences of this pass. Further up to the north was Fort Constitution, where a second boom crossed the river. Through all these obstacles it was necessary to force a passage in order to send help to Burgoyne. Meanwhile the British advanced rapidly, and Governor Clinton, the commandant of Fort Montgomery, had but time to throw out parties to check their advance, and despatch a message to Putnam for succour, when, after driving in his outposts, after a most sphited resistance, the assail- ants, about five in the afternoon, were before the works, and summoned the garrison to surrender. The American commandant declared his intention to defend the fort to the uttermost. English ships, under Commodore Hotham, now advanced close up to the boom, and co-operated with the attack by land. Count Grebowski, a Polish officer, with Lord Rawdon, proceeded to storm the works. The former was mortally wounded, but the attack proved successful, and as night came on, such of the defenders as escaped the assault fled into the neighbouring mountains. As an adverse wind prevented the escape of the American frigates, their crews ignited them and got away in their boats. " The flames," to use the words of Stedman, '' suddenly burst forth, and, as every sail was set, the vessels soon became magnificent pyramids of fire. The reflection on the steep side of the opposite mountain, and the long train of muddy light which shone upon the waters for a prodigious distance, had a wonderful eflect ; while the air was filled with the continued echoes from the rocky shores, as the flames gradually reached the loaded cannons. The whole was sublimely terminated by the explosions, which left all again in darkness. As soon as daylight enabled them to begin, the fleet set to work and destroyed the boom ; Fort Constitution was obliged to surrender, the Hudson pass was in possession of the British, and a free road open along the river shore to Albany. By this dashing exploit Clinton had dealt a heavy blow at the Americans, who had collected an immense quantity of artillery and stores in these Highland strongholds. Thus, on the sixth of October, while Burgoyne was counting the hours in a state of mortal anxiety at Saratoga, the English ships, bearing a large detach- ment, under Generals Vaughan and Wallace, sailed up the river towards Albany. Why, knowing the perilous predicament of Burgoyne, they did not at once hasten to that to^vn, seize the American stores deposited there, debark their troops, and, by menacing Gates's army in the rear, make a diversion in favom- of the beleaguered and despairing general, must be allowed to baffle all comprehension, and can only be referred to a certain mysterious fatality. Gates afterwards declared, that had they done so, he should have been obliged to retire, and Burgoyne must have escaped. But the fact is, that instead of hurrying forward, they occupied themselves in burning the town of Esopus, and committing the most useless and wanton devastation. A few hours more 3 M 450 THE CAPITULATION OF SARATOGA. [1777. ■would have borne them to the relief of Burgoyne, who, utterly despairing of succour, Avas at that very time entering into terms of capitulation with Gates. Perhaps the British generals might have believed it too late, or might have thought it a salutary, though severe policy, thus to strike terror into the minds of the republicans; but if so, they were speedily undeceived. Gates afterwards addressed a severe letter to Vaughan. ''Is it thus," he in- dignantly inquired, " that the generals of the king expect to make converts to the royal cause? Their cruelties operate as a contrary effect — independence is founded upon the universal disgust of the people. The fortune of war has delivered into my hands older and abler generals than General Vaughan is reputed to be, their condition may one day become his, and then no human power can save him from the just vengeance of an offended people." To return to the camp of Saratoga. No sooner were the articles of sur- render, although not signed, yet fully agreed upon, than, on the night of the 16th, Captain Campbell, who had contrived to steal his way through the American lines, reached the British camp with despatches from Sir Henry Clin- ton, informing Burgoyne of his capture of the Highland forts, and of the advance of Vaughan as far as Esopus. But it was noAV too late, Burgoyne, indeed, who would have dared all risks, and submitted to any extremities, rather than force his proud spirit to a surrender, called a council of his officers, and asked whether they considered that their word was pledged, the convention being as yet unsigned. All replied in the affirmative, and affirmed, moreover, that even were it otherwise, the soldiers were unable to sustain another encounter. Gates had long known of the expedition which had only just been communi- cated to the British commander, and fearful lest these new-born hopes should induce the latter to retract from his word, he drew up his troops in order of battle, and sent a decisive message, requiring immediate signature of the con- vention, with which Burgoyne had no alternative but to comply. Slowly and sadly, on the following morning, the British soldiers marched doM'n from their camp to the spot appointed for their surrender. Gates, with a feeling of delicacy that did him honour, had caused his entire army to retire to a distance, ^o that his aide-de-camp was the only American present. After the soldiers had deposited their arms, Burgoyne and his officers ad- vanced to visit Gates, who came forward and received him at the head of his staffi The British general, removing his hat, said, " The fortune of war. General Gates, has made me your prisoner : " the other replied, " I shall always be ready to testify that it has not been through any fault of your Excellency," The ice thus broken, both victors and vanquished soon mingled in mutual courtesy, A splendid feast succeeded, but a cloud hung over the spirits of the captive general. After dinner, as the British army defied in lengthened line, between the American ranks, on their forlorn march towards Boston, the two commanders came out together, and gazed upon the spec- tacle with widely different feelings. Then drawing his sword, Burgoyne courteously presented it to Gates, who bowed and returned it to its owner. With this formality terminated the memorable surrender at Saratoga, 17^7.] WASHINGTON HEARS OF BURGOYNE' 8 SURRENDER. 451 The Americans had already displayed the greatest humanity in their treat- ment of the sick and wounded, and they now laboured to soften by their generous courtesy the bitter humiliation of their enemies. Nothing could exceed the behaviour of General Schuyler. " You show me great kindness, though I have done you much injury," said Burgoyne to him, in allusion to the destruction of his house and property. " That was the fate of war," was the magnanimous reply, " let us say no more about it." Unable to accom- pany the captive general to Albany, he wrote to his wife to give him the best reception in her power ; but it was like heaping live coals upon the head of the unhappy Burgoyne. The best aj)artments in Schuyler's house were given xv^, and the honours of the supper were performed with such heartfelt kind- ness, that he could not refrain his tears, but bitterly exclaimed, " Indeed, this is too much for the man who has ravaged their lands and burned their dwellings ! " Wliile these scenes were passing, Washington, aware of the situation of affairs, was in a state of great anxiety, fully anticipating some decisive intelligence. The brilliant successes of Gates, contrasted with his own re- peated misfortunes, had given strength to a cabal for transferring to the former the office of commander-in-chief; and "Washington well knew that the cap- ture of Burgoyne would probably be decisive of his own fate. It was on the forenoon of Saturday, the 18tli of October, that Colonel Pickering, adjutant- general of the army, was engaged in official business with Washington, in the upper room of a house at York, where Congress was then in session. While sitting there, (to quote the narrative of Upham^) a horseman was seen ap- proaching, whose appearance indicated that he had travelled long, and from far. His aspect, his saddle bags, and the manner of his movement, indicated that he was an express-rider. The attention of both Washington and Picker- ing was at once arrested. They took it for granted that he was bearing despatches from the northern army to Congress, and were sure that he could inform them whether the report of Burgoyne's surrender was well founded. As he approached near them. Colonel Pickering recognised him as an officer belonging to the northern army. At Washington's request he ran down to the door, stopped him, and conducted him up to the general's room, with his saddle-bags. Washington instantly opened them, tore the envelope off a package, spread out an announcement of the victory at Saratoga and Bur- goyne's surrender to General Gates, and attempted to read it aloud. As he read, the colour gradually settled away from his countenance, his hand trem- bled, his lip quivered, his utterance failed him — he dropped the paper, clasped his hands, raised them on high, and for several moments was lost in a raj)ture of adoring gratitude. " While I gazed," Colonel Pickering used to say, " while I gazed upon this sublime exhibition of sensibility, I saw conclusive proof that, in comparison with the good of his country, self was absolutely nothing, — the man disappeared from my view, and the very image and personilication of the patriot stood before me." This anecdote was communi- cated to Mr. Upham by Colonel Pickering himself. 3 M 2 452 GOLD MEDAL AWARDED TO GATES. [1777. Gates despatched his favourite aide-de-camp, Wilkinson, to Congress. On being introduced into the hall, he said, " The whole British army has laid down arms at Saratoga — our own, full of vigour and courage, expect your orders ; it is for your wisdom to decide where the country may still have need of their services." This intelligence, in point of etiquette, ought to have been first sent by Gates to Washington; but the pride of the victor refused to acknowledge a superior. Congress immediately voted thanks to the army and its leader, and decreed that he should receive a gold medal ; his por- trait bearing this inscription, " Horatio Gates, Duci strenuo," and beneath, " Comitia Americana." On the reverse, Burgoyne was represented giving up his sword to Gates, with the two armies in the back-ground. On the top were these words, " Salus E-egionum Septentrion," and below, " Hoste ad Saratogam in deditione accepto, Die XVII. Oct., MDCCLXXVII." The victor of Burgoyne was ahnost idolized by the Americans, and his talents vaunted by his partisans as superior to tTiose of Washington himself. Indeed it was impossible to overrate the importance of this victory to the American cause. Since the opening of the campaign little else than disasters had occurred. The enemy had taken New York and Philadelphia, and Congress had been obliged to fly into the interior. Tory influence was again in the ascendant, the advocates of the patriot cause waxing lukewarm and fearful. The paper money was fast depreciating in value, owing to the fear that Congress would never be able to redeem its promises. Darkness and discouragement brooded over the prospects of the rising republic. The eflect, then, of such a brilliant triumph, so far surpassing all reasonable ex- pectation, was electric. The hands of Congress were strengthened, the coun- try looked up with renewed hope, while it might be expected that the French, who were carefully watching the progress of events, convinced that the re- solution of the Americans might be fully depended on, would no longer confine themselves to covertly assisting them, but would openly espouse their cause. We left Washington in his camp on the Schuylkill, watching the move- ments of the army of Howe, part of which occupied the city of Philadelphia, while the remainder lay at Germantown, a large village about ten miles dis- tant. The British fieet had recently entered the Delaware, but was vinable to ascend the river on account of the obstructions placed there by the Ameri- cans. At the confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware they had erected Port Mifilin, on the opposite side the river. Fort Mercer, while obstructions had been sunk in the river, protected by floating batteries and ships. Part of the English army having been sent to remove these obstructions and convoy provisions, Washington made a well-planned but abortive attempt to surprise the camp at Germantown. The army, divided into four columns, marched all night, and about sunrise fell upon the enemy, whom they at first threw into considerable- confusion. But Colonel Musgrave having thrown himself with six companies into a large stone building, known as the " Chew Hovise," kept up a destructive fire upon the Americans, and arrested their 1777.] BRITISH OBTAIN COMMAND OF THE DELA WARE. 453 victorious career. A thick fog also came on, wliich, further confused the movements of the attacking party. Taking advantage of this, the British in their turn became the assailants, and completely routed their enemies, who lost twelve hundred men in this -unfortunate attempt, while that of the British was not above six hundi'ed. "Washington was much criticised for stopping to reduce the " Chew House," instead of marching forward, and the unfor- tunate result of the business lent arms to those enemies, who were even then seeking to deprive him of the chief command. A vigorous attempt was now made by Howe to reduce the forts. Having removed the obstructions in the river, and taken the works which covered them, some ships of war ascended the Delaware to co-operate with the land forces. The fort of Red Bank was garrisoned by two Rhode Island regi- ments under Colonel Greene, Fort Mifflin by Colonel Smith of the Maryland line. Twelve hundred men, under the command of Count Donop, crossed the river and marched down the opposite bank to attack Red Bank. Greene re- tired into the fort, and received the assailants with such a murderous fire of musketry and grape, that they were compelled to retreat, with the loss of four hundred men and their brave leader. ISTor was the assault of Fort Mifflin by the British men-of-war more successful, a sixty -four-gun ship being blown up, a frigate burned, and others severely handled. Baffled in this first attempt, the British took possession of a small island ad- jacent to that upon which Fort Mifflin was built, and thence kept up a tre- mendous cannonade, while the ships advanced within a hundred yards, and poured their broadsides upon the works. For six days the defenders sustain- ed the fury of the assault, repairing by night the breaches made during the day, and did not retire until the works were completely untenable. The whole force of the enemy was next directed upon Red Bank, which was at once evacuated, and thus the British, by the command of the river, and a free communication with their fl.eet, were firmly established in Philadelphia. The rest of the year passed away in unimportant skirmishes, and Washing- ton put his troops into winter quarters at Valley Forge, a deep and woody hollow on the Schuylkill, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. The condi- tion of the army was truly deplorable. It was now the beginning of the severe season, and on their march the shoeless soldiers had stained the snow with their bleeding feet. On reaching the cold, bleak spot chosen for their encampment, they set to work to build a city of log huts, to protect them from the frost and ■ snow. They were in a state of almost utter destitution. Like Falstafi"'s rag- ged recruits, some few had one shirt, some half a one, and the majority none at all. There was scarcely a blanket to four men, even straw was wanting, and nothing but the frozen ground to sleep upon. Their nourishment was always poor and insufficient, and they were often on the very brink of starva- tion. Three thousand men were reported as " barefoot and otherwise naked." Filth and want produced fever ; the crowded hospital, destitute of every com- fort, resembled more a place for the dying than a refuge for the sick ; and the 454 SUFFERING OF THE AMERICAN ARMY. [1T77. soldiers preferred perishing unassisted in their misery, than burying them- selves alive in this horrible receptacle — the terror of the whole army. The officers, who shared these jDrivations, found themselves, by the depreciation of the paper, unable to provide decently for their rank. Many had exhausted their private resources, others run into debt, and, finding their position insupportable, openly talked of laying down their commissions ; and the soldiers, notwithstanding the patriotism which supported them, were frequently on the very brink of mutiny. The sufferings of his army pierced AVashington to the very soul, and drew forth the most pressing appeals to Congress. It is but just to say, however, that the ev»il arose from their inexperience rather than their neglect. The root of all the evil was the paper money. Contracts had been entered into with certain clothiers at Boston, as Congress complained, " at the rate of ten to eighteen hundred per cent.," and then only for ready money, " manifest- ing " in the contractors " a disposition callous to the feelings of humanity, and untouched by the severe sufferings of their countrymen, exposed to a winter campaign in defence of the common liberties of their country." These exor- bitant prices were, after all, only those to which the depreciation of the paper had forced the merchants to resort. IVhere contracts were concluded, such was the difficulty of transj)ort, that it was long ere any supplies could reach the soldiers, and many were scattered and lost at the very moment when they were almost perishing for want. To keep his troops from starving, Wash- ington was obliged to force contributions from the reluctant farmers, search the neighbourhood for concealed provisions, and intercept convoys destined for the enemy at Philadelphia. While contending with these complicated difficulties, he was well aware that the intrigues which had been long on foot to remove him from the chief command, and to appoint Gates in his place, were actively going forward. The misfortunes which had attended his arras, compared with the brilliant suc- cesses of the conqueror of Saratoga, suggested a most unfavourable comparison. Certain officers had long laboured in secret to undermine the confidence of Congress, especially General Conway, an active intriguing character, disap- pointed in the office of inspector-general to the army. However great was the patriotism of Congress, it would have been more than mortal, if free from party spirit, or even in some degree from selfish interest. Samuel Adams, and certain of the New England members, had always been secretly unfavour- able to Washington, his marked confidence in Greene had offended many, and Mifflin was offended at the complaints made of his management of the quar- ter-master's department. Anonymous letters were freely circulated, accusing the commander-in-chief of favouritism and incompetence. One of them, ad- dressed to Laurens, the jjresident of Congress, and evidently intended to be made public, was transmitted by that gentleman to Washington. The reply well evinces his magnanimity under these painful attacks. " I cannot sufficiently express the obligation I feel to you, for your friend- ship and politeness upon an occasion in which I am so deeply interested. I 1778.] INTRIG UES TO MAKE GA TBS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 455 was not unapprized that a malignant faction liad been for some time forming to my prcj iidice ; which, conscious as I am of having ever done all m my power to answer the important purposes of the trust reposed in me, could not but give me some pain on a personal account. But my chief concern arises from an apprehension of the dangerous consequences which intestine dissen- sions may produce to the common cause. " As I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unam- bitious of honours not founded in the approbation of my country, I would not desire in the least degree to suppress a free spirit of inquiry into any part of my conduct, that even faction itself may deem reprehensible. The ano- nymous paper handed to you exhibits many serious charges, and it is my wish that it should be submitted to Conijress. This I 'am the more inclined to, as the suppression or concealment may possibly involve you in embar- rassments hereafter, since it is uncertain how many, or who, may be privy to the contents. " My enemies take an ungenerous advantage of me. They know the de- licacy of my situation, and that motives of policy deprive me of the defence I might otherwise make against their insidious attacks. They know I can- not combat their insinuations, however injurious, without disclosing secrets which it is of the utmost moment to conceal. But why should I expect to be exempt from censure, the unfailing lot of an elevated station ? Merit and talents, with which I can have no pretensions of rivalship, have ever been subject to It. ]\ly heart tells me, that it has been my unremitted aim to do the best that circumstances would permit ; yet I may have been very often mistaken in the judgment of the means, and may in many instances deserve the imputation of error." It is uncertain how far Gates himself was concerned in these proceedings, but there can be no reasonable doubt that he was perfectly well aware of them. His marked disrespect to his superior officer, in neglecting to inform him offi- cially of the capture of Burgoyne, is significant of his secret views. If we are to rely on the testimony of Dr. Caldwell, the biographer of General Greene, he w^as directly implicated in the intrigue. '^ Shortly after the surrender of Burgoyne," he observes, " Gates took occasion to hold with Morgan a private conversation. In the, course of tills he told him, confidentially, that the main army was exceedingly dissatisfied with the conduct of General Washington, that the reputation of that officer was rapidly declining, and that several officers, of great worth, threatened to resign unless a change was produced in that department. Colonel Morgan, fathoming in an instant the views of his commanding officer, sternly, and with honest indignation, replied, ' Sir, I have one favour to 'ask. Never again mention to me this hateful subject : under no other man but General AVashington, as commander-in-chief, will I ever serve.' From that time Gates treated Morgan with marked coldness and neglect." Washington, aware of these manoeuvres, had hitherto treated them with dignifi'-d forbearance ; but a regard to his own character now compelled him Aoo WASIIINGTOJV 'S EEP UTA TION RE-ESTABLISHED. [1778. to bring tlicm to light, and let tlicir authors know that he -was acquainted with what was going foi-svard. Accordingly, he wrote to inform Conwav that a letter from that officer to Gates had been reported to him, containing the following passage : " Heaven has been determined to save your country, or a weak general and bad counsellors would have ruined it." The plot so long working in darkness now exploded, the affair became noised abroad, and with it arose a general burst of indignation from the army and people. Gates crept out of the business but very lamely. CouAvay, who had been promoted at last to the desired post of inspector-general, piqued at being ordered to the northern department, offered his resignation; which, to his great vexation, was at once accepted. Being afterwards wounded in a duel, and supposing himself at the point of death, he addressed to Washington the following letter. " I find myself just able to hold the pen during a few minutes, and take this oppor- tunity of expressing my sincere grief for having done, written, or said any- thing disagreeable to your Excellency. My career will soon be over ; there- fore, justice and truth prompt me to declare my last sentiments. You are, in my eyes, the great and good man. May you long enjoy the love, veneration, and esteem of these States, whose liberties you have asserted by your virtues." No wonder that Washington was almost adored by his followers. He felt for their embarrassments and privations, and, as they well knew, did all in his power to obtain redress. He was painfully aware of the unfounded preju- dices against a standing army entertained by Congress, and warmly protested against them. " We should all," he said, " Congress and army, be considered as one people, embarked in one cause, in one interest, acting on the same principle and to the same end." Such suspicions, he pleaded, were the more unjust, " because no order of men in the Thirteen States had paid a more sa- cred regard to the proceedings of Congress than the army ; for, without ar- rogance, or the smallest deviation from truth, it might be said that no history now extant can furnish an instance of an army's suffcriiig such rmcommon hard- ships as ours has done, and bearing them Avith the same patience and forti- tude." But while thus seeking to obtain justice for his brave companions in arms, Washington, on the other hand, always set the example of showing the utmost respect to constituted authority, and inculcated upon the army a religious dependence upon the civil power. And although he had not been without detractors, even among Congress, yet, such was their experience of his wisdom and prudence, his purity and disinterestedness, and magnanimity, in short, his unequalled qualifications for his post, that all attempts to injure his good name only served to root him more deeply in their confidence and veneration. Even among the enemies of his country, the lofty character of Washing- ton inspired a generous admiration. After the surrender of Saratoga, the captive army of Burgoyne marched to Boston, whence, according to the convention, they were to be sent back to England. Congress were but ill- satisfied with the terms of the surrender, fearing that the soldiers released would be put into garrison to liberate so many others for the war. They 1778.] BURGOYNE LEAVES AMERICA ON PAROLE. 457 complained that the cartoucli-boxes of the soldiers had not been surrendered ; but Gates himself justified their detention. On the other hand, Burgoyne complained that proper accommodations had not been furnished for his army, and that Congress had not fulfilled their part of the convention. This afforded a ground for ordering that the troops should not be allowed to em- bark until the government of Great Britain should have formally ratified the convention ; and, on one pretext or another, they were delayed until the end of the war. In vain did Burgoyne expostulate, the transports were ordered aAvay, and he was compelled to proceed to England alone on parole. Before his departure he had occasion to address the commander-in-chief in terms expressive of the highest respect. The reply of Washington displays his nobility of soul. " Your indulgent opinion of my character, (thus he writes to the captive general,) and the polite terms in which you are pleased to express it, are peculiarly flattering, and I take pleasure in the opportunity you have afforded me, of assuring you, that far from suffering the views of national opposition to be embittered and debased by personal animosity, I am ever ready to do justice to the merit of the man and soldier. I can sincerely sympathize with your feelings, as a soldier, the unavoidable difficulties of whose situation for- bade his success J and as a man, whose lot combines the calamity of ill health, the anxieties of captivity, and the painful sensibility for a reputation, exposed, where he most values it, to the assaults of malice and detraction." Burgoyne shortly afterward returned to England, and, although not admitted to the pre- sence of George III., in an inquiry before the House, amply vindicated his military reputation from the attacks that had been made upon it. CHAPTER III. ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE. — LORD NORTH'S MEASURES OF CONCILIATION. — BATTLE OF MONMOUTH. — AFFAIR OF NEWPORT. — DESTRUCTION OF WYOMING. — END OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1778. AVhen news of Burgoyne's surrender reached the English parliament, it struck Lord North and his ministry with dismay, and instantly awakened the vehe- ment attacks of the opposition. On the 3rd of December, the day when the express arrived, Barre stood up in the House of Commons, and, fixing his eye upon the minister, sternly inquired what had become of Burgoyne and his gallant army. Bitter indeed was the humiliation of the premier. The aged Chatham, though in a state of great debility, poured forth a torrent of denunciation, especially against the cruel and disgraceful policy of en- gaging the Indians in the quarrel. The secretary of state, having ventured 3 N 458 FRANKLIN'S WORK IN FRANCE. [1778. to justify the employment of all means that " God and nature had put into his hands/' " I know not," he sarcastically retorted, " what idea that lord may entertain of God and nature, but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity." Overwhelmed by the disaster and the attacks it occasioned, the ministers were glad to obtain a temporary respite by moving an adjournment. What added infinitely to the peril of the crisis, was the knowledge that negociation'5 had been long on foot between the agents of America and the court of Louis. Franklin and Lee, ever since their mission, had been constantly striving to induce the French openly to espouse their cause. Well aware that the i>5sistance of France was given out of no real sympathy with American liberty, but solely to humble and weaken the power of her hereditary enemy, they were compelled to resort to all the finesse of di- plomacy. Hitherto they had laboured in vain to bring the advisers of Louis to the desired issue. The support held out was exactly proportioned to the tenor of the war ; when the Americans were siiccessful their promises rose, when thqy were defeated they fell. This halting policy arose from the un- willingness of the French to commit themselves to a deadly struggle with an exasperated and powerful enemy, until fully assured that the Americans were in some degree able, as well as determined, to maintain their indej^endcnce. It was not until the capture of Burgoyne that the French ministry could be brought to terminate their vacillating policy, and openly prepare to embrace the cause they had long promoted in secret. With a view to precipitate a decision, after the surrender at Saratoga despatches were sent to England, stating that the Americans, disgusted with the temporizing conduct of the French, were ready to conclude a favourable treaty of commerce with Great Britain, provided their independence were re- cognised. And, in fact, the British ministers were really endeavouring to open a negociation with Franklin by means of secret emissaries. One day he received a letter begging him to repair at a certain hour to the church of Notre Dame, where he would find a man holding in his hand a rose, which he would drop by way of signal as soon as Franklin made his appearance. This invitation was communicated to the ministry, who ordered the pre- fect of police to send a spy in his place. At the appointed time this indi- vidual repaired to the church and saw the man with the rose, who, after vainly waiting half an hour, suddenly left the building, dived down a number of obscure streets to his lodging, and immediately ordered a post-chaise. The spy, who had closely tracked him, and had been furnished with means to keep up the pursuit, followed him all the way to Calai.9, and saw him embark for the shores of England. The eyes of Lord North were at length fully opened to the impolicy of further hostilities, and he now brought forward a project for conciliation. He declared that he had always been opposed to taxing America, but that the tea tax was in existence when he came into office, and that he believed that the drawback of duty which led to the exportation and destruction of 1778.] FRANCE PROMISES TO HELP THE AMERICANS. 459 the tea would be regarded as an actual boon by tlie colonists. When provoked by their conduct, he brought in the Coercion bills, he had ex- jDccted to have suppressed the insurrection. He had proposed conciliation, and when that was impossible, had sent out a force amply sufficient, as he believed, to have reduced the colonists to obedience. He had been disap- pointed in his expectations. He now proposed to bring in a bill renouncing the right to tax America, and appointing commissioners to negociate a return to the royal authority. Bitter, if somewhat overstrained, was the sarcasm of Fox. " He hoped," exclaimed the indignant orator, " he hoped — and was dis- appointed; he expected a great deal, and found little to answer his expectations. He thought the Americans would have submitted to his laAVS, and they resisted them; he thought they would have submitted to his armies, and they were beaten by inferior numbers. He made conciliatory propositions, and he thought they would succeed, but they were rejected." It was indeed the fate of Lord North always to be a little behind the occasion. When renouncing the right of taxation would have satisfied the Americans, he refused it. When at length, driven irto a successful rebellion, they were determined to assert their independence, and France stood ready to assist them, he weakly conceded. And now, with similar infatuation, he refused to acknowledge the independence of America, until fresh blood and treasure had been lavished in the vain attempt to prevent it. As soon as Lord North brought in his bills for conciliation, the French per- ceived there was no further time to lose, and shortly after a treaty was formally ratified, on the part of France by INI. Gerard, and for the United States by Franklin, Deane, and Lee. The ministers of Louis, foreseeing that they should probably enter upon a war with Great Britain, agreed not only to acknowledge, but support with all their forces, the independence of the United States, plainly expecting on their part that, they would never renounce their independence, nor resume the yoke of British domination. Official notice of this treaty was shortly furnished to the ministry at London, couched in phrase- ology at once full of diplomatic formality and secret sarcasm. " In making this communication to the court of London, the king is firmly persuaded that it will find in it fresh proofs of his Majesty's constant and sincere dispositions for peace, and that his Britannic Majesty, animated by the same sentiments, Avill equally avoid every thing that may interrupt good harmony, and that he will take in particular efifectual measures to hinder the commerce of his Majesty's subjects of the United States of America from being disturbed. In this just confidence, the under-written ambassador might think it superfluous to apprize the British ministry, that the king his master, being determined effectually to protect the lawful freedom of the commerce of his subjects, and to sustain the honour of his flag, his Majesty has taken in consequence eventual measures, in concert with the United States of North America." " It was one of tliose shrewd turns," says Botta, " which are not unusual among princes in their reciprocal intercourse ; it was also one of those, which they are not accustomed to forgive." 3 N 2 430 CHATHAM'S LAST SPEECH IN PABLIA2IENT. [1777. At this momentous crisis, when the field of hostilities was Avidening, and the nation seemed about to enter single-handed upon a struggle of which no one could foresee the issue, two opposite courses, the one suggested by pride, the other by prudence, divided the opinions of the legislature. The advocates for acknowledging the independence of America, dwelt upon the folly and madness of protracting a struggle, already so disastrous, now that France had thrown the weight of her power and influence into the opposite scale. But it was this very consideration that inflamed the animosity of the British nation, and determined them never, at the intervention of a hated rival, to surrender the point in dispute. " Shall France then find us so tame," said the minister of war, " to abandon om- possessions, and yield up to her all our ancient glory, — we, who have the time still fresh in memory, when, after having by victory upon victory trampled upon her pride, and prostrated her power, we triumph- antly scoured the seas and the continent of America ? " Such too were the sentiments of Lord Chatham, now sinking into the grave under the weight of seventy eventful years. From the first he had been the advocate of concession, and had often lifted up, though in vain, a warning voice against the infatua- tion of the ministry ; but now that it was proposed to concede independence to the colonists, he dragged himself to his place in parliament, and spent his last strength in protesting against what he considered to be so disgraceful and so dishonourable a sm-render. " I have made an effort," said the sinking patriot, " almost beyond the powers of my constitution, to come down to the House on this day to express the in- dignation I feel at an idea, which I understand has been proposed to you, of yielding up the sovereignty of America. My Lords, I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me, — that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy ! Pressed down, as I am, by the hand of infirmity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture- but, my Lords, while I have sense and memory, I will never consent to deprive the royal offspring of the house of Brunswick, the heirs of the Princess Sophia, of their fairest inheritance. " Where is the man that will dare to advise such a measure ? His Majesty succeeded to an empire as great in extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall we tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions ? Shall this great kingdom, that has survived, whole and entire, the Danish depredations, the Scottish inroads, and the Nor- man conquest, that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish armada, now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon ? Surely, my Lords, this na- tion is no longer what it was ! Shall a people that, seventeen years ago, was the terror of the world, now stoop so low as to tell its ancient inveterate enemy, Take all we have, only give us peace ! It is impossible. In God's name, it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, and if the former cannot be preserved with honour, why is not the latter commenced without hesitation ? I am not, I confess, well informed of the resources of this kingdom ; but I trust it is sufficient to maintain its just rights. But, my 1778.] ENTHUSIASM IN THE AMERICAN ARMY. 461 Lords, any state is better than despair. Let us at least make one effort ; and i if we must fall, let us fall like men ! " Such were the last words ever uttered in parliament by this illustrious patriot. lie listened impatiently to the reply of the Duke of Richmond, and burned to continue the discussion ; but the excitement had exhausted his feeble frame, he attempted several times to arise, but in vain, and at length staggered and swooned upon his seat. The Duke of Cumberland and several other members rushed forward, and conveyed him into a neighboiiring room. Amidst the confusion and grief occasioned by this painful incident, the House adjourned. The veteran statesman, who may be said to have died at his post_, since his remaining strength was exhausted by this final effort, expired four days afterwards, amidst the general grief of parliament and the whole people. The king, loudly protesting against the perfidy and insolence of France, threw himself upon the spirit of the nation, which was not slow to answer the summons. Urgent preparations were made to meet this new foe. Mortified by their ill success with the Americans, the English indemnified themselves by the hope of wreaking vengeance upon their ancient rivals. Indescribable, on the other hand, was the enthusiasm with which the news of the treaty with France was received in America. Forgetting hereditary animosities, the name of King Louis was in everybody's mouth. AVith the powerful aid now pro- mised, independence seemed already within their grasp. By none was the news more warmly welcomed than by the army of Washington, still encamped at Valley Forge, where by his strenuous labours their condition was by this time much ameliorated. To quote the words of an eye-witness — " Wednesday was set apart as a day of general rejoiciiig, when we had a feii de joie, con- ducted with the grea,test order and regailarity. The army made a most bril- liant appearance. After which his Excellency dined in public, with all the officers of his army, attended with a band of music. 1 never was present when there was such unfeigned and perfect joy, as was discovered in every coun- tenance. The entertainment was concluded with a number of patriotic toasts, attended with huzzas. AVlien the general took his leave, there was a uni- versal clap, with loud huzzas, which continued till he had proceeded a quar- ter of a mile, during which time there were a thousand hats tossed in the air. His Excellency turned round with his retinue, and huzzaed several times." Amidst the intoxication of joy, the army lost sight of the toils and sufferings that yet awaited them. The situation of the British army, shut up in Philadelphia, had now be- come exceedingly precarious, as the arrival of a French fleet might shortly be expected in the Delaware. Sir William Howe, disgusted at the want of efficient co-operation from ministers, had returned to England, and the office of chief command now devolved upon Sir Henry Clinton. Finable to find transports to convey his entire army, he was compelled to march by land to NcAV York, which he had chosen as a more defensible position. Washington now called a council of his officers^ at which it was debated 4Jj2 battle of MONMOUTH. [1778. •whctlier tliey should confine their operations to harassing" and impeding his retreat, or venture upon a general action. The subject was still under dis- cussion, when news arrived, on the morning of the 18th of June, that Plowe had evacuated the city. Having crossed the Delaware, the English army, encumbered with an im- mense convoy of baggage, pushed on for the high grounds of Middlcto-svn. Washington resolved to intercept it before it could get there, and ordered Lee, who had the command of the vanguard, to commence an attack, " unless he should see strong reason to the contrary," promising to come up and sup- port it with the rest of the army. Clinton, seeing himself thus menaced, judiciously transferred his baggage to the front, and to cover its march, took post in the rear, with the principal part of his troops. The weather was intolerably close and sultry, the country sandy and almost destitute of water, and the march of both armies under a burning sun was so distressing that many of the horses were killed ; and during the ensuing action, nearly sixty British soldiers and many Americans perished from the combined effects of heat and fatigue alone. On the morning of the 28th of June, Lee prepared to attack the British, who had encamped at Monmouth Court House, when in order to give time for the latter to get beyond his reach, Clinton suddenly faced about upon his pursuer. Disconcerted by this unex- pected move, with little confidence in his American troops, and finding his ground unfavourable for defence, Lee was in the act of falling back with his troops upon a better position, when Washington came up tc his support. Exasperated at this apparent flight, he addressed himself very M^armly to Lee, and immediately exerted himself to retrieve the fortune of the day. The whole American rear coming up, a warm but indecisive action followed. The English occupied a strong position, covered by marshes and ravines, and night came on before Washington was able to dislodge them ; he kept the soldiers under arms, and slept in his cloak upon the field, intending to renew the attack at daylight. But Clinton had already effected his object — his convoy was already out of reach, and carrying off his wounded, during the night he stole off as silent as the grave. Next morning he rejoined his baggage on the heights of Middletown, beyond the danger of further pursuit. Thovigh he had lost but about three hundred men in this battle, upwards of a thousand, who had married in Philadelphia, deserted during the march. Clinton now marched his army to Sandy Hook, and embarking on board the fleet of Admiral Howe, was carried to New York. Only a few days after he had thus effected his retreat, a French fleet, under D'Estaing, with a body of four thousand troops, and bearing M. Gerard, ambassador to the United States, arrived off the mouth of the Delaware. Had not this armament been an unusual length of time on the passage, it is hardly to be doubted that Clinton's army, hemmed in at once by the French and Ameri- cans, must have surrendered like that of Burgoyne. Finding that the English had escaped, D'Estaing now sailed after them, but on reaching Sandy Hook, the pilots refused to take his heavier ships i::8.] LEE DISMISSED THE AMERICAN SERVICE. 463 across the bar. This circumstance disconcerted a projected attack against New York by the French forces and those of Washington, who, after the battle of INIonmouth, had crossed the Hudson to White Plains. Unable to effect his designs, D'Estaing transferred the scene of hostilities to Newport, in Rhode Island, then occupied by four thousand English troops. A fcAV days after his departure, four British men-of-war appeared off the Hook, which, had he remained, must have fallen into his hands. Thus seasonably reinforced. Admiral Howe sailed to Newport, in pursuit of the French fleet. The day after the battle of Monmouth, Lee, who could ill brook the point- ed rebuke of Washington, wrote to him in high terms to demand an explanation. The tone of Washington's reply increased his irritation, and he retorted in terms of greater exasperation. He was soon after tried by court-martial for disobedience of orders, for making a shameful retreat, and for disrespect to his commanding officer. He defended himself with much skill, and opinions were much divided as to his liability to blame. He was, however, condemned upon all the charges excepting only the term shameful, and sus- pended for one year, though it was not without hesitation that Congress rati- fied the decision. He appears to have considered himself an ill-used man, and afterwards giving way to irritation in a correspondence with Congress, was finally dismissed the Am^erican service, his connexion with v/hich seems to have been unfortunate from the beginning. To co-operate with the attack on the English in Rhode Island, a call had beei\ made upon that State, as well as Massachusetts and Connecticut, for five thousand fresh militia. The appeal was responded to with great spirit, and John Hancock marched at the head of the Massachusetts recruits. On the 29th of July D'Estaing appeared with his fleet, and was received with the greatest enthusiasm by the combined American and French troops. An at- tack was immediately projected upon General Pigot, who withdrew into a strong position near Newport. Several days however were lost in waiting for the militia, and an incident now occurred, which caused the whole project to prove abortive. On the afternoon of the 9th of August, Howe appeared with his squadron off the harbour, and on the following morning D'Estaing sailed out of it to encounter him, carrying off the troops who were to have co-operated in the attack. A desperate sea-fight was now imminent, and the whole day was spent in preliminary manoeuvres. But at night there came on a violent hurricane, still remembered as the " great storm," which lasted for forty-eight hours, and scattered the hostile fleets. The French admiral's flag-ship was rudderless and dismasted, when she was attacked by a British frigate, and nearly cap- tured. Other partial encounters took place during the fury of the tempest, which however too effectually crippled both fleets to enable them to carry out their hostile design. Howe regained New York to refit, while D'Estaing re- appeared with his shattered vessels at Newport, where the Americans were anxiously expecting his arrival. They no'W urged him to refit his ships in their harbour, and to co-operate in their attack upon the English. But his 40 i LOBD NORTH SENDS COMMISSIONERS TO AMERICA. [1778. officers so strenuously chvelt upon tlie tenor of his instructions, wliicli were, in case of injury, to refit at Boston, tliat in spite of all remonstrances, he insisted on repairing to that port. The Americans were deeply chagrined, that their French allies should have thus forsaken them at the pinch, and Sullivan sarcas- tically said, in his general orders, that he " could by no means suppose the army or any part of it endangered by this movement." He was however soon compelled to retreat, and take post on some hills at the northern extre- mity of the island, when, after sustaining a warm engagement with the Brit- ish, he skilfully evacuated the island. He was only just in time. The very next day Admiral Howe, who had vainly endeavoured to cut the French ships out of Boston, returned with a reinforcement of four thousand troops under Sir Henry Clinton. New York was now the only strong post in the possession of the English ; and thus, to use the words of Washington, " after two years' manoeuvring, and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes that perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation, both armies are brought back to the very point they set out from, and the offending party in the beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pickaxe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so consj)icuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations." During the progress of the campaign, Lord Carlisle, Eden, and Johnstone, the commissioners sent by Lord North, to effect, if j)ossible, a pacification, had been actively, but vainly, engaged in their office. On their arrival at Philadelphia on the 9th of June, General Clinton asked Washington for a passport for Doctor Ferguson, their secretary, in order that he might person- ally deliver his despatches to Congress. This, however, Washington prudently declined to grant, and the despatches of the commissioners were sent by post. They desired a suspension of hostilities while a final settlement Avas effected, on the basis that no military force shoidd be kept in the colonies without their consent, that the right of taxation should be given up, and that a representation of America should be made in pai'liament. They promised to sustain, and finally pay ofif the paper money. Every inducement, short of the recognition of independence^ was held out, to induce the colonists to return their allcgi* ance. But if, when relying upon their own strength alone, they had refused to listen to such overtures, they were not likely to do so when they were assured of the support of France. They returned the same answer as before, that the recognition of independence was the only ground on which they could treat with Great Britain. In vain did the commissioners endeavour to argue the case, the resolution of Congress was unshaken. They could not however but look with great uneasiness upon the presence and mana^uvres of the British agents. For three months the latter continued to exhaust every artifice to under- mine the decision of Congress, and to engage influential individuals in their cause. Johnstone, who had all along opposed the policy of ministers, professed the greatest admiration for the leaders of the revolution, and in certain letters 1778.] CRUELTIES OF THE BRITISH TROOPS. 465 to INIorris, Reed, and Dana, suggested tliat those who shouhl bring about a recon- ciliation, would justly be regarded among the benefactors of mankind, hinting, moreover, that ample rewards would not fail to be showered upon them. General Reed also declared that an offer had privately been made to him, on the part of Johnstone, of £10,000, and any office he might choose in the colonies, if he would make use of his influence in the cause ; to which proposal he replied, *' that he was not worth purchasing, but, such as he was, the king of England was not rich enough to buy him." Hereupon Congress passed resolutions refusing to hold any further communication with the commissioners. The latter now used every effort to promote dissension among the republicans, and offered the same terms to the separate States that they had already proj^osed to Congress, disseminating through the country publications reflecting upon the conduct of that body, which Avere vigorously rej)lied to by the ablest Avriters on the j)opular side. At length, throwing the guilt of further hostilities upon Con- gress, they threatened, if submission were not made within forty days, that the war should henceforth assume a sanguinary and desolating character. But artifice and menace were alike employed in vain, and at the expiration of the appointed term the baffled commissioners returned to England. Their threats, however, were not, unhappily, idle, and regarding the ob- stinacy of the rebels as putting them in the position of outlaws, the royal officers henceforth behaved to them with unmerciful severity. New Bedford, and Fairhaven, and other places, which had become shelters for American p)-ivateers, were burned, and the neighbourhood ravaged. Baylor's regiment of cavalry, while asleep in a barn at Tappan, were surprised, no quarter given, and ruthlessly put to death with the bayonet. To these severities of the English troops, were shortly added the darker atrocities of their Indian allies. The Tory corps under Johnson and Butler, and the Indians under Brant, hung upon the western frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania, ready to fall upon the first place exposed to their depredations. Among these, hemmed in with extensive forests, was the lovely valley of Wyoming, on the Susquehanna, which has derived a classic interest from the muse of Camp- bell. This district had furnished a large contingent to the continental army, and Avas thus almost unprotected, Avhen it was. menaced with a terrible visita- tion. Early in the spring, about eight hundred men, composed of British regulars, Tories, and Brant Avith four hundred of his Indians, under the com- mand of Colonel Butler, suddenly made their appearance in the valley. The republicans, inferior in number, Avere placed in a most distressing alternatiA'e. Should they aAA'ait an attack, it was contended that their enemies, who were increasing in number, would raA'age the settlement and carry off the harA'est, upon which their existence depended ; Avhile, should they A^enture to attack them with inferior forces, a defeat Avould produce certain destruction to the settlement, death to themseU'es, and captiA'ity, perhaps torture, to their avIa'cs and children. The most desperate counsel at length prcA^ailed, and they marched out to attack the enemy, but Avere routed Avith great slaughter. A few, who had throAvn themselves into a fort, Avere obliged to capitulate, on 3 466 MASSACRE OF THE PEOPLE OF WYOMING. [1778. honourable terms ; but no sooner liacl Colonel Butler retired Tvith his troops, than the Indians, unrestrained, committed the most atrocious barbarities. The village of Wilksbarre was burnt, men and their wives separated and car- ried into captivity, and the settlement given up to devastation. The re- mainder of the inhabitants were driven from the valley, and compelled to proceed on foot sixty miles through a swampy forest, almost without food or clothing. Great numbers perished in the journey, chiefly of women and chil- dren ; some died of their wounds ; others wandered from the path in search of food, and were lost ; and those who survived, called the wilderness, through which they passed, the " Shades of Death," an appellation which it has ever since retained. The " History of Wyoming," from which we gather these details, gives the foUoAving hideous anecdote. " A considerable number of the inhabitants of the different settlements on the Susquehanna, who, from their attachment to the British cause, were denominated Tories, joined the British and the savage troops previous to the battle, and exhibited instances of the most savage bar- barity in the manner in which they carried on the war against their former neighbours and friends. One instance may serve to shoAv the desperate feel- ings which those times produced. A short distance below the battle-ground, there is a large island in the river, called ' Monockonock Island.' Several of the settlers, while the battle and pursuit continued, succeeded in swimming to this island, where they concealed themselves among the logs and brush- wood upon it. Their arms had been thrown away in their flight, so that they were in a manner defenceless. Two of them irf particular were concealed near and in sight of each other. While in this situation, they observed several of the enemy, who had pursued and fired at them while they were swimming the river, preparing to follow them to the island with their guns. On reacliing the island, they immediately wiped their guns and loaded them. One of them, M'ith his loaded gun, soon passed close by one of these men, who lay concealed from his view, and was immediately recognised by him to be the brother of his companion who was concealed near him, but who, being a Tory, had joined the enemy. He passed slowly along, carefully examining every covert, and directly perceived his brother in his place of concealment. He suddenly stopped and said, * So it is you, is it?' His brother finding that he was discovered, immediately came forwards a few steps, and falling on his knees, begged him to spare his life, promising to live with him and serve him, and even be his slave as long he lived, if he would only spare his life. ' All this is mighty good,'' replied the savage-hearted brother of the suppli- cating man, ' hut you are a d d rebel ; ' and deliberately presenting his rifle, shot him dead upon the spot. The other settler made his escape from the island, and having related this fact, the Tory brother thought it prudent to accompany the British troops on their return to Canada." A Pennsylvania regiment avenged the fall of Wyoming, by the destruction of Unadilla, a village belonging to Indians and refugees. The loyalists re- torted, by destroying Cherry VaUey. About the same time, Clarke, a back- 1778.1 EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH ALLIANCE. 467 ■woodsman of Kentucky, assisted by tKe State of Virginia, undertook a daring and successful enterprise against the western Indians. Having enlisted two hundred men, he descended the Ohio, and joined by some Kentuckians, penetrated the wilderness and surprised Kaskasia, one of the old French set- tlements on the Mississippi, which the English agents were attempting to stimulate to hostilities. The conquered territory was erected by the Vir- ginians into the county of Illinois. The rest of the season wore away without any incidents of importance. Hitherto the co-operation of their French allies had effected little for the Ame- ricans, unless by operating as a check upon the movements of the English. Disgust at D'Estaing's retreat from"Newport had led to a revival of the old slumbering antipathy, and quarrels broke out between the French and Ame- rican sailors at Boston and Charleston. The alliance also had the effect of discouraging public and private enterprise. Considering by this means the final success of their cause to be fully assured, and exhausted with a long-protracted struggle, the Americans began to languish, grow weary, and shrink from the sacrifices required of them. The recruiting of the army proceeded but slowly, and the greatest difficulty was, experienced in providing for its wants. The dire^necessity that existed for fresh emissions of paper money had led to a train of deplorable consequences. All attem23ts to sustain its value had proved abortive, a single dollar in cash was worth eight, and sometimes twenty, of the colonial bills, and the mischief was still further increased by the immense quantity of forged notes introduced by the loyalists. Prices, as a matter of course, rose enormously, and a wide field was open to the operations of specidators and contractors, a body of whom had grown up and enriched themselves amidst the distresses of their country. None were greater sufferers than the army by this state of things ; supplies were so high that in Carolina a single pair of shoes cost 700 paper dollars, and the pay of privates and officers was insufficient for more than bare necessaries. " I would to God," said Washington, speaking of the speculators, " that some one of the more atrocious in each State was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared for Haman. No punishment, in my opinion, is too severe for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin." Congress too was at this time divided by party spirit, and inflamed with disputes respecting their diplomatic agents abroad. A general languor and indifference prevailed. No decisive operations had been performed during the year. The British had gained no ground, and the French and Americans had been unable to expel them. One object of importance was however accomplished. The Articles of Con- federation, which had been agreed on by Congress, and submitted to the legis- latures of the separate States, were now ratified by all the States except New Jersey, DelaAvare, and Maryland, which withheld their consent until 1781, when certain modifications had been effected. 3 o 2 468 THE BRITISH OBTAIN POSSESSION OF GEORGIA. [1779. CHAPTER IV. CAMPAIGN OF 1779. — REDUCTION OF GEORGIA. — STATE OF THE SOUTH. — STORMING OF STONT POINT. — PEPULSE OF D'ESTAING AT SAVANNAH. — AFFAIRS IN CONGIiESS. — PAUL JONES. — EN- CAMPMENT IN THE HIGHLANDS. Having, with a vast expenditure of men and money, utterly failed to sub- due the northern or middle colonies, the British generals now turned their attention to the south ; being chiefly encouraged to do so, by the far greater want of union and predominance of Tory influence among the population. The first blow was struck in Georgia. On the 28th of December, Colonel Campbell, sent from New York with three thousand British troops, appeared before Savannah, which could only be approached by a long causeway, leading across a deep and impassable morass. General Howe, with a feeble corps of eight hundred Americans, placed himself between the morass and city, and prepared to make a gallant defence. But a negro having informed Campbell of a by-path, by which he could gain the rear of the Americans, he was thus enabled to attack them on both sides at once, make prisoners of half the detach- ment, and obtain possession of the city. General Prevost, then placed over the British troops in East Florida, having been ordered to assume the command, hastened to Savannah, having on his way reduced the post of Sunbury. Augusta was also captured, and thus the whole of Georgia fell at one stroke into the power of the invaders. The success of the British now emboldened their partisans to come forward. Seven hundred North Carolina royalists were marching across the country, when they were attacked by a body of republican militia, and a fierce en- counter ensued. As hostilities proceeded, the state of the country became fearful. When parties of Whigs and Tories met in civil conflict, " they seemed," to quote the vivid language of Caldwell, '' to fight for extermina- tion, rather than victory. This was the case, at least, in small partisan aflEairs,^ which, from the nature of the contest, were more numerous in the southern than in the northern States. Another circumstance, which added much to the bloodshed and desolation of the times, was, that the population of those States was more equally divided than elsewhere between royalists and ad- herents to the cause of freedom, or, as they were commonly called, Whigs and Tories. From this were engendered, in their most terrific form, that mutual animosity and deadly hate, which always characterize civil wars, and usually convert them into systematized scenes of assassination and rapine." Much as the northern colonies had suffered, and still had to endure, from the miseries 1779.] DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY BY THE BRITISH. 469 of civil conflict, it was in the southern States that they were to be experi- enced in their fellest and most deadly extreme. General Lincoln, having been sent to supersede Howe, took post with fourteen hundred men opposite Augusta, compelled the British to evacuate that place, and pursued them as far as Brier Creek. Here, however, his suc- cess was fatally reversed. Prevost, by making a wide circuit, suddenly threw himself upon his rear, killed or wounded four hundred Americans, and cap- tured his cannon and baggage, with a loss of only about half a dozen of his own men. Lincoln, however, still kept the field, and retired towards Augusta, leaving a thousand men to guard the Lower Savannah. Prevost drove all before him, and, encouraged by Tory support, even ventured to march upon Charleston ; but when Lincoln returned to its defence, was compelled to fall back to Savannah, burning and ravaging, on his way, the houses and property of the leading republicans. True to their threat, that the war should henceforth assuine a severer character, the British despatched a marauding expedition into Virginia. General Matthews, with a squadron and army, ascended the Chesapeake, took Portsmouth and Norfolk, captured or burned a hundred and thirty merchant vessels and several unfinished ships of war, and carried oflT an enormous booty. The damage inflicted by this expedition was estimated at not less than two millions of dollars. *' "What sort of war is this ? " asked the Vir- ginians of the British. " It is thus," was the reply, " we are commanded to treat all, who refuse to obey the king." Another similar expedition was undertaken by Tryon and Garth against the sea-coast of Connecticut, the ports of which had sent forth a large num- ber of privateers, cutting off the British merchantmen, and intercepting sup- plies from reaching the British at New York. On landing, the royal com- manders issued an address, setting forth the lenity which the people had experienced from his Majesty's officers, and the ungrateful return made for it, adding, that " the existence of a single house on their coast, ought to be a constant proof of their ingratitude, that they who lay so much in the British power, afforded a striking monument of their mercy, and ought therefore to set the first example of returning to their allegiance." However justifiable, in a military sense, such an expedition might have been, nothing could ex- cuse the ruthless barbarity with which it was carried out. As, far from sub- mitting, the militia offered what resistance was in their power, Newhaven was ravaged and pkmdered, Fairfield and Norwalk set on fire, and the de- struction of nearly two hundred buildings and five churches, with mills and shipping, marked the devastating path of the invaders. To inspire a feeling of terror, by striking examples of severity, and by inflicting upon the obstinate republicans all the miseries of civil war, had now become the vindictive policy of the British government. While these affairs were proceeding, Clinton ascended the river with a strong force, and took the forts at Verplanck's Point and Stony Point. As the works in the Highlands were now seriously menaced, "Washington 470 CAPTURE OF STONY POINT BY THE A3IERICANS. [1779. planned an expedition to recover Stony Point, wliicli was executed with great gallantry, by General Wayne, on the night of July 15th, and was indeed one of the most dashing exploits of the revolutionary war. Stony Point, as its name implies, is a rocky promontory, washed on three sides by the Hudson, and accessible on the other only across a morass, de- fended by two lines of ahattis and outworks. Stealing with the utmost secrecy through the woods, the party near midnight reached the edge of the morass, where Wayne divided his forces into two columns, who were to as- sault the works at as many different points. A forlorn hope, under Lieu- tenants Gibbon and Knox, preceded them to remove the obstructions. The men were ordered to make use of the bayonet alone. They were not discovered imtil within pistol-shot, when the alarm was given, the drum beat to arms, and amidst the darkness and confusion a heavy fire immediately opened on the assailants. Nearly all the forlorn hope perished, but in spite of resistance the Americans broke through the bai'riers and carried all before them. Wayne was struck down on his knees by a ball, and believing himself mortally •wounded, exclaimed, as his aide-de-camp assisted him to rise, " March on ! carry me into the fort, for I will die at the head of my column ; " — he was, how- ever, enabled to proceed with his men. The two columns gained the centre of the works at the same moment, with loud huzzas of triumph, and the gar- rison were compelled to surrender at discretion. Wayne's brief note to Washington is characteristic. " The fort and garrison, with Colonel Johnson, are ours. Our ojfRcers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free." In memory of this brilliant exploit. Congress voted medals to General Wayne, Captain de Fleury, and Major Stewart. To maintain the post long was, however, impossible, and after the destruction of the works, the cannon was put on board a galley to be removed to West Point, but was sunk by an unlucky shot from the enemy's batteries on the other side of the stream. Another action of great spirit was the surprise of Paulus Hook, opposite New York, by Colonel Lee, and the capture of the garrison, thus carried off almost within sight of the head-quarters of Sir Henry Clinton. These suc- cesses, although in themselves of little importance, served to keep up the spirits of the American army and people, and to check aggressive operations on the j)art of the British troops. The war now embraced both hemispheres, and the ocean that separated them; and the operations on the soil of America were comparatively insig- nificant. The islands of the West Indies became the theatre of conflict, and the prize for Avhich the navies of France and England contended. Before D'Estaing reached those waters with his fleet, Dominica had fallen into the hands of the French, commanded by the Marquis de Bouille, while the Eng- lish had taken St. Lucie. Having in vain sought to bring D'Estaing to a general action, Byron sailed to convoy home the West Indiamen, during which interval D'Estaing, reinforced by several ships, made the conquest of Grenada. Scarcely was this effected, when the English ships returned, and a warm but partial engagement took place, which, as his Disponent was com- > if ■* r ^ 17T9.] D'ESTAING FAILS TO TAKE SAVANNAH. 471 pelled to retire, D'Estalng considered a victory. According to the tenor , of his orders, he ought now to have returned home with the x^rincipal part of his fleet, but having received the most pressing letters from America, com- plaining of the abortive issue of the attack on Newport, and urging him not to retire until he had assisted in expelling the enemy from Georgia, he de- termined to comply witli this request. On the 1st of September, he appeared off Savannah, and having sent word of his arrival to General Lincoln at Charleston, a combined American and French force soon afterward prepared to invest the city. D'Estaing now imperiously summoned Prevost to surrender, in the name of the King of France. The English general, anxious to gain time, artfully protracted the negociation till Colonel Maitland had returned, with the rest of his troops, when he set the besiegers at defiance. He had laboiu'cd so inces- santly to strengthen the fortifications, that regular approaches became neces- sary, and the works were pushed on till the third of October, when the place was bombarded with the utmost fury. Prevost begged that an asylum might be granted to the suffering women and children, on board a French ship, till the issue of the siege was decided, but this request was rudely refused. No impression whatever was made upon the works, and D'Estaing, with his fleet exposed on the coast during the stormy season, and liable to be attacked at disadvantage by the English, felt unwilling to remain until the approaches could be carried to completion, and was compelled to hazard an assault. The French and American columns, headed by D'Estaing and Lincoln, advanced to the attack with mutual emulation, but so desperate was the resistance of the besieged, and so well served their artillery, that after a terrible slaughter, amidst which Count Pulaski met his fate, the assailants were compelled to re- tire, and precipitately abandon the siege. The unfortunate issue of this affair deepened the disgust already inspired by the abortive attack on Newport. Another deplorable reverse was experienced this season by the State of Massachusetts. A small British force having established themselves on the Penobscot, an armament of nineteen ships, carrying a body of fifteen hundred militia, Avere sent to dislodge them, under the command of General Lovell. Finding that the enemies' works were too strong to be taken by the force at his command, Lovell sent back for reinforcements. While waiting for them he was surprised by five British men of Avar, which burned the vessels, and scat- tered the troops, who had to make their Avay in small parties through a path- less wilderness, before they reached the confines of civilization. During these unfortunate operations Congress was distracted by a variety of anxious business. AVlien the treaty with France was concluded, the right had been reserved for Spain to become a party to it, by virtue of a family com- pact between the Bourbon princes. It was but rekictantly that the Spanish monarch embraced the quarrel. Although participating the desire of the French king for the humiliation of cheir common enemy. Great Britain, he witnessed with anxiety the spread of republican principles upon the American continent, which, if finally victorious, might prove a contagious example for his own 472 DIFFICULTY IN FIXING TERMS WITH FRANCE. [1779. colonies. Having however, determined to cast in liis lot with France, it next became his object to extort the best terms from the necessities of the Ameri- cans. The French ambassador, M. Gerard, vaunted the advantages of this new connexion, which could not fail to give an overwhelming weight to the American scale. In return for the joint assistance of France and Spain, he endeavoured to obtain for the latter the concession of the Floridas, a large tract, east of the Mississippi, and the exclusive right to navigate that river. For his own court, he sought to induce Congress to give ixp the fisheries of Newfoundland. He argued also, that it would be expecting too much of the pride of Great Britain, formally to acknowledge the independence of her revolted colonies, and that the Americans ought, like the Swiss and Dutch, to be content with a tacit and indirect admission of it. These unreasonable terms, militating, as they did, against the interest of the separate States, oc- casioned a lengthened, and often an angry discussion. What one was disposed to concede as indifferent, another was determined to retain as vital. Massa- chusetts could not surrender the northern fisheries, Virginia required the free navigation of the Mississippi. Eventually the claims were compromised; Florida was given up to Spain, the other matters left undecided; but upon one point the Americans Avere inflexible — that the war should be maintained until their independence was formally acknowledged and ratified. Bitter disputes had also arisen concerning the conduct of the foreign agents. Silas Deane, who, it will be remembered, was originally sent out in the character of a private merchant, to open negotiations with France, and through whose hands almost all the business of the commissioners had after- wards passed, had lately returned on board the French squadron. Accused, as it would seem unjustly, of malversation, by Arthur Lee, formerly agent at London, he was as warmly defended by Morris, the principal financier, and others. Congress was divided into opposite factions, and recriminatory writings inflamed the dispute. In one of these, by Thomas Paine, allusion was made to the secret arrangement between Beaumarchais and Lee, by which, under the guise of commercial transactions, munitions of war had been sent from the French arsenals to assist the Americans. The French ambas- sador complained of this statement as affecting the honour of his court, though there can be little doubt that the statement was, at least, partially true, and in consequence an express disavowal was put forth by Congress. Amidst the complexity of transactions, some of them secret, much confusion of ac- counts had arisen, by which Deane, against Avhom no charges could be estab- lished, and Avho seems to have involved his own fortune, was ultimately the sufferer. Unable to obtain the verification or discharge of a debt due to him by Congress, he 'sunk into great distress, and was overAvhelmcd with un- merited obloquy, an example of the fate that often befalls one sustaining a critical and delicate office in unsettled and trying times. As a plausible pretext for hostilities, Spain now proposed to mediate be- tween the contending parties, offering terms, which, as she Avas well assured they would be, were rejected by Great Britain. Having completed her 1779.] SPAIN DECLARES WAR AGAINST ENGLAND. 473 nayal preparations, she then put forth a long list of alleged grievances, and openly declared war. Galvez, the Spanish governor of New Orleans, imme- diately invaded Florida, and Avith an overwhelming force speedily reduced all the British posts, with the exception of Pensacola. To check incursions on the part of the Tories and their Indian allies, General Sullivan Avas sent with a considerable force against Fort Niagara, their head-quarters. Ascending the Upper Susquehanna, and routing on the way a force, under Brant, the Butlers, and Johnson, he penetrated the forests into the valley of the Genesee, hitherto unvisited, but exhibiting a far higher degree of civilization than it was supposed the Indians had then at- tained. Orchards of ancient growth, corn-fields, and well-built timber-houses, attested a long and quiet occupation of the soil. This smiling scene was con- verted into a wilderness by the invaders, in the hope that starvation would compel the Indians to retire to a greater distance. It was, however, found impossible to reach Niagara, and Sullivan returned with his brigade to Easton, in Pennsylvania. No permanent relief was produced by this inroad, the Indians soon returned with increased fury, and the frontier was kept in a state of excitement until the termination of the war. The coasts of Great Britain, had, in the meanwhile, been menaced with the same calamities which she was inflicting on those of America. A formidable fleet of French and Spanish ships appeared in the British Channel, to humble that overgrown naval power, become the object of their hatred and their fears. But this second Armada, dispersed by tempests, and dispirited by sickness, proved as unfortunate as the first, and was obliged to retui'n home without having accomplished its intended purpose. The dauntless spirit of the English rose with the perils that threatened to overwhelm them. Their cruisers had greatly crippled the infant American navy, and diminished the number of privateers. Some few hardy spirits, however, not only kept the sea, but ventured to affront the enemy, even within his own waters. Of these men, the most remarkable was Paul Jones, a native of Scotland, and originally brought up to the sea, which profession he relinquished, in order to settle in Virginia. When the war broke out, he obtained a commission, and in command of the Ranger, infested the English coasts, making sudden descents on the land, cutting out vessels, taking prizes, and spreading a general consternation. His exploits obtained him the command of a small squadron, fitted out in France, consisting of the " Bonhomme Richard," a forty-two gun ship, the " Alliance " and " Pallas " frigates, and other smaller vessels. With this armament, he ventured into Leith roads, in chase of a ship of war, but was driven out to sea by a gale, and continued his cruise along the eastern coast of Britain. On the 2ord of September, when off Flamborough Head, the Baltic fleet of merchantmen hove in sight, convoyed by the " Serapis " of forty-four guns, under Captain Pearson, and "Countess of Scarborough" of twenty guns. The two heavy frigates immediately prepared to engage, while the merchantmen endeavoured to make good their retreat to the coast. 3 P 474 PAUL JONES' VICTORY OFF FLA3IB0R0UGH HEAD. [1779. About seven in the evening, "vvhen quite dark, tlie two ships began the conflict with a furious cannonade. Ahnost at the outset, some of Jones's heavy guns burst and killed the men who served them ; his sailors refused to work the others, and thus he was reduced to his smaller artillery alone. A pause taking place in consequence, Pearson hailed to ask if his adversary had struck, to which Jones replied, that he had not yet begun to fight. Find- ing, in fact, that in his crippled state he stood no chance against the heavier metal of the " Serapis," he adopted the sole, but desperate, expedient open to him, of falling on board his more powerful adversary. As the failure of a manoeuvre brought the ships together, Jones, with his own hand, lashed them fast, and commenced the deadly grapple for victory or death. The British attempting to board, were repulsed, but their lower guns, pointed against the main deck of the " Richard," did fearful execution, tearing away the Avhole in- side of the ship, and driving the men above. Unable to maintain the conflict below, the American crew ascended into the tops, and thence kept up a deadly fire upon the deck of the " Serapis." A grenade thrown from the end of the main-yard, lighting upon some combustibles, occasioned a fearful ex- plosion, by which nearly sixty of the English sailors were killed or disabled, and the rest driven down into the hold. At this moment the " Alliance" came to assist her consort, but in the darkness and confusion, fired into her by mis- take. The American ship, thus riddled through by the balls of both friends and enemies, was supposed to be sinking ; the prisoners were released, and one of them made his way on board the " Serapis," and declared that the *' Richard " could no longer maintain the combat. In fact, the gunner actually went to haul down the colours, but they had been accidentally shot away. Both ships were on fire, and in the darkness of the night presented a spectacle of awful sublimity. A second time did Pearson demand if the "Richard" had surrendered. Jones sternly replied. No ! but the English caj^tain, not having heard him, supposed the combat was ended, called ofl" his boarders, and prepared to take possession of his prize. Jones, however, continued to fight desperately on ; until the main-mast of the " Serapis " being shot away, her men driven below, and the " Alliance " also preparing to attack him ; the gallant Pearson, who, during the action, had never quitted the deck, was com- pelled to haul doAvn his colours. But the triumph of Jones was of short duration, his own ship was rapidly filling, and shortly afterwards went down. The " Countess of Scarborough" was captured by the two American frigates. Jones, in the dismasted " Serapis," was driven about in the North Sea, at the mercy of wind and tempest, till he succeeded in gaining the Texel with his prizes. Thus terminated one of the most singular and desperate conflicts recorded in the annals of naval warfare. During the campaign, Washington remained with his troops in the neigh- bourhood of the Highlands, where the new fortifications of West Point were being rapidly carried to completion. His position and force were too strong to enable Sir Henry Clinton to attack him, his own too weak to hazard an at- tack upon New York, and he wisely avoided all attempts to draw on a general 1779.] LETTER FROM WASHINGTON- TO LAFAYETTE. 475 engagement. Yet, althougli prevented from mingling in active operations, he was still the directing soul of distant movements, and continually engaged in correspondence. Some of his most interesting letters, at this period, are to Lafayette, who had returned to France, in order to obtain fresh succours for the Americans. An extract from one of these will exhibit the general position of affairs. " We are happy," thus it runs, " in the repeated assurances and proofs of the friendship of our great and good ally. We also flatter our- selves, that before this period the kings of Spain and the two Sicilies may be greeted as allies of the United States; and we are not a little pleased to find, from good authority, that the solicitations and offers of the court of Great Britain to the empress of Russia have been rejected ; nor are we to be displeased, that overtures from the city of Amsterdam, for entering into a commercial connexion with us, have been made in such open and pointed terms. Such favourable sentiments, in so many powerful princes and states, cannot but be considered in a very honourable, interesting, and pleasing point of view, by all those who have struggled with difficulties and misfortunes, to maintain the rights and secure the liberties of their country. But, notwith- standing these flattering appearances, the British king and his ministei's con- tinue to threaten us with war and d'^oOiation. A few months, however, must decide whether these or peace is to take place. For both we will prepare ; and, should the former be continued, I shall not despair of sharing fresh toils and dangers with you in America ; but, if the latter succeeds, I can entertain little hopes that the rural amusements of an infant woi'ld, or the contracted stage of an American theatre, can withdraw your attention and services from the gaieties of a court, and the active part you will more than probably be called upon to share in the administration of your government. The soldier will then be transformed into the statesman, and your employment in this neAV "walk of life will afford you no time to revisit this continent, or think of friends who lament your absence." Amidst the tiresome detail of battles and sieges, it may be a relief to turn to the head-quarters at West Point, and by quoting a letter from Washington to Dr. Cochran, show the style in which the great man lived, and in which he could sometimes unbend from his oppressive anxieties. " \Q>th August. "Dear Doctor, I have asked Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow, but am I not in honour bound to apprize them of their fare ? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned, I will. It is needless to premise that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered, is rather more essential, and this shall be the purport of my letter. " Since our arrival at this happy spot, we have had a ham, sometimes a shoulder of bacon, to grace the head of the table, a piece of roast beef adorns the foot, and a dish of beans, or greens, almost imperceptible^ decorates the centre. When the cook has a mind to cut a figure, which I presume will be 2 p 2 4TG DEPRECIATION OF PAPER MONEY. [1779. the case to-morrow, we have two beef-steak pies, or dishes of crabs, in addi- tion, one on each side of the centre dish, dividing the space, and reducing the distance between dish and dish to about six feet, which without them would be nearly twelve feet apart. Of late he has had the surprising sagacity to discover that apples will make pies, and it is a question, if, in the violence of his efforts, we do not get one of apples, instead of having both of beef-steaks. If the ladies can put up with such entertainment, and will submit to partake of it on plates, once tin, but now iron, (not become so by the labour of scour- ing,) I shall be happy to see them, and am, dear Doctor, Yours." This forced inaction was far from being agreeable to Washington, and in the hope that Count D'Estaing would return to the north, after his abortive visit to Newport, the French ambassador had repaired to head-quarters, to concert an attack upon New York, by the combined French and American forces. The season, however, wore away without the appearance of D'Estaing, and the failure of his attack on Savannah put an end to this plan, which always remained a favourite one -vvith Washington. The state of the army had been muo]i improved since the last winter, by the strenuous labours of General Greene, who had reluctantly undertaken the important, but ungrateful, office of quarter-master-general. Loud com- plaints were, nevertheless, made of the enormous expense of his department, and it was with difficulty he was prevailed on to serve a little longer. By the depreciation of the paper money, prices were now nominally enormous. The first issues made by Congress had never been redeemed, and they had now put into circulation notes to the amount of two hundred millions of dollars. Forty of these paper dollars were, at this time, worth but one in specie. The attempt to regulate prices was abortive, a serious riot taking place upon this ground in Philadelphia. To bolster up the credit of the paper, it was made legal tender for debts contracted at specie prices ; the fraudulent and embarrassed took this means of paying their debts, and Wash- ington himself suffered from this species of legal swindling. Owing to these causes, and to the early approach of winter, the army began to experience the distresses of the last. " For a fortnight past," said Washington, in his letter to the magistrates of New Jersey, " both officers and men have been almost perishing for want. They have been alternately without bread or meat the whole time, with a very scanty allowance of either, and frequently destitute of both. They have borne their sufferings with a patience that merits the approbation, and ought to excite the sympathy, of their countrymen." Such was the distress, that Washington was obliged, for a while, to call \\\)0\\ the States to furnish specific supplies of grain and cattle for his suffering troops. As far as the north was concerned, the results of the year are well summed up in a letter from Washington to his friend Lafayette, who had returned for a while to France. " The o^ierations of the enemy, this campaign, have been confined to the establishment of works of defence, taking a post at King's 1779.] CLINTON ARRIVES IN GEORGIA. All Ferry, and burning the defenceless towns of New Haven, Fairfield, and Norwalk on the Sound, within reach of their shipping, where little else was, or could be oj^posed to them, than the cries of distressed women and chil- dren, but these Avere offered in vain. Since these notable exploits, they have never stepped out of their works, or beyond their lines. How a conduct of this kind is to effect the conquest of America, the wisdom of a North, a Germaine, or a Sandwich, can best decide. It is too deep and refined for the comprehension of common understandings, and the general run of po- liticians." CiEAPTER V. CAMPAIGN OF 1780.— CAPXrRE OF CHARLESTON.— STATE OF THE SOUTHERN PROVINCES.— HATTLE OF CAMDEN. — ARRIVAL OF THE FRENCH UNDER ROCHAMBEAU. — TREASON OF ARNOLD AND EX- ECUTION OF ANDRE. — FRANKLIN AT PARIS. — ARMED NEUTRALITY. As soon as Sir Henry Clinton was assiired that D'Estaing had departed with his fleet, he recalled the troops in occupation of Newport, and leaving a body in New York more than sufficient to keep Washington in check, embarked with the rest of his forces for Savannah, carrying with him a corps of cavalry, which it Avas judged could operate to advantage in the level plains of the south. His passage was very tempestuous ; the fleet dispersed, one of his ships foundered, another was captured, and the horses were lost. At length the scattered armament assembled on the shores of Georgia. Clinton had hoped to strike a blow at Charleston before time could be gained for its defence, but his design was discovered by the prisoners on board the captured ship, and the delay occasioned by refitting his damaged vessels enabled the Carolinians to prepare for defence. To stimulate them to the utmost. Congress promised a large reinforcement, but with the utmost exertions could detach a mere handful to their assistance. It was proposed to raise and arm a regiment of slaves, but to this plan the planters had an in- superable objection ; six hundred negroes, however, directed by French engineers, were made to labour upon the fortifications, which were rendered extensive and formidable. The militia were summoned, on pain of forfeiting their property, but, as the small-pox was known to be raging in the city, only two hundred ventured to come forward. The whole force, of all sorts, at the command of General Lincoln, was far from adequate to defend so extensive a place. The assembly, under the urgency of the circumstances, had invested Governor Rutledge with " the poAver to do every thing necessary for the 478 SURRENDER OF CHARLESTON TO THE ENGLISH. [1780. public good, except taking away the life of a citizen," and the most inde- fatigable efforts were made by him to put the city into a posture of defence- Advancing along the coast, Clinton invested the city by land, and on the first of April began to form regular approaches. Four American and two French frigates, with some smaller vessels, defended the harbour, but the English ships ran past Fort Moultrie with very trifling loss, and stationed themselves within cannon-shot of the city, which was thus menaced by sea and land at once. The only communication of the town with the country was kept up by two regiments of horse under the command of General Huger and Colonel Wash- ington, stationed in a strong position at Monks' Corner, defended by a morass and causeway. Clinton detached Lieutenant-Colonel Webster, one of his best officers, to surprise this important post. He was accompanied by Fergu- son and Tarleton, the latter a brilliant cavalry ofiicer, as rapid, impetuous, and dashing in his enterprises, as he was ruthless and implacable in the treatment of his enemies. Conducted by a negro, whom they had captured, about three in the morning the English came suddenly on the Americans, cutting them to pieces with great slaughter, Huger and Washington with difficulty effect- ing their escape. The besieged were thus entirely enclosed, and the sur- rounding country overrun by the English. Soon after Fort Moultrie, so celebrated in the former abortive attack by the British, invested on all sides, was compelled to surrender without firing a shot. Clinton, having completed his third parallel, bombarded the city, and a second time summoned Lincoln, in order to avoid the horrors of an assault. The American general had been desirous of evacuating the city, but this de- sign proved impracticable ; he had next, finding his position untenable, offered to capitulate on terms which Clinton had refused, and he was now, at the request of the citizens, compelled to surrender, on condition that his troops should become prisoners of war, and the militia retire unmolested on the promise to take no further share in the quarrel. Thus Charleston, after a siege of forty-two days, fell into the power of the English. Lincoln was much blamed for allowing himself to be enclosed in the city, and not extri- cating himself when resistance became hopeless. But he justly replied, that it was intended to defend the place, and that the assistance promised by Con- gress had never been forthcoming. Scarcely had Clinton taken Charleston, than he vigorously prepared to quench the dying embers of opposition to the royal cause, and encourage its friends to come forward. He sent off three expeditions, one towards Au- gusta, another towards Camden, and a third under Tarleton against a Vir- ginian regiment led by Colonel Buford, who on learning the fall of Charles- ton, and of the force sent against him, commenced a rapid retreat. He had already gained so much time, that pursuit seemed hopeless, but the fiery Tarleton promised to reach him. Many of his horses dropped dead with fatigue, but by pressing others, after a forced march of a hundred and five miles in fifty-four hours, on the 29th of May, at a place called 1780.] CLINTON SUBDUES SOUTH CAROLINA. 479 the Waxliaws, he suddenly appeared before the panic-stricken fugitives. Though taken by surprise, Buford refused to surrender, and hurriedly threw his men into line, desiring them to reserve their fire till the enemy were close upon them. A few men were brought down, and Tarleton had his horse shot under him, but the cavalry burst upon the republicans with such imjaetuosity, that they were instantly broken, and a terrible car- nage commenced. Deaf to their cries for mercy, and fancying their leader slain, the infuriated horsemen cut down the unresisting Americans ; a hun- dred and thirteen were butchered on the spot, and of two hundred prisoners the greater part were desperately wounded, though the English colonel de- clared that the survivors Avere humanely attended to. This ruthless treat- ment obtained among the republicans the proverbial appellation of Tarleton s quarter. The other detachments found nothing to oppose their progress, and thus the whole of South Carolina was reduced to the royal sway. The province being thus subdued. Sir Henry Clinton published an amnesty, offering full pardon to all who should return to their duty, except '' only those who had imbrued their hands in the blood of their fellow-citizens." But it was not his intention to allow the inhabitants to observe a peaceful neutrality, Not content with a mere nominal submission, he compelled all parties ojDcnly to espouse the royal cause, and arm themselves for the purpose of " driving," as he chose to call them, " their rebel oppressors, and all the miseries of the war, far from the province." Moreover, releasing the American prisoners from their parole, he now required them to take up arms against the cause they had so lately defended. Deep was the indignation of the Carolinians, but exposed to be treated as rebels if they refused, the majority were obliged to dissimulate, and comply with the bitter requisitions of their conqueror. Sir Henry Clinton, having thus established a hollow and treacherous tran- quillity, returned to New York with a part of his forces, leaving behind four thousand men under Lord Cornwallis, the most able and enterprising officer in the royal service in America. This policy of the British, by compelling the neutral to choose sides, ex- citing the hopes of the Tories, and exasperating the fury of the Whigs, car- ried to its height the party spirit with which the southern States were already divided. The wealthy planters were mostly ardent republicans, as were the Scotch, Irish, and backAvoodsmen. The Highlanders and Regulators were Tories, while the Quakers, Dutch, and Germans were disposed to be quiet and peaceably submit to the invaders. A fearful picture of their dissensions is given by the biographer of Greene. *' With dispositions as fell and vindictive as all the sanguinary passions could render them, neighbour was reci^^'ocally arrayed against neighbour, brother against brother, and even father against son. Neither in the dark- ness of the night, the enclosures of dwelling-houses, the depths of forests, nor the entanglements of the swamps and morasses of the country, was security to be found. Places of secrecy and retreat, being known alike to both parties, afforded no asylum ; but were oftentimes marked with the most 480 CR UEL TIES ENA CTED BY BOTH SIDES. [1780. shocking barbarities. The murderer in his ambush, and the warriors in their ambuscade, being thus in the daily perpetration of deeds of violence and blood, travelling became almost as dangerous as battle. Strangers, of whom nothing was known, and who appeared to be quietly pursuing their journey, were oftentimes shot down, or otherwise assassinated, in the public road. ^^Tiole districts of country resembled our frontier settlements during the prevalence of an Indian war. Even when engaged in their common con- cerns, the inhabitants wore arms, prepared alike for attack or defence. " But this was not all. The period was marked with another source of slaughter, which added not a little to its fatal character. Participating in the murderous spirit of the times, slaves, that were in many places numerous and powerful, rose against their masters, armed with whatever weapon of de- struction accident or secret preparation might supply. In these scenes of horror, the knife, the hatchet, and the poisoned cup were indiscriminately employed. Some whole families were strangled by their slaves, while, by the same hands, others were consumed amid the blaze of their dwellings in the dead of night. " These dispositions in the population generally, inflamed by the ardour and urged by the force of southern passions, were sublimed to a pitch, to which the more temperate people of the north were strangers." ISIany anecdotes might be multiplied to exemplify this horrid spirit, which the policy of the British was fanning into fiercer activity, but the following one may well suffice. It must be admitted that the republicans too often drew down upon themselves severe reprisals for their intolerant cruelty to the royalists. In the hoiir of festivity one Brown had indulged himself in indiscriminate censure of the revolutionary party. He had done worse — he had ridiculed them. He was pursued, brought back to Augusta, tried before a committee of surveillance, and sentenced to be tarred and feathered and carted, unless he recanted and took the oath of allegiance required by the administration of Georgia. Brown was a firm man, and resisted with a pertinacity which should have commanded the respect of his persecutors. But the motions of a mob are too precipitate to admit of the intrusion of generous feeling. After undergoing the painful and mortifying penance prescribed by the com- mittee without yielding, it is too true that he was doomed to have his naked feet exposed to a large fire, to subdue his stubborn spirit ; but in vain, and he was at length turned loose by a group of men, who never deemed that the simple Indian trader would soon reappear, an armed and implacable enemy. He first visited the loyalists of Ninety-six, concerted his measures Avith them, then made his way to St. Augustine, received a colonel's commission, placed himself at the head of a band of desperate refugees, and accompanied Prevost in his irruption into Georgia. lixS thirst for revenge appeared afterward in- satiable, and besides wantonly hanging many of his prisoners, he subjected the families of the Whigs who were out in service to accumula<"ed sufterings and distresses. It was not long after he Avas left in command at Augusta by the British general, that Colonel Clarke, with a determined party of the 1780.] THE WAR IN THE SOUTH. 481 militia, whose families lie had persecuted, ahiied a well-directed blow at his post. But Brown proved himself a man of bravery and conduct, and he well knew that at all times he was fighting for his life. After a severe and par- tially successful contest, the apj)roach of a party of Indians obliged Clarke to retreat and leave his wounded behind him, with a letter addressed to Brown, requesting that he would parole them to their plantations. But Brown's thirst for revenge knew no bounds. It had been irritated in this instance by a wound that confined him to his bed. The unhappy prisoners, twenty-eight in number, were all hung ; thirteen of them were suspended to the railing of the staircase, that he might feast his eyes with their dying agonies." The war in the south, with the exception of one or two battles, consisted of a series of skirmishes, surprises, and partisan encounters, carried on with an inconsiderable force on both sides, over a wide extent of unhealthy country, intersected with rivers and marshes, and with a sultry, scorching climate, but displaying as much gallantry, skill, and adventure on both sides, as the oper- ations of a larger army on a more conspicuous field of action. In these " terrible campaigns," as the British officers called them, both armies suffered the extremity of heat, fatigue, and destitution. The patriots, unable to grapple with the superior forces of their enemy, retired into the impenetrable recesses of the swamps and pine barrens, under the leadership of a few heroic sj)irits called forth by the dreadful emergency. Such men were Generals Marion and Sumpter ; the former a native of South Carolina. He was of small stature and attenuated frame, but capable of almost superhuman endurance, famed for his feats of horsemanship, and, like Claverhouse, he rode a fleet and power- ful charger, so that in pursuit nothing could escape, and when retreating nothing overtake him. " For stratagems," says Caldwell, " unlooked-for en- terprises against the enemy, and devices for concealing his own positions and movements, he had no rival. The tract of country over which he reigned, the trust and safeguard of his friends, the terror of his foes, and the astonish- ment of every one, aboimded in thickets, morasses, and swamps. To those deep and dreary solitudes he was often obliged to retreat for safety when severely pressed by an overwhelming force. On these occasions, to pursue him into his fastnesses was as useless as it was dangerous. Never, in a single instance, was he overtaken or discovered in his hiding-place, unless he volun- tarily faced his pursuers, in which case, such was his selection of time and position, as to make victory certain. Even some of his own party, anxious for his safety, and well acquainted with many of the places of his retreat, have sought for him whole days in his immediate neighbourhood, without finding him. Suddenly and unexpectedly, on some distant point, he would again appear, pouncing on his enemy like the falcon on his quarry." Paulding narrates, that " on one occasion a British officer with a flag, pro- posing an exchange of prisoners, was brought blindfold into his camp. The exploits of Marion had made his name now greatly known, and the officer felt no little curiosity to look at this invisible warrior, who was so often felt, but never seen. On removing the bandage from his eyes, he was presented to a 3 q, 483 LIFE OF GENERAL MARION. [1780. man rather below the middle size, very thin in his person, of a dark com- plexion, and Avithered look. He was dressed in a homespun coat that bore evidence of flood and field, and the rest of his garments were much the worse for wear. '^ ' I came,' said the oflicer, ' with a message for General Marion.' ' I am he,' said Marion, ' and these are my soldiers.' " The officer looked round, and saw a parcel of rough, half-clothed fellows, some roasting sweet potatoes, others resting on their dark muskets, and others asleep with logs for their pillows. " The business being settled, the officer was about to depart, when he was rather ceremoniously invited by Marion to stay and dine. Not seeing any symptoms of dinner, he was inclined to take the invitation in jest ; but on being again pressed, curiosity as well as hunger promjDtedhim to accept. The general then ordered his servant to set the table and serve up dinner ; upon which the man placed a clean piece of pine bark on the ground, and raking the ashes uncovered a quantity of sweet potatoes. These constituted Mari- on's breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, for many a time that he watched the flame of liberty in the swamps of South Carolina. " Tlie soldier of Britain returned to his commander with a serious, nay, sorrowful countenance; and on being questioned as to the cause, made this remarkable answer — " ' Sir, I have seen an American general, his officers and soldiers serving without pay, without shelter, without clothing, without any other food than roots and water — and they are enduring all these for liberty ! What chance have we of subduing a country with such men for her defenders ?' It is said he soon after threw up his commission and retired from the service, either in consequence of a change in his feelings, or of hopelessness in the success of the cause in which he had engaged." The loyalists of North Carolina were anxious to join the victorious English, but Cornwallis urged them to gather their crops and remain quiet until the autumn, when he would march to their assistance. Unwilling to wait, two large bodies put themselves in motion, but one only succeeded in its design, the other being attacked and routed. Meanwhile, such forces as Washington could venture to detach were on their way to the south under the command of Baron de Kalb. Their progress was toilsome and difficult, and they could only subsist by stray cattle caught in the woods, and Indian corn from the fields, on their line of march. At length tliey came to a halt on Deep river, where General Gates#soon afterward arrived to assume the command. The name of the conqueror of Saratoga, it was justly supposed, would tend to raise the dejected spirits of the Carolinians. Joined by various bodies of militia, he proceeded across a barren country, where the soldiers had to subsist on un- ripe peaches and green corn, towards Camden, where Cornwallis had placed magazines with a force under the command of Lord Eawdon, who finding matters assuming a serious aspect, drew in his outposts and sent notice of his situation to Charleston. At the approach of the American army the activity Sd 4 1780.] GATES DEFEATED IW THE BATTLE OF CAMDEN. 483 of the partisan-chiefs redoubled. Sumpter surprised the British detachments at Kocky Mount and Hanging Rock, while Marion harassed their outposts. . Gates's army had now mcreased to six thousand men, of whom but a fourth, however, were regular troops, and with this inferior force he prepared to assume hostilities. The hopes of the patriots were excited with sanguine expectations of triumph, destined, however, to be speedily and bitterly over- throAvn. At the news of Gates's approach, Cornwallis, who had with him but two thousand men, hastened from Charleston. As he could not retreat without surrendering the recent conquests, and was confident in the superiority of his troops over the militia of Gates, with his characteristic decision he determined not to await, but anticipate his attack. On the same night Gates and Cornwallis both -left their encampment, the former intending to take up a strong offensive position near Camden, the latter to surprise the Americans ; and, about two in the morning of the 6th of August, the two armies unexpectedly encountered each other in the woods. After a sharp skirm.ish the British drove in the Americans, but darkness suspended the combat for a Avhile. At dawn, the line having been formed, the battle Avas renewed. At the first shock the Virginian militia, composing the American left, broke and fled, in spite of all the efforts of Gates to rally them, and left the brunt of the attack to be sustained by the small body of regulars under the brave De Kalb, who, after receiving eleven wounds, ' fell, mortally wounded. Tarleton now dashed in with his cavalry, and com- ' pleted the discomfiture. For nearly thirty miles he pursued and cut doAATi the fugitives with unrelenting fury, and the road was strewn with the traces of the routed army. Nine hundred men were killed and as many taken prison- ers, the rest scattered as they were able into the woods ; baggage and artillery fell into the hands of the conquerors. The army of the south was utterly j broken up, except the detachment under Sumpter, Avho had intercepted a con- voy and made two hundred prisoners, but on hearing of the disaster retreated with the utmost speed. Supposing himself out of danger, Sumpter halted to : recruit his tired troops, when Tarleton burst into the camp, having carried on ' the pursuit with such fearful rapidity that half his men broke down upon the road. The convoy and prisoners were recovered ; a large number of the Ame- ricans were slaughtered or captured ; a few, among whom was Sumpter him- self, were fortunate enough to escape into the woods. Indescribable was the panic occasioned by this deplorable rout. The cry of " Gates is defeated " ran like wild-fire through the country, and at the sight of his broken and fugitive legions consternation was depicted upon every countenance. The discomfited general did all in his power to retrieve a loss so fatal to his own reputation; and retreating to Salisbury, and thence to Hillsborough, gradually re-organized his shattered ranks, and, reinforced by small bodies of regulars and militia, again advanced to the south, and took post at Charlotte with the nucleus of another army. But, by a single reverse, he was unjustly deprived of the confidence of Congress, who ordered an 3^2 484 GREENE TAKES COMMAND OF TEE ARMY. [1780. inquiry into his conduct, and required Washington to name his successor. Without a moment's hesitation he appointed General Greene, an officer in whose abilities, fortitude, and integrity, from an intimate experience of them, he had the most entire confidence, to this important and responsible command. On his way to the camp, Greene concerted with the governors of the several States the best measiires for furnishing their quotas of troops and supplies', and on the 2nd of December arrived at the head-quarters of the army. Gates received his successor with the greatest magnanimity, frankly communicated all the information in his power, and then set out for the north, never again to appear in the field. " His long and dreary journey," says Johnson, " was a true picture of lost favour and Mien greatness. No eye beamed on him with a cordial welcome, no tongue saluted him in accents of kindness. He was every where met with frowns or indifference, neglectful si- lence or murmured censure. All recollected in him the fugitive from Camden ; no one recognised the victor of Saratoga." Yet his wounded feelings were somewhat soothed by an address from the Virginia legislature, assuring him *' that the remembrance of his former glorious services could not be obliterated by any reverse of fortune." Cornwallis, immediately after his victory at Camden, would willingly have profited by the terror of his arms to carry the war into North Carolina, but the oppressive heat of the season and his want of adequate supplies compelled him reluctantly to return to Charleston. Here he followed up his victory by measures calculated to strike terror into the ranks of the republicans. Such of the militia as, having once submitted, were again found in arms were hanged without mercy, and the property of those who had a second time been found assisting the rebels was confiscated. Several of the principal inhabitants of Charleston, accused of violating the parole given at the surrender by cor- responding with the enemy, were sent prisoners to St. Augustine. Such pro- ceedings might indeed for a while quell the spirit of active revolt, but only by deepening the detestation of the conquered, and inspiring them with the determination to rise and turn upon their oppressors at the first propitious moment. Having, by the beginning of October, completed his preparations for marching into North Carolina, Cornwallis advanced with his main army towards Charlotte, detaching Tarleton with his cavalry up the west bank of the Catawba, and INIajor Ferguson, an able and resolute officer, by a more westerly route, along the eastern foot of the mountains. A principal object of this detachment Avas to organize the loyalists in that quarter, who, on joining the British standard, committed the most atrocious outrages upon the repub- licans. A terrible retribution awaited them. A large body of backwoodsmen from Tennessee and Kentucky, all daring and determined men, mounted and armed with rifies, which they handled with unerring pre/;ision, proceeded in quest of Ferguson. Carrying their provisions and blankets on their backs, they kept up the chase with such vigour that in thirty-six hours they dismounted but twice. On the 9th of October they overtook Ferguson, 1780.] DEFEAT AND DEATH OF MAJOR FERGUSON. 485 who had retired to the top of a hold and woody eminence called King's mountain. Forming in several columns tliey climbed the rugged ascent, and posting themselves behind rocks and trees, kept up a galling fire upon the royalists. "Whenever they ventured to advance they were fiercely driven back by the bayonet, but only to renew the deadly conflict from behind their covert. At length Ferguson, who had in vain been sum- moned to surrender, fell, sword in hand, mortally wounded, and the re- mainder, their spirit broken, were compelled to throw down their arms. Ten of the more obnoxiou.s loyalists were hung on the spot in retalia- tion for their recent outrages, adding to that spirit of mutual revenge which, as Greene said in his despatches, " threatened to depopulate the country." This afiair, which greatly raised the drooping spirits of the patriots, proved also an important check to Cornwallis, who, deprived of the co-operation of Ferguson, was compelled to make a retrograde move. It had also the effect of paralysing the movements of an auxiliary force of three thousand men under General Leslie, which had entered the Elizabeth river and taken post at Portsmouth, in order to co-operate in the attack against North Carolina. Considei'ing himself noAV unsafe, Leslie returned to Charleston to effect a junc- tion with Cornwallis. Marion and Sumpter also redoubled their activity, but were kept in check by Tarleton and his cavalry. With his usual celerity he pursued Sumpter to a strong position at Blackstock-Hill, and attacked him with great impetuosity, but was repulsed with considerable loss. Sumpter, severely wounded and unable to resume the command, was carried by his faithful followers into a secure retreat. "With these operations in South Carolina came to a close the year seventeen hundred and eighty. The royal generals had displayed consummate ability and vigour, all the strongholds of the country were in their hands, and they had a force at their disposal sufficient to maintain these conquests. But no- thing could be more precarious than a military occupation of this sort ; — a country may be indeed overrun, but cannot be long held, where the spirit oi freedom is intrenched in the hearts of its citizens. Depressed and exhausted by the bloody struggle, the embers of resistance were not quenched. Vir- ginia and North Carolina were sending such assistance as they were able to spare, and the master-mind of Greene, unappalled at the greatness of his task, was occupied in organizing a new army, and meditating upon the best tactics to protract the struggle and weary out a powerful and victorious adversary. For the sake of clearness, we have narrated continuously those events in the south, which were spread over the entire course of the year. "We must now turn our attention to the northern States, where, during this interval, occurrences of the most momentous interest had also taken place. At the opening of the season "Washington's forces, at Middlebrook and the Higlilands, were still occupied in watching those of the enemy at New 480 NEED OF SUPPLIES FOR THE ARMY. [1780. York. The condition of tlie army, in spite of every effort, still continued to be deplorable. It was now that the distresses, which all the exertions of Congress failed to relieve, called forth the patriotic exertions of the ladies of Philadelphia. All ranks and classes took a share in this good Avork. Llrs. Heed, the wife of General Reed, became the head of an association for sup- plying the poor soldiers Avith a stock of raiment. Mrs. Bache, the daughter of Dr. Franklin, took also a zealous part in this labour of love and mercy. La Fayette, in the name of his wife, presented the society with a hundred guineas in specie, and the Countess de Luzerne also subscribed generously. Many disposed of their trinkets and ornaments, and those who had no money to spare exerted themselves no less effectively by cutting out and making up linen for the ragged and shivering defenders of their country. Twenty-two hundred shirts were thus forwarded to Washington's camp, an offering which not only greatly mitigated the sufferings of the troops, but by convincing them that they were not forgotten by their grateful countrywomen, tended to comfort and sustain them under the privations to Avhich they were inevitably exposed. Before the end of April La Fayette arrived from France, with the joyful intelligence that the French government had fitted out an armament, the ar- rival of which might shortly be expected. So urgent Avas the enthusiastic marquis, that he had prevailed on the king to send over a body of land forces to act in concert Avith the republican troops. Such Avas his importunity, that the French minister said one day in council, " It is fortunate for the king that Lafayette does not take it into his head to strip Versailles of his furniture to send to his dear Americans, as his Majesty Avould be unable to refuse it." Not content Avith these public succours, he generously expended large sums of his private fortune in providing sAVords and appointments for the corps placed under his command. While the French troops were anxiously expected. Sir Henry Clinton re- turned from his successful attack on Charleston, and General Knyphausen Avas sent on an expedition into the Jerseys, its' object being, as Avas sup- posed, to withdraw Washington from his encampment in that direction, while a strong body Avas sent up the Hudson to besiege West Point and the other posts on the Highlands. If such was indeed its purpose, it proved un- successful, and the militia of the country coming forAvard Avith spirit, the in- vaders Avere soon compelled to retire. Thus harassed and repelled, the British and Hessian troops committed the same raA'ages Avhich had signalized the incursion of Tryon. At Connecticut Farms they burned the Presbyterian church and a considerable part of the village. Too often, during this unhappy struggle, the American Avomen had to bear their full share of the miseries of civil war, and by their heroic endurance sustained the coui'age of their husbands, sons, and brothers. " The traditions of our revolution," to use the words of Paulding, " abound in the most affecting instances of female courage and patriotism, such as posterity Avill do Avell to imitate, should the time ever again arrive for such sacrifices. Often did they suffer their houses to be burnt over their heads, their persons to be insulted, and their lives to hang 17S0.] ARRIVAL OF A FLEET AND TROOPS FR03I FRANCE. 4&1 by a single liair on tlae ferocious mercy of a drunken soldier, rather than be- tray the haunts of their defenders, or give the least item of information that might be serviceable to the enemy." On this occasion a tragedy occurred which inspired the deepest indignation all over the States. Mrs. Caldwell, wife of a clergyman well known for his enthusiastic devotion to his country's cause, had retired with her children into a room with only one window, to avoid any chance shots in case a skirmish should happen. No engagement however took place, and the unfortunate lady, unsuspicious of danger, was seated on a bed with her little child by the hand, and her nurse with an in- fant by her side, when a soldier stole round to the window, and deliberately levelling his piece, killed her at a single shot. By acts like these the British and their confederates destroyed evfen the faintest chance of the restoration of the royal authority, and excited in the minds of the people an unconquerable resolution, never to lay down their arms till the detested invaders were ex- pelled the soil. On the 10th of July a Frengh fleet arrived at Newport, commanded by the Chevalier de Ternay, and the troops by the Count de Rochambeau. As ex- perience had shown that much jealousy existed between the French and Americans, it had been wisely decided that the whole army should be placed under the orders of Washington, and that the American officers should take precedence of the French when of equal rank, — an arrangement which obvi- ated the heart-burnings and contentions that would otherwise have inevitably occurred. It was now the first wish of Washington to carry out his long- cherished idea of an attack upon New York by the combined forces, and a plan to that effect was drawn up and conveyed by La Fayette to the French commander. The French troops were to march from Newport to Washing- ton's old quarters at Morrisiana, where the Americans would form a junction with them. This arrangement, however, supposed the superiority of the French naval force over that of the British, and this was entirely disconcerted by the speedy arrival of Admiral Graves with reinforcements for the English fleet. The latter, now superior in force, blockaded the French in Newport, while Sir Henry Clinton left New York with a large force to attack the French and Americans, Finding, however, that their force was largely in- creased by the neighbouring militia, and fearing lest Washington might fall upon New York during his absence, he speedily returned to that city. Thus was the co-operation of the French and Americans again destined to become, for the present, abortive. Nothing could be done until the arrival of Count de Guichen from the West Indies with his fleet, or that of a fleet pre- paring to set out from Brest. The former, however, returned to France with- out visiting the anxious Americans, and the latter, blockaded by a British squadron, was unable to repair to their assistance. The gloom and disappointment thus occasioned was infinitely deepened by the discovery of an act of treachery, which, had it proved successful, as, but for circumstances apparently trivial, it would have done, would have struck a deadly, perhaps a fatal, blow at the cause for which America was struggling. 488 ARNOLD'S POSITION IJY PHILADELPHIA. [1780. The works at "West Point had now been carried to completion, and it was regarded as. the most important fortress in the country. Not only did it form the centre of communication between the eastern and middle States, but was the principal deposit for the stores and munitions of the army. Sir Henry Clinton had long been anxious to obtain possession of this stronghold, and what he could vainly hope to obtain by force, an act of unparalleled base- ness now seemed ready to place within his grasp. For daring, impetuous valour, Arnold was justly regarded as the most bril- liant officer in the American service. His romantic expedition to Canada, his naval battle on Lake Cha*nplain, and especially his desperate bravery at the battles of Behmus Heights, had covered him with military glory. Disabled from active service by a wound received on this last occasion, he had been appointed to the command of the troops in Philadelphia. Here, as one of the leading men in the city, and being vain and fond of display, he launched out into a style of living very far beyond his means. He had married a beautiful and accomplished girl much younger than himself, the daughter of a Mr. Shippen, one of the leading Tories, who had been an object of great attrac- tion to the British officers during their occupation of Philadelphia, and had kept up a correspondence with Major Andre, adjutant-general of the army, and a great favourite of Sir Henry Clinton. Pressed by increasing expenses, Arnold's position soon became desper- ate, and in order to relieve his embarrassments, he was tempted to abuse his office to unworthy purposes. The council of Pennsylvania brought certain accusations against him, which, after some delay, were submitted to a military tribunal. Acquitted of the more serious charge, he was nevertheless sen- tenced to a reprimand from the commander-in-chief. Washington admin- istered the rebuke with the greatest delicacy and feeling. " Our service," he observed to him, " is the chastest of all. Even the shadow of a fault tarnishes the lustre of our finest achievements. The least inadvertence may rob us of the public favour, so hard to be acquired. I reprimand you for having for- gotten, that in proportion as you had rendered yourself formidable to our enemies, you should have been guarded and temperate in your deportment toward your fellow-citizens. Exhibit anew those noble qualities which have placed you on the list of our most valued commanders. I will myself furnish you, as far as it may be in my power, with opportunities of gaining the esteem of your country." How must Arnold's cheek have been suffused with shame, and his heart filled with rage and remorse, conscious that at that very moment he had already been eight months in secret, if not treasonable, correspond- ence with the enemy. Overwhelmed with debt, and having resigned his command, Arnold now tried to obtain a loan from the French minister, who, much as he admired the soldier, could not but despise the man, and while he refused his request, ad- ministered to him a delicate but cutting reproof. " You desire of me a service," he said, " which it would be easy for me to render, but which would degrade us both. When the envoy of a foreign power gives, or, if you will. 1780.] MAJOR ANDR:^ GOES TO WEST POINT. 489 lends money, it is ordinarily to corrupt those who receive it, and to make them the creatures of the sovereign whom he serves." Driven to despera- tion, insulted by the populace, and galled by the malignant satisfaction of his enemies, Arnold now meditated the blackest treason, disguising it to his own mind under the plea of what he chose to consider his country's ingratitude. Through the medium of his wife he opened a secret correspondence in a feigned hand and name with Major Andre, promising, if duly rewarded, to render a service as important to the royalist, as it would be ruinous to the re- publican cause. Whether his wife was ignorant of the nature of the corre- spondence, or, as many suppose, the original tempter to the crime, is a question that would seem never to have been satisfactorily ascertained. Arnold's next step was to obtain the command of West Point, readily granted him by the unsuspecting Washington. No sooner had he done so, than he proposed, for a certain sum, to betray it into the hands of Clinton. To be sure that he was not duped, a conference was required by the British general with his hidden correspondent, and both by Arnold and Clinton Major Andre was fixed upon to negociate the bribe, and concert the necessary arrangements for the delivery of the fortress. . That officer, what- ever may have been his secret dislike to the office, felt it to be his duty in the interest of his country's service, to offi^r no opposition to the wish of his chief. He therefore accepted the unpleasant task, being sj)ecially instructed by Clinton not to change his dress, nor, by venturing within the American lines, lay himself open to the charge of being a spy. To facilitate the design, the Vulture sloop of war, having Major Andre on board, ascended the Hudson river, as far as Teller's Point. Arnold's diffi- culty was now to get Andre on shore. The traitor himself was then occupy- ing the house of one Smith, either his accomplice or dupe, whom he persiiaded to go off and fetch him. At midnight on the 21st of September Smith rowed off to the Vulture. Andre descended into the boat, and both landed at the foot of a lofty wooded mountain, where Arnold, concealed among the trees, was anxiously awaiting his arrival. The remaining hours of night Avere too brief to settle all the details of their conference ; the dawn was approach- ing ; Smith, full of alarm, entreated them to break it off. Arnold urgently pressed Andre to accompany him as far as Smith's house, assuring him he might do so without the slightest danger. In an evil hour he complied with this request. Mounting a horse brought by a servant, he passed with Arnold the American lines at Haverstraw, and having reached Smith's house, the forenoon was spent in concerting the details of the surrender. Arnold furnished him with an exact account of the force at West Point, which he desired him to conceal in his stockings, gave him a pass, in the name of Anderson, to cross the lines, and then returned to his head-quarters at Robin- son's house, opposite West Point. Meanwhile, sensible that he had come on shore without a flag, Andre began to be seriously luieasy. He had intended to return on board the Vulture, but in the interim, the commander of a battery had opened a can- 3 B 490 ANDR:^ lea yes west point. [1780. nonade on that ship, for which he was reprimanded, as an idle waste oi powder and shot. That discharge decided the fate of Andre, and, perhaps, the destinies of America. The Vukure was obHged to retire some distance lower down the river, and Smith, afraid to pass the guard boats, now positively refused to take Andre on board, but offered to accompany him on horseback beyond the American lines, whence he could return to New York by land. Having no alternative, Andre reluctantly complied, having, at Arnold's sug- gestion, exchanged his regimentals for an ordinary dress. They set out a little before sunset, crossed the river at King's Ferry to Verplank's Point, and it being now dark, took the road towards New York. At the outposts they were challenged by a sentinel. Andre's pass was closely scrutinized by the officer on duty, and many and close inquiries addressed to him. At length, to his infinite satisfaction, he was released with an aj^ology, and advised to remain all night, on account of the marauders with which the neutral ground was infested. It was only after great persuasion on the part of Smith, that Andre consented to do so, and the former afterwards declared that he passed the night in great restlessness and uneasiness. At the dawn of day they were again in the saddle ; and now, considering himself beyond the reach of danger, the spirits of the young officer, which had hitherto been depressed by the sense of danger, recovered their natural elasticity. After breakfast- ing on the road they parted, and Andre continued his road towards New York alone. The tract upon which he now entered was called " the Neutral Ground," extending thirty miles along the Hudson, between the English and American lines. It was infested by two gangs of marauders^ the offspring of civil commotion, respectively denominated Cow-boys and Skinners. The former were mostly refugees attached to the British side, who made it their vocation to drive off cattle to the army at New York. The Skinners Avere professed patriots, but were detested even more than the Cow-boys by their own coun- trymen, between whom and the enemy they made but small distinction in their predatory expeditions. The unhappy inhabitants, if they embraced the American cause, were robbed by the Cow-boys ; if, on the contrary, they espoused that of the English, the Skinners would seize their goods, and have their property confiscated. To use the language of an eye-witness, — " Exposed to the depredations of both parties, they were often actually plundered, and always were liable to this calamity. They feared every body whom they saw, and loved nobody. To every question they gave such an answer as would please the inquirer ; or, if they despaired of pleasing, such a one as would not provoke him. Fear was, apparently, the only passion by which they were ani- mated. The power of volition seemed to have deserted them. They were not civil, but obsequious ; not obliging, but subservient. They yielded with a kind of apathy, and very quietly, what you asked, and what they supposed it impossible for them to retain. If you treated them kindly, they received it coldly ; not as a kindness, but as a compensation for injuries done them by others. When you spoke to them, they answered you without either good or ill 1780.] CONDITION OF ''THE NEUTRAL GROUND:' 491 nature, and without any appearance of reluctance or hesitation ; but they sub- joined neither questions nor remarks of their own; proving to your full con- viction that they felt no interest either in the conversation or yourself. Both their countenances and their motions had lost every trace of animation and of feeling. Their features were smoothed, not into serenity, but apathy ; and, in- stead of being settled in the attitude of quiet thinking, strongly indicated, that all thought, beyond what was merely instinctive, had fled their minds for ever. " Their houses, meantime, were, in a great measure, scenes of desolation. Their furniture was extensively plundered, or broken to pieces. The walls, floors, and windows were injured both by violence and decay, and were not repaired, because they had not the means to repair them, and because they were exposed to the repetition of the same injuries. Their cattle were gone. Their enclosures were burnt, where they were capable of becoming fuel; and in many cases thrown down, where they were not. Their fields were co- vered with a rank growth of weeds and wild grass. " Amid all this appearance of desolation, nothing struck the eye more forci- bly than the sight of the high road. Where there had heretofore been a continual succession of horses and carriages, life and bustle lending a spright- liness to all the environing objects, not a single, solitary traveller was seen, from week to week, or from month to month. The world was motionless and silent, except when one of these unhappy people veirtured upon a rare and lonely excursion to the house of a neighbour no less unhappy, or a scouting party, traversing the country in quest of enemies, alarmed the inhabitants M'ith expectations of new injuries and sufferings. The very tracks of the car- riages were grown over and obliterated; and, where they were discernible, resembled the faint impressions of chariot-wheels, said to be left on the pave- ments of Herculaneum. The grass was of full height for the scythe, and strongly realized the proper import of that picturesque declaration in the Song of Deborah: 'In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the high-Avays were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through by-paths. The inhabitants of the villages ceased: they ceased in Israel.' " Both Cow-boys and Skinners had a general licence to arrest suspicious per- sons, which they often abused for purposes of plunder. It happened that on the morning a party, consisting of John Paulding and two associates, had concealed themselves by the road, on the look-out for cattle or travellers. Paulding, it is said, had escaped from prison in New York only three days before, in the disguise of a German yager, which he then wore. Seeing a gentleman approach, he sprung out and seized his bridle, and presenting his firelock, demanded of him where he was going. Andre, deceived by the dress, exclaimed, " Thank God, I am once more among friends ! " and address- ing the men, said, " I hope you belong to our party." " What party?" ex- claimed his captors. " The Lower (or British) party," was his reply — upon which, they rejoined that they did. Andre, thus deceived, imprudently avowed himself a British oflicer bound upon urgent business. They now caused him to dismount, and conducted him into a thicket, cut his saddle and 3 B 2 492 ANDR]^ TAKEN PRISONER BY THE AMERICANS. [1780. cloak lining, as Andre himself declared, in quest of money, and not finding it, said, " He may have it in his boots ;" which, with his stockings, they caused him to pull oiF. The papers which Arnold had given him at parting were thus discovered. Their suspicions were now aroused, and, notwith- standing the offers of Andre to give them what he had, which, however, Avas but a small sum in paper, and send them any amount they might desire, Paulding and his companions, prompted by patriotic motives, refused his most temjDting offers, and persisted in conductmg him to North Castle, the nearest military post, where he was delivered up to Lieutenant-Colonel Jame- son, the officer in command. Jameson, having looked over the papers, was in a state of great perplexity, never entertaining the most distant suspicion of Arnold. He decided at length on forwarding his prisoner to that general, informing him that he had sent the papers, found in Andre's boots, to Washington, as being of '' a very dangerous tendency." Andre accordingly was on his way to West Point, with a guard, when Major Tallmadge, next in command to Jameson, stated his sus- picions of treachery, and earnestly begged that the prisoner might be recalled. With some reluctance his request was granted, the letter to Arnold was sent forward, and Andre, who might otherwise have escaped with Arnold, was brovight back again. Finding his papers had been sent to Washington, he now wrote him a letter, explaining his name and rank, and giving a clear and candid account of the circumstances under which he had been betrayed within the American lines. This letter he handed to Tallmadge, who, though he had suspected that his captive was a military man, now found, to his surprise, that he w^as adjutant-general to the British army. MeauAvhile Washington, who, on his return from Hartford, had passed the night at Fishkill, set off with his suite before dawn, with the intention of breakfasting with Arnold at Robinson's house. When nearly opposite West Point he turned his horse down a lane, when La Fayette reminded him that he was taking the wrong road, and that Mrs. Arnold was, no doubt, waiting break- fast for them. " Ah," replied Washington, jokingly, " I know you young men are all in love with Mrs. Arnold, and wish to get where she is as soon as pos- sible. You may go and take your breakfast with her, and tell her not to wait for me, for I must ride down and examine the redoubts on this side the river, and will be there in a short time." His officers, however, declined to leave him, and two of his aides-de-camp were sent forward to explain the cause of the delay. On learning that Washington and his suite would not be there for some time, Arnold and his family sat down to breakfast with the aides. While they were yet at table. Lieutenant Allen came in, and presented the letter from Jameson, informing Arnold that " Jlajor Andre, of the British army, was a frisoner in his custody.''^ Controlling his agitation, he arose, with the letter in his hand, and telling his companions that his presence Avas iirgently required at West Point, he went upstairs to his wife's chamber, and sent to call her. In a few words he explained to her that he must fly for his life, and that they might 1780.] ARNOLD ESCAPES TO THE BRITISH ARMY. 493 never meet again. She fell in a swoon upon tlie floor. Kissing his child, he hastily descended to the river-side, and entered his six-oared barge, telling the men that he was going on board the Vulture with a flag. Unconscious of his purpose, and stimulated by the promise of drink, they exerted themselves to the utmost to reach the vessel. Arnold, leaping on board, was placed beyond the reach of pursuit. Soon after he had departed, Washington returned, and after breakfasting, determined to cross over to West Point. As the whole party glided across the river, surrounded by the majestic scenery of the Highlands, Washington said, " Well, gentlemen, I am glad, on the whole, that General Arnold has gone before us, for. we shall now have a'salute, and the roaring of the cannon will have a fine efiect among these mountains." The boat drew near to the beach, but no cannon were heard, and there was no appearance of preparation to receive them. *' What," said Washington, " do they not intend to salute us ? " As they landed, an officer descended the hill, and apologized for not being prej)ared to receive such distinguished visitors. " How is this, sir," said Wasliington, " is not General Arnold here ? " " No, sir," replied the officer, " he has not been here these two days, nor have I heard from him within that time." " This is extraordinary," said Washington, " we Avere told he had crossed the river, and that we should find him here ;" and then ascended the hill, and inspected the fortifications. On his return to the house he was encountered by Hamilton, who, taking him aside, placed in his hands the papers forwarded by Jameson, together with the letter of Andre. Washing- ton was deeply distressed, for no officer had rendered more important service to America than Arnold, or might have seemed more deeply pledged to it. ** Whom can we trust now?" he sadly exclaimed to his companions. The house was a scene of misery. Arnold's wife was frantic with grief, and the sympathies of Washington and his officers were warmly excited for her de- plorable situation. Shortly afterward a letter came in from Arnold, beg- ging protection for his wife and child. " I have no favour," said the hardened traitor, " to ask for myself, I have too often experienced the in- gratitude of my country to attempt it, but from the known humanity of your Excellency, I am induced to ask your protection for Mrs. Arnold from every insult and injviry that a mistaken vengeance of my country might expose her to. It ought only to fall on me. She is as innocent as an angel, and is incapable of doing wrong." Such an apj)eal was how- ever unnecessary, the heart of Washington felt for the unhappy woman, and she received from him a pass to repair to her husband at New York. To many it has ever been doubtful whether this lady was not the tempter to her husband's crime. In the " Life of Aaron Burr," are some statements relating to the subject. " It is well known that Washington found Mrs. Arnold apparently frantic with distress at the communication her hus- band had made to her the moment before his flight. Lafayette, and the other officers in the suite of the commander-in-chief, were alive with the most 494 ^ GRIEF OF MRS. ARNOLD. ' [1780. poignant sympathy; and a passport was given her by Washington, with which she immediately left "West Point to join Arnold in New York. On her way she stopped at the house of Mrs. Prevost, the wife of a British officer, who subsequently married Colonel Burr. Here the frantic scenes of West Point were renewed," says the narrative of Burr's biographer, " and con- tinued so long as strangers were present. As soon as she and Mrs. Prevost were left alone, however, Mrs. Arnold became tranquillized, and assured Mrs. Prevost, that she was heartily sick of the theatrics she was exhibiting. She stated that she had corresponded with the British commander ; that she was disgusted with the American cause, and those who had the management of public affiiirs; and that, through great persuasion and unceasing perse- verance, she had ultimately brought the general into an arrangement to sur- render West Point to the British. Mrs. Arnold was a gay, accomplished, artful, and extravagant woman. There is no doubt, therefore, that, for the purj^ose of acquiring the means of gratifying her vanity, she contributed greatly to the utter ruin of her husband, and thus doomed to everlasting infamy and disgrace all the fame he had acquired as a gallant soldier, at the sacrifice of his blood." Andre was now conveyed to West Point, and from thence sent down the river to Tappan in the custody of Major Tallmadge. Hitherto he appears to have thought that, with no intention of acting as a spy, and being reluctantly persuaded to cross the lines, he had no reason to fear for his life. *' Before we reached the Clove," says his conductor, " he became very in- quisitive to know my opinion as to the result of his capture. When I could no longer evade his importunity, I remarked to him as follows : — ' I had a miich- loved class-mate in Yale College, by the name of Hale, who entered the army in 1775. Immediately after the battle of Long Island, Washington wanted information respecting the strength of the enemy. Hale tendered his services, went over to Brooklyn, and was taken, just as he was passing the outposts of the enemy on his return.' Said I, with emphasis, ' Do you remember the sequel of the story?' 'Yes,' said Andre, 'he was hanged as a spy. But you surely do not consider his case and mine alike ! ' I replied, ' Yes, pre- cisely similar, and similar will be your fate.' He endeavoured to answer my remarks, but it Avas manifest he was more troubled in spirit than I had ever seen him before." The first object of the commander-in-chief Avas to take measures to defeat the intended movements concerted with Clinton. His position was verv em- barrassing. Bvimours were circulating, though without foundation, that others were implicated in the treachery of Arnold. He resolved however to treat every one as innocent until criminated by fair evidence, and he had the satisfaction of finding that treason was confined to the breast of Arnold alone. On the arrival of Andre at Tappan, a court-martial, consisting of the first officers in the army, and presided over by Greene, was appointed to try him. On being examined, the prisoner candidly recapitulated what he had already stated in his letter to Washington. His own statements, without any further 1780.] ' ANDRt CONDEMNED TO DEATH. 495 evidence, were sufficient to convict him. The board reported that he had come on shore to hold a secret interview with Arnold, had changed his dress within the American lines, passed the guards in a disguised habit and name, having about him papers containing information for the enemy. These cir- cumstances, they considered, justified them in regarding him as a spy, and he was accordingly sentenced to suffer death by hanging. Ever since his capture, the unhappy prisoner had made the most favour- able impression. The elegance of his manners, his openness and candour, his many accomplishments, caused even his judges to deplore his fate, and heartily desire a less interesting victim. He bore the intelligence of his sentence with manly firmness, his chief anxiety being to exonerate himself from the odium attached to the character of a spy. The duty upon which he was sent was one strictly within the limits of military law, and it was by accident, not by premeditation, that he committed the imprudence of passing within the American lines, by which circumstance, and by which alone, he could fairly be condemned to death. On learning the nature of his sentence, Andre wrote a pathetic letter to Washington, entreating that he might be allowed to die the death of a soldier. Deeply affected, the commander-in- chief referred the subject to his officers, who unanimously desired that Andr^ should be shot, with the sole exception of General Greene, the president. " Andre," said he, " is either a spy, or an innocent person. If the latter, to execute him, in any way, will be murder ; if the former, the mode of his death is prescribed by law, and you have no right to alter it. Nor is this all. At the present alarming crisis of our affairs the public safety calls for a solemn and impressive example. Nothing can satisfy it short of the execu- tion of the prisoner as a common spy ; a character of which his own con- fession has clearly convicted him. Beware how you suffer your feelings to triumph over your judgment. Indulgence to one may be death to thousands. Through mistaken sensibility, humanity may be wounded, and the cause of freedom sustain an injury you cannot remedy. " Besides, if you shoot the prisoner instead of hanging him, you will excite suspicions which you will be unable to allay. Notwithstanding all your efforts to the contrary, you will awaken public compassion, and the belief will become general that, in the case of Major Andre, there Avere exculpatory circumstances, entitling him to lenity beyond what he received — perhaps entitling him to pardon. Hang him, therefore, or set him free." The argu- ments of Greene prevailed, and the ignominious sentence was accordingly confirmed. Compassion for Andre and detestation for Arnold now suggested to Washington the idea of effecting, if possible, an exchange, and transferring the penalty to be incurred by the former, upon the guilty head of the latter. This proposal was indirectly made to Sir Henry Clinton, but deeply as he loved Andre, and much as he must have despised Arnold, yet honour forbade that he should give up the traitor to the vengeance of his injured country. 49G CLINTON TRIES TO OBTAIN ANDRJ^'8 RELEASE. [1780. The last hours of the unhappy young man are best described in Dr. Thatcher's Military Journal. " October 1st, 1780. — I went this afternoon to -witness the execution of Major Andre. — A large concourse of people had assembled, the gallows was erected, and the grave and coffin prepared to receive the remains of this celebrated but unfortunate officer ; but a flag of truce arrived with a communication from Sir Henry Clinton, making another and further pro- posal for the release of Major Andre, in consequence of which the execution was postponed till to-morrow, at twelve o'clock. " The flag which came out this morning brought General E-obertson, Andrew Eliot, and William Smith, Esqrs., for the purpose of pleading for the release of Major Andre, the royal army being in the greatest affliction on the occasion. The two latter gentlemen, not being military officers, were not permitted to land, but General Greene was appointed by his Excellency to meet General Robertson at Dobb's Ferry and to receive his communications. He had nothing material to urge, but that Andre had come on shore under the sanction of a flag, and therefore could not be considered as a spy. But this is not true: he came on shore in the night, and had no flag, on business totally incompatible with the nature of a flag. Besides, Andre himself candidly con- fessed, on his trial, that he did not consider himself under the sanction of a flag. General Robertson, having failed in his point, requested that the opinion of disinterested persons might be taken, and proposed Generals Knyphauscn and Eochambeau as proper persons. After this he had recourse to threats of retaliation on some people in New York and Charlestown, but he was told that such conversation could neither be heard nor understood. He next urged the release of Andre on motives of humanity, saying, he wished an intercourse of such civilities as might lessen the horrors of war, and cited instances of General Clinton's merciful disposition, adding that Andre pos- sessed a great share of that gentleman's affection and esteem, and that he would be infinitely obliged if he was spared. He oflfered, if his earnest wishes were complied with, to engage that any prisoner in their possession, whom General Washington might name, should immediately be set at liberty. But it must be viewed as the height of absurdity that General Robertson should, on this occasion, suffer himself to be the bearer of a letter which the vile traitor had the consummate effrontery to write to General Washington. This insolent letter is filled with threats of retaliation, and the accountability of his Excel- lency for the torrents of blood that might be shed, if he should order the execution of Major Andre. It would seem impossible that General Ro- bertson could suppose that such insolence would receive any other treat- ment than utter contempt. " October 2nd. Major Andre is no more among the living. I have just witnessed his exit. It was a tragical scene of the deepest interest. During his confinement and trial, he exhibited those proud and elevated sensibilities which designate greatness and dignity of mind. Not a murmur or a sigh ever escaped him, and the civilities and attentions bestowed on him were politely acknowledged. Having left a mother and two sisters in England, he was 1780.] DEATH OF MAJOR ANDRA 497 heard to mention tlieni in terms of the greatest affection, and in his letter to Sir Henry Chnton, he recommends them to his particular attention. " The principal guard officer, Avho was constantly in the room with the prisoner, relates, that when the hour of his execution was announced to him in the morning, he received it without emotion, and while all present were affected with silent gloom, he retained a firm countenance, with a calmness and composure of mind. Observing his servant enter his room in tears, he exclaimed, ' Leave me, till you can shoAV yourself more manly.' His break- fast being sent him from the table of General Washington, which had been done every day of his confinement, he partook of it as usual, and having shaved and dressed himself, he placed his hat on the table, and cheerfully said to the guard officers, ' I am ready at any moment, gentlemen, to wait on you.' The fatal hour having arrived, a large detachment of troops was paraded, and an immense concourse of people assembled ; almost all our general and field officers, excepting his Excellency and his staff, were present on horseback ; melancholy and gloom pervaded all ranks, and the scene was affectingly awful. I was so near during the solemn march to the fatal spot, as to observe every movement, and participate in every emotion which the melancholy scene was calculated to produce. Major Andre walked from the stone-house, in which he had been confined, between two of our subaltern officers, arm in arm ; the eyes of the immense multitude were fixed on him, who, rising superior to the fears of death, appeared as if conscious of the dignified deportment which he displayed. He betrayed no want of forti- tude, but retained a complacent smile on his countenance, and politely bowed to several gentlemen whom he knew, which was respectfully returned. It was his earnest desire to be shot, as being the mode of death most conform- able to the feelings of a military man, and he had indulged the hope that his request would be granted. At the moment, therefore, when suddenly he came in view of the gallows, he involuntarily started backward, and made a pause. ' Why this emotion, sir?' said an officer by his side. Instantly re- covering his composure, he said, ' I am reconciled to my death, but I detest the mode.' While waiting and standing near the gallows, I observed some degree of trepidation ; placing his foot upon a stone, and rolling it over, and choking in his throat, as if attempting to swallow. So soon, however, as he perceived that things were in readiness, he stepped quickly into the waggon, and at this moment he appeared to shrink, but instantly elevating his head, with firmness, he said, ' It will be but a momentary pang ;' and taking from his pocket two white handkerchiefs, the provost-marshal, with one, loosely pmioned his arms, and with the other, the victim, after taking off his hat and stock, bandaged his own eyes with perfect firmness, which melted the hearts and moistened the cheeks, not only of his servant, but of the throng of spec- tators. The rope being appended to the gallows, he slipped the noose over his head, and adjusted it to his neck, without the assistance of the awkward executioner. Colonel Scammel now informed him, that he had an opportunity to speak, if he desired it ; he raised his handkerchief from his eyes, and said, 3 8 403 THE AMERICANS TRY TO CAPTURE ARNOLD. [1780. ' I pray you to bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man.' The waggon being now removed from under him, he was suspended, and instantly expired ; it proved indeed ' but a momentary pang.' He was dressed in his royal regimentals and boots, and his remains Avere placed in an ordinary coffin and interred at the foot of the gallows ; and the spot was consecrated by the tears of thousands." The spot where Andre suffered is near Tappan, and marked by a large stone with an inscription. His remains were taken up in 1831, by desire of the British consul at New York, and it was found that a peach tree planted by some sympathetic friend had twined its roots around his skull. They were finally deposited near the handsome monument erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey. His captors were rewarded with a handsome an- nuity by Congress. Arnold received ten thousand pounds for his treachery, and the rank of colonel in the British army. Many attempts Avere made by the Americans to get possession of the traitor, in order to inflict upon him the punishment due to his crime. One of these is strikingly romantic. Washington having secretly requested Major Lee to pick out an individual of tried fidelity and courage, his choice fell upon Serjeant Champe, who was instructed to desert to the enemy at New York, get introduced to Arnold, and concert measures for seizing and carrying him off. Accordingly, one night he mounted his horse and rode off, but his escape was speedily discovered and reported to his com- manding officer. Lee, anxious to gain time, contrived to delay pursuit of the supposed deserter as long as possible, but with such ardour was the chase kept up, that Champe had barely time to reach the shore and swim off to a British guard-boat, Avhen his pursuers were close upon his heels. As it was the policy of the British to encourage desertions, Champe was handsomely rcAvarded by Sir Henry Clinton, who desired him to present himself to Arnold, then occupied in raising a legion of runaway recruits. In this he enlisted in order to have free access to his person, and sent Avord privately to Lee to meet him Avith horses on the other side of the Hudson. His plan Avas, Avith tAvo accomplices, to seize and gag Arnold in his garden, not far from the Avater, and in case of interruption, declare that he Avas a drunken soldier Avhom they were carrying off to the guard-house. They were then to hurry him into a boat and cross the river to the appointed ren- dezvous. Thither Lee accordingly repaired, and waited long and anxiously, but in A'ain. The plan Avas disconcerted by the sudden departure of Arnold and his legion to the south, and thus Champe, instead of being the captor, was himself insnared and carried off. Arrived at length in Virginia, he con- trived to desert and make his Avay back to his old comrades, who received him as one alive from the dead ; and the mystery of his disappearance being noAV explained, he Avas extolled as much as he had been formerly execrated. Convenient as Avas the treachery of Arnold to the British, they could not but secretly detest his character. From motlA'es the most sordid, he for- feited a dearly-earned and briUiaut reputation among his oAvn countrymen. 1780.] SECRET AGENTS EZrpLOYED BY WASHINGTON. 499 to reap contempt and ignominy among strangers. We shall shortly find liim turning his sword against his fellow-citizens, and plundering those whom he had formerly laboured to protect. He afterwards went to England, where he must have been often cut to the soul by the treatment he received. Even the patronage of royalty could not bespeak him a decent measure of respect. "When George III. once introduced him to Earl Balcarras, one of Burgoyne's officers who had witnessed his gallantry at Behmus' Heights, the earl re- plied, disdainfully turning on his heel, " I know General Arnold, and abom- inate traitors." It may be remarked in connexion with this subject, that many secret agents were employed by Washington during the progress of the war. Of these the most remarkable was Enoch Crosby, whose operations as a spy were chiefly on the neutral ground. His secret services were often important in revealing the designs of the royalists. Professing himself to be a zealous Tory, he obtained access to their meetings, and though he often be- -trayed their plans, such was his consummate tact, that he never was dis- covered. On one occasion, finding that a party were forming to join the English at New York, he wormed himself into the confidence of their leader, and during the night stole off and gave information to their enemies. AVhile, at his suggestion, a meeting was held the following evening, the whole party, himself inclusive, were surrounded and made prisoners, and confined in a neighbouring church. A means of escape was however artfully left him, and leaping through a window he darted off", a few bullets being fired after him at random, in order to keep up the deception. In this manner and at gi'cat personal risk he rendered important services to his country's cause. Being at length suspected by the English, he went into the army to the close of the revolution, and ended his days upon a farm. Washington had also agents in New York, who, unknown to each other, supplied him with information through different channels. Intelligence was conveyed by means of writing in invisible ink between the lines of an ordinary letter, so that if intercepted the risk of detection was but trifling. The banks of the Hudson, besides being perhaps the most beautiful in America, are for ever associated with these events. Here Washington had his head-quarters during the latter part of the war. Here occurred the trea- son of Arnold and the tragedy of the unfortunate Andre, The ruins of Fort Putnam overlook a magnificent scene of river and mountain, the theatre of these memorable events. Many a scene of thrilling adventure is connected with the " Neutral Ground." The Marquis of Chastellux, in his travels, gives so lively a picture of the American camp in the midst of this noble scenery, that we cannot refrain from inserting it, to give life and reality to the bare and indistinct outline of historical fact. " On my return southward," says Chastellux, " I spent a day or two at Verplank's Point, where I had the honour of dining with General Washing- ton. I had suffered severely from an ague, which I could not get quit of, though I had taken the exercise of a hard-trotting horse, and got thus far to 3 s 2 500 'APPEARANCE OF THE A21EBICAN CAMP. [1780. / I the north in tlie month of October. The General observing it, told me he was ' sure I had not met with a good glass of wine for some time, — an article then very rare, — but that my disorder must be frightened away. He made me drink three or four of his silver camp cups of excellent Madeira at noon, and recommended to me to take a generous glass of claret after dinner ; a pre- scription by no means repugnant to my feelings, and which I most religiously followed. I mounted my horse the next morning, and continued my journey to Massachusetts, without ever experiencing the slightest return of my dis- order. " The American camp here presented the most beautiful and picturesque appearance. It extended along the plain, on the neck of land formed by the winding of the Hudson, and had a view of this river to the south. Behind it, the lofty mountains, covered with wood, formed the most sublime back-ground that painting could express. In the front of the tents was a regular continued portico, formed by the boughs of the trees in fuU verdure, decorated with much taste and fancy. Opposite the camp, and on distinct eminences, stood , the tents of some of the general officers, over which towered predominant that of Washington. I had seen all the camps in England, from many of which drawings and engravings have been taken; but this was truly a subject worthy the pencil of the first artist. The French camp, during their stay in Baltimore, was decorated in the same manner. At the camp at Verplank's Point we distinctly heard the morning and evening gun of the British at Kingsbridge." " The weather being fair on the 26th," he says, " I got on horseback, after breakfasting with the General. He was so attentive as to give me the horse I rode on the day of my arrival. I found him as good as he is handsome ; but, above all, perfectly well broke and well trained, having a good mouth, easy in hand, and stopping short in a gallop without bearing the bit. I mention these minute particulars, because it is the General himself who breaks all his own horses. He is an excellent and bold horseman, leaping the highest fences, and going extremely quick without standing uiDon his stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse run wild ; circumstances which our young men look upon as so essential a part of English horsemanship that they would rather break a leg or an arm than renounce them." Amidst the fast-fading relics of the revolution, the ^' Hasbrouck House," near Newburgh, still attracts the pious footsteps of the pilgrim, as being the head-quarters of Washington during the last years of the war. It is, for America, rather antiquated, being no less than a hundred years old. Its lofty pointed gables, ponderous roofs, and picturesque piazza, mark the style of those mansions which are so rapidly disappearing before more showy modern edifices. The principal chamber, used as a sort of levee room by Washington, is of great size, with a fire-place large enough to roast an ox, and its low roof is supported by ponderous wooden beams, like those of an old English farm. It looks out upon one of the most magnificent river scenes in the world. The noble Hudson is seen entering the romantic pass of the 1780.] BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN FRANCE. 501 Highlands between parallel ranges of mountains, upon whose lofty wood- crowned heights, in those days, were often seen the watch-fires of the American army. The rapid progress of events on the soil of America has withdrawn our at- tention from one of the earlier and most important actors in the revolution, now transported to a distant shore. Franklin had lately been appointed sole commissioner to the coast of France, and was conspicuous amidst that scene of luxury and splendour, so near to the brink of a terrible convulsion. The queen, Marie Antoinette, had been one of the warmest friends to the Ameri- can cause, and her influence had procured for them many important ser- vices. Of this the people were well aware, and on the settlement of the Ohio Valley, shortly after the close of the war, the chief town was called, in honour of her. Marietta. " She was," to use the words of Leitch Ritchie, " a frivolous but not unamiable beauty. She was full of whims, and was determined to gratify them, at whatever cost. She went in disguise to the balls at the opera, and delighted to mix among the masks, and spread the report of her own presence. At Trianon she passed to an opposite extreme, and would be a simple milkmaid, dressed in a white muslin gown; with a gauze kerchief and a straw bonnet. She fished in the lake, she saw the cows milked, she loitered about the whole day, while the Count de Provence took the part of a miller, the Count d'Artois of a farmer, and the Cardinal de Rohan of a village curate. Here there was no court ceremony. No one stood up when she entered the room, the ladies went on with their music or embroidery, and the gentlemen with their gaming. Private theatricals were the great amusement, and the king was very happy to look on. Here she received many crowned heads and gave them fetes, at which the gardens were illum- inated with variegated lamps, and looked like fairy-land. Among the glit- tering throng there was one who attracted special attention, and whose presence was afterwards looked upon as an omen. He was a venerable old man, with white hair, round hat, and plain brown clothes. His name was Benjamin Franklin, and he had come over from America to stir up the French in favour of his country, which was about to throw off' the yoke of England and become a republic. Unhappily for monarchy, his voice was listened to. The national hatred of the English prevailed, and the troops of an absolute king crossed the Atlantic to fight side by side with rejDublicans, and, when the victory was gained, to bring back into the bosom of excited France the war of freedom and detestation of royalty." That Franklin once regarded George III. with feelings of sincere loyalty, and believed that he had been led unwillingly into the war by his ministers, has already appeared. He had now seen reason completely to change his opinion, and believed that it was the obstinacy of the monarch himself which compelled his ministers to continue the struggle, even after it had be- come evident that success on their part was hopeless. The revulsion of feel- ing was violent, and nothing could exceed the bitterness with which he now 502 WASHINGTON'S REPUTATION IN EUROPE. [1780. spoke and wrote of the king. In tlie violence of Franklin's feelings, the voice of an impartial philosophy was not allowed to suggest, that the maintenance of his empire in America, against what he believed to be rebellion, might have been as conscientious, though mistaken, a principle of action in the mind of George III., as was the resistance of the Americans to what they rightfully regarded to be an unconstitutional tyranny. No doubt the bitterness of Franklin's feelings was greatly aggravated by his profound detestation of war. In a letter to Dr. Price, one of the warmest friends of America in England, he anticipates a state of things, which let us hope is fast approaching. " We daily make improvements in jiatural, there is one I wish to see in moral philosophy — the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without first cutting each others' throats. When will human reason be sufficiently improved to see the advantage of this ? When will men be convinced that even successful wars at length become misfortunes to those who unjustly commenced them, and who triumphed blindly in their success, not seeing all its consequences ? Your great comfort and mine in this war is, that we honestly and faithfully did every thing in our power to prevent it." Another of Franklin's letters is extremely interesting, as showing the feel ings with which Washington was even then regarded in Europe. " I have received but lately the letter your Excellency did me the honour of writing to me, in recommendation of the Marquis de la Fayette. His modesty detained it long in his own hands. We became acquainted, how- ever, from the time of his arrival at Paris ; and his zeal for the honour of our country, his activity in our affairs here, and his firm attachment to our cause, and to you, impressed me with the same regard and esteem for him that your Excellency's letter would have done, had it been immediately delivered to me. " Should peace arrive after another campaign or two, and afford us a little leisure, I should be happy to see your Excellency in Europe, and to accom- pany you, if my age and strength would permit, in visiting some of its ancient and most famous kingdoms. You would, on this side the sea, enjoy the great reputation you have acquired, pure and free from those little shades, that the jealousy and envy of a man's countrymen and contemporaries are ever endea- vouring to cast over living merit. Here you would know, and enjoy, what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years. The feeble voice of those grovelling pas- sions cannot extend so far either in time or distance. At present I enjoy that pleasure for you, as I frequently hear the old generals of this martial coun- try (who study the maps of America and mark upon them all your opera- tions) speak with sincere approbation and great applause of your conduct, and join in giving you the character of one of the greatest captains of the age. " I must soon quit the scene, but you may live to see our country flour- ish ; as it will, amazingly and rapidly, after the war is over ; like a field of 1781.] THE ARMED -NEUTRALITY. 503 young Indian corn, which long fair weather and sunshine had enfeebled and discoloured, and which, in that ^eak state, by a thunder gust of violent wind, hail, and rain, seemed to be threatened with absolute destruction ; yet, the storm being past, it recovers fresh verdure, shoots up with double vigour, and delights the eye, not of its owner only, but of every observing traveller." If the harshness with which England had treated her American children had provoked the general reprobation of Europe, the spirit with which she bore up against the combined attacks of her enemies excited the astonish- ment of the world. The struggle in which she had become involved threat- ened to involve her single-handed in hostilities with all Europe, as well as the rebellious colonists. Her claim to exercise a despotic sovereignty over the ocean by examining neutral vessels for stores sent to America, had] pro- voked the northern powers to combine for their mutual protection, under the title of the Armed Neutrality. They insisted that their ships should be ex- empt from search, and that no port should be considered blockaded unless really invested by ships of war. Great Britain was obliged to renounce her pretensions rather than provoke so formidable a confederacy. The magistrates of Amsterdam having showed a disposition to join the Armed' Neutrality, Henry Laurens was sent over to conclude a commercial treaty with Hol- land. The ship he sailed in being taken by the British, he threw his papers overboard, but one of the sailors plunged in and recovered them. The plan of the treaty being thus ascertained, the British government demanded satis- faction of the Dutch, and, not promptly receiving it, declared war. The fleets required to contend with such a host of enemies were immense. In the West Indies, at the rock of Gibraltar, even in distant Hindostan, the English, though at a ruinous expense, met and eventually triumphed over their Euro- pean enemies, and the origin of the war was almost forgotten amidst the vast and increasing hostilities which it had called into existence. CHAPTER VI. CAMPAIGN JF 1781. — MUTINY OF THE TROOPS. — GREENE AND CORNWALLIS IN THE SOUTH. — IN- VEST.MENT AND CAPTURE OF YORKTOWN. — BATTLE OP EUTAW SPRINGS. — TREATY OF PEACE, — MASSACRE OF GNADENHUTTEN. — RETIREMENT OF WASHINGTON. The last year of this long and weary struggle, destined as it was to close so memorably for the Americans, was gloomy and inauspicious in the opening. The regular troops had endured the extremity >of hardship without repining, but now, without pay or clothing, forgotten as it seemed by an ungrateful country, they at length broke out into mutiny, and resolved to wring from 504: MUTINY IN THE ARMY. [1781. tlic fears of Congress what tliey had failed to obtain from tlieir justice or their pity. On the night of the 1st of January, at a concerted signal, the "whole Pennsylvania line turned out and declared their intention of marching upon Philadelphia. Their officers sought in vain to restrain them ; in their mood of exasperation they killed one of them, and wounded several others. AVhen even Wayne himself advanced with a cocked pistol, they pointed their bayonets at his breast, exclaiming, " General, we love, we respect you, but if you fire you are a dead man. We are not going to desert to the enemy. Were he in sight this moment you would see us fight under your orders in defence of our country. We love liberty, but we cannot starve." Finding them fixed in their determination, Wayne sent provisions after them to pre- vent their plundering the inhabitants, and proposed to the Serjeants who had been elected leaders of the revolt to send a deputation to Congress. The soldiers however were not in a mood to temporize, and insisted on marching forward. At Trenton they were met by three emissaries of Sir Henry Clin- ton, who had seized what he thought the proj^itious moment to seduce them by liberal promises. But however exasperated by their sufferings, the men disdained the idea, as they said, of becoming Arnolds; and they seized upon their British tempters, who were afterwards tried and executed as spies. In this alarming state of things, when the refusal of their chums might induce them to disband and return to their homes, Congress, obliged to bend, sent a deputation to meet and conciliate the mutineers. Suffering as they were, one great cause of dissatisfaction was the construction put upon the terms of enlistment, which, as they contended, were for three years or the war, instead of and the war, Avhereas their officers insisted on having it. On this point Congress were obliged to give way, and a considerable number were disbanded. A timely supply of clothing and certificates for the speedy dis- charge of their arrears of pay, induced the remainder to resume their duty. Washington had watched this sudden movement with the deepest anxiety. While he felt, on .one hand, the substantial justice of the demands thus made, he feared lest a compliance with them might induce tlie whole army to adopt a similar method of obtaining redress. He took this occasion of urging upon the New England States the necessity of subsidies that could no longer be safely denied, and a large sum of money, equal to three months' pay, the timely distribution of which checked any disposition to mutiny in the troops belonging to those States. But the New Jersey line shortly breaking into revolt, he determined to employ the most vigorous measures of repression. The precaution had already been taken of ordering a thousand trusty men to hold themselves in readiness for service ; six hundred of these were marched down to compel the rioters to surrender. Their camp was surrounded, and finding themselves taken by surprise, they were obliged to parade without their arms and make unconditional submission. Two of the ringleaders were shot; and by this painful but -summary method, the evil was prevented fiom spreading any further. This alarming outbreak indicated but too plainly the diseased condition of 1781.] ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL BANK. 505 the country. The paper money was fast reaching the last stage of depression. The scheme for specific supplies to the army had failed, the credit of Con- gress was all but annihilated, and the States neglected to pay the sums re- spectively required of them. Before the agents of government abroad had succeeded in negociating loans, so desperate was their need, Congress were already issuing bills of credit upon the strength of them. In such a state of things, it required the resources of a master-mind to grapple with the financial difficulties of the country. Such a man was Robert Morris, a native of England, who came over to America when but fifteen years of age ; and entering into a commercial life, became one of the leading men of Phila- delphia, " Though of English birth," says Sullivan, "he devoted himself to the patriot side in the revolutionary contest. He had acquired great wealth as a merchant, but he cheerfully risked the whole of it to gain the independence of his adopted country. The final success of the revolution depended no less on the ability and industry of this one man, than on all the armies, with Wash- ington as their chief." When Congress had exhausted their means, all other means depended on Robert Morris, At one time he had used his own personal credit, to the extent of one million four hundred thousand dollars, to sustain the credit of the United States. At a critical moment be had presented the suffering army with a whole ship-load of clothing and annnuni- tion. Under his auspices, a national bank was established, which proved a most important auxiliary to Congress, Its bills payable on demand were recognised as legal tender for the public taxes, and by issuing exchequer notes, the government were able to anticipate their produce. Under the able management of Morris, public credit revived, and a new impulse was com- municated to all the operations of government. On the relinquishment of the system of boards, he was induced to accept the post of treasurer, on the ex- press condition that all transactions should be in specie value. The doom of the old paper was now sealed, and it declined with such rapidity, that by the end of the year it had entirely gone out of circulation. After the mutiny, Laurens was despatched to France, to press more urgently upon the government the absolute necessity of a loan, to extricate the Americans from their embarrassment. Before his arrival, Franklin had already obtained a considerable subsidy, and Laurens now succeeded in get- ing the French minister to guarantee a loan on Holland. These pecuniary succours were of inestimable value in promoting operations, upon which the termination of this long and weary contest depended. When General Greene, at the commencement of the year, had assumed the command in the south, he found an army mostly of militia, consisting of less than two thousand men, but three days' provision in the camp, and a wretched supply of ammunition. In front was Cornwallis, with a superior force and master of the country, Virginia, herself menaced with a formidable invasion, was the only source to which he could look for further succours. The task might well have discouraged the most sanguine mind. He had at once to keep at bay a powerful and victorious foe, to overawe the triumphant loyalists, and 3t 606 GREENE OPENS THE CA MPAIGN IN THE SO UTH [1781. encourage the cTislicartened republicans. He had to cover an immense territory with a force which, utterly insufficient as it was, it required all his resources and experience as quarter-master-general to provide for. Yet, under such disadvantages, his bold and comprehensive mind dared to attempt the recovery of the two Carolinas and the protection of Virginia. His policy was, to harass and divide the royal army, intimidate its partisans, cut off its supplies ; to avoid a general engagement, except where victory could be little less ruinous to the royal army than a defeat ; to allow no repulse to discourage him, but turn again on his pursuers at the earliest opportunity, and fairly exhaust them with a tedious and indecisive campaign. He well knew the skill and energy of Lord Cornwallis, and of the officers by whom he was supported. Yet, confident in his mental resources, he determined to grapple with and overcome these numerous and formidable obstacles. Having, so far as possible, reorganized his army, Greene opened the cam- paign, by taking post himself at the Cheraw Hill on the Pedee. He next sent General Morgan, the brave commander of the rifles at Saratoga, with four hundred continentals under Colonel Howard, Colonel Washington's corps of dragoons, and a few militia, to a position near Ninety-six, in order to overawe the Tories, who were committing great ravages on the republi- cans, and encourage the latter to repair to his standard. Cornwallis, whose head-quarters Avere at Winnsborough, finding that Greene had thus divided his forces, pushed northward betAveen the Broad river and the Catawba; intending to place himself between Greene and Morgan, in pursuit of whom he detached the indefatigable Tarleton. This officer displayed his customary alacrity, and closely pressed upon Morgan, Avho, rather than be overtaken at a disadvantage, boldly came to a halt, and determined to risk an engage- ment, the loss of Avhich Avould have proved as fatal to himself, as it would probably have been ruinous also to Greene. Morgan selected for the purpose a spot called the Cowpens, and proceeded to draAV up his force with no small measure of skill. In front he placed his militia, Avith orders to keep up the fire as long as possible, and then foil back and range Avith the main body in the rear, composed of his Avell-trained con- tinentals and tAVo bodies of Virginia militia, upon Avhom his chief reliance Avas placed. Colonel Washington with his cavalry Avas placed so as to protect the flanks. Morgan noAv harangued his troops, urging the militia to remember their families and homes, and warning the continentals not to be alarmed at the retreat of the front line, that being a part of his plan and orders. Posting himself Avith the main body, he then, on the 17th of January, aAvaited the attack of the English. Tarleton and his men, Aveary as they Avere Avith pursuit, came up with their usual impetuosity, and the line being hastily formed, rushed to the charge with loud shouts and a confident anticipation of victory. The militia, after delivering a discharge, fell back, and the victorious assailants next came in contact Avith the continentals. With these tried soldiers, hoAvcA^er, their success WMs different, and so obstinate Avas the struggle that Tarleton Avas obliged to 507 order up his reserve, whicli now outflanked the line of the Americans. To avoid the danger. Colonel Howard ordered a portion of his men to change front, but the order being misunderstood, the whole body fell back. At the sight of this supposed retreat, the British infantry rushed forward with im- jnetuosity to complete their discomfiture ; when their enemies unexpectedly faced about and delivered a close and murderous fire. To a soldier confident of victory, nothing is so dangerous as a sudden revulsion or panic. The fore- most of the British were thrown into confusion, when, at this critical moment, Howard ordered his men to advance upon them with the bayonet, and from pursued to become the pursuers. The British infantry now turned and fled, while the cavalry, who had pursued the American militia, were charged and broken by Colonel Washington ; and the whole of that force, a moment before confident of victory, now fled discomfited from the field. Not all the efforts of their ofl[icers could stay the rout. With a handful of his dragoons and several officers, Tarleton turned fiercely upon Colonel Washington's horse, with the hope of restoring the battle and rallying the fugitives ; but all his efl^orts proved in vain, and he fled with his horsemen to carry the bitter news to Cornwallis, then but a few miles distant. He had lost about eight hundred men in killed and wounded, and all his artillery, ammunition, baggage, and horses fell into the power of the victors. This triumph over an enemy so long dreaded for his fiery courage and merciless severity, the terror of the whole country, not only animated the republicans with enthusiasm, but was the proximate cause of all the difliculties of the English during the rest of the campaign. Deeply distressed at this untoward event, Cornwallis lost nothing of his customary energy and determination ; but set himself to neutralize, if possible, the success of Morgan, and wrest his prisoners from his grasp by a bold and decided movement. Setting himself the first example by the sacrifice of his own share, he ordered the superfluous baggage and stores to be destroyed, and converted his army into a light corps, carrying their provisions on their backs. His object was to overtake Morgan, and, if possible, prevent his form- ing a junction with Greene, and then, by pressing forAvard to the Yadkin, which separates North Carolina from Virginia, before the American general could arrive thei'e, interrupt his expected succours, and compel him to a general action. His adversaries, however, were both on the alert, and speedily penetrating his plans, strained every nerve to render them abortive. Morgan had lost not a moment in pushing on for tb*- fords of the Catawba ; and such had been his activity, that just two hours before the van of the British came in sight he had successfully transferred his army and baggage to the opposite shore. It Avas dark when the English army came up, and they encamped on the bank of the river. Just at this critical moment the elements seemed to fight for the salvation of the Americans and the discomfiture of their pursuers. During the night a heavy fall of rain, which, had it occurred a little sooner, must, by rendering the stream impassable, have prevented Morgan's escape, now obliged Cornwallis and his army to pause impatient on the shore till the 3 T 2 508 CORNWA LLIS MA R CHE8 IN P URS UIT OF GREENE. [1 781. fugitive corps were out of danger, and tlie prisoners were sent forward out of the risk of recapture. No sooner had Greene heard of the battle of the Cowpens, than, antici- pating that Cornwallis would pursue, he despatched his main body, under General Huger, by a direct route towards Salisbury, and then set out with a few dragoons to meet Morgan, and assume the command of his division. The river meanwhile had subsided, and Cornwallis prepared to cross over, while his adversaries endeavoured to delay the passage to the utmost, in order to gain time for the main army to advance beyond the reach of pur- suit. Lest this should happen, the English general determined to force a passage ; and, after making a feint at different spots, on the morning of the 1st of February, appeared at Gowan's Ford, guarded by General Davidson and three hundred men. The English advanced with intrepidity into the stream, which was broad, deep, and full of impediments ; and, in spite of a heavy fire, succeeded in gaining the opposite shore and forming in order of battle. A smart action ensued, in which Davidson and thirty men were killed, and a corps of militia who endeavoured to make a stand, routed and dispersed by Tarleton's cavalry. Beth armies now continued the race towards the Yadkin, the next con- siderablu river in the direction of Virginia. The country was inundated with rain ; the roads, consisting of tough clay with large stones, were so cut up as to be almost impassable. Greene and Morgan nevertheless pushed forward so fast that they succeeded in passing the broad and rapid Yadkin before the English could overtake them. The pursuit Avas, however, so close that the van-guard captured some of the American waggons. All the boats that Greene could collect he conveyed to the opposite shore. Cornwallis came up and prepared to pass. And here again occurred another remarkable delay, which might well appear providential to the republicans. Just as the English arrived, the waters of the Yadkin rose as suddeuiy as those of the Catawba, and occasioned a further detention. Greene profited by the delay to push on to Guildford Court House, where, with Morgan's corps, he joined the main army, which had been sent forward under G^-neral Huger. Thus, owing to their extraordinary activity, aided by the .judden rising of the rivers, all the sacrifices and exertions of Cornwallis to prevent a junction of their forces had proved ineffectual. Bitterly disappointed, that active officer lost not a moment in improving what chances were still open to him. Could he but intercept the Americans before they reached the Dan, and prevent their crossing into Virginia, he might compel them to fight, and retrieve his misfortunes by a signal victory. The lower part of this river, swollen by the rains, Cornwallis believed to be impassable, and he therefore hastened to occupy the fords higher up its course, before the Americans could reach them. By great efforts he succeeded in doing so, and it now seemed that this lengthened and weary pursuit must ter- minate in the capture or defeat of his adversary. It was indeed the critical moment with Greene, and he summoned his whole 1781.] GREENE SUCCEEDS IN REACHING VIRGINIA. 509 energies to surmount the imminent peril wliich threatened his army — upon the existence of which, as he was well aware, hung the fate of all the southern, provinces. His forces were still too weak to encounter those of Cornwallis, and his only chance lay in the continuance of retreat. But could he be cer- tain of effecting it ? Cut off from the upper fords, he was obliged to attempt Irwin's feriy, at a point lower down the river, uncertain whether he should find it in a fordable condition, and whether the royal army, pressing after him with desperate speed, might not overwhelm him before he could even reach its shores. To cover his retreat, he organized a rear-guard of select troops, and confided them to the command of Colonel Williams, with orders to take post between the retreating and advancing army, to hover round the skirts of the latter, to seize every opportunity of striking it in detail, and of retard- ing its progress. And admirably did that officer fulfil the trust reposed in him. So close and uninterrupted was the pursuit, that one meal a-day was all that the soldiers could pause to snatch ; and out of forty-eight hours, but six could be spared to restore the fatigues of the rest. The British and American soldiers vied with each other in suffering and endurance during this long and fearful race. Worn out with unavailing conflict, the pursuers and pursued, close upon each other, paused as if by common consent, except in crossing a stream or passing a defile. The American rear-guard, most of whom were destitute of shoes, tracked the soil with blood as they pursued their painful march. By accomplishing forty miles in twenty-four hours, they at length succeeded in reaching the river shortly after Greene had crossed over, and rejoined their companions in safety upon the opposite shore, just as the van-guard of the British appeared in sight. Having failed to capture his antagonist, Cornwallis resolved at least to as- sume the merit of having expelled him from the conquered province. March- ing to Hillsborough, the late seat of the State government, the authorities fled before him to jSTewbern. He had sacrificed much of his supplies, his force was weakened, and he was a perilous distance from his base of operations. He set up his standard, and urged the loyalists to repair to It ; but overawed by the vicinity of Greene's army, they at first came forward so tardily, that he publicly complained of their apathy. This state of things was well known to his watchful adversary, who, aware that Tarleton had been sent out to encourage and organize the royalists, despatched Colonel Lee across the Dan to Intercept any bodies marching to join him. Scarcely had Lee started, when he suddenly fell In with a body of five hundred Tories under the command of Colonel Pyle, marching with so little order or foresight, that they threw them- selves into the midst of his corps with loud and reiterated cries of " Long live the king!" The sabres of the Americans soon covlnced them of their fatal mistake. They were cut to pieces without mercy, and the few fugitives that escaped the bloody scene, dispersed panic-stricken through the neighbour- hood, each protesting that he alone had escaped. Those who were about to join Cornwallis were struck with dismay, and did not venture to rise and re- pair to his standard. 610 THE BATTLE OF OUILDFORD COURT HOUSE. [1781. To keep up this discouragement, Greene now ventured to recross the Dan, although he had received but a small part of his expected succours from Virginia. He moved into the district between the Haw and Deep rivers, inhabited principally by loyalists, who were thus effectually kept in aAve. To counteract this influence, Cornwallis followed in pursuit, labouring incessantly to compel his antagonist to engage. But Greene was too wary to give this advantage to an adversary whose position was getting every day more preca- rious, while his own was as rapidly improving. Throwing, therefore, in front his light corps, he kept up a series of marches, countermarches, feints, and stratagems, that utterly baffled the most strenuous exertions of Cornwallis. He never communicated to any one the day beforehand where his next encampment would be, and yet, such was the activity of his scouts, was never many hours at a time without a correct knowledge of the position of his foe. During these erratic movements he was often obliged to beg bread of his own soldiers. Worn out with a fruitless and harassing ch ise, Cornwallis paused awhile at Bell's Mills, while Greene took up a post where he could maintain com- munications with Virginia. By degrees his expected succours arrived ; and with sixteen hundred continentals and as many militia as raised his army to four thousand five hundred men, he found himself at the head of a force more than double that of Cornwallis. He determined, therefore, to seek and engage him, convinced that, even should the issue be unfavourable to him, the British general must relatively be more crippled than himself. Cornwallis was also fully sensible of the increasing difficulties of his position, which even a victory could hardly retrieve, while defeat must prove ruinous and fatal. Confident in the superiority of his troops, he nevertheless, rather than retreat, resolved to accept the challenge of his adversary. The two armies met near Guildford Court House, on the 15th of March, in a country almost covered with trees and underwood. Greene drew up his first and second lines on a wooded hill, with an open field in front. The first consisted of North Carolina militia, the second of Virginian, while behind were posted the continentals ; Colonel AVashington, with his horse, being prepared to act as circumstances might point out. As the British ad- vanced to the charge, the first line of militia broke and fled through the woods; the second behaved somewhat better, but eventually gave way ; and the real battle now began between the regular troops of both armies, Avho contested the irregular and broken ground with the extreme of fierceness and obstinacy. The rival commanders exerted themselves in an extraordinary manner, and were exposed to the greatest personal risk. Stuart's battalion of the guards, while in pursuit of an American regiment, being charged by "Washington's horse, was retreating in disorder, when Cornwallis came up, and ordered the artillery to open upon the pursuing cavalry, even through the ranks of his own fugi- tives. Brigadier O'Hara remonstrated, declaring that the fire would destroy themselves. " True," replied CornAvallis, " but this is a necessary evil, which we must endure to arrest impending destruction." This cannonade, in fact, turned the tide of victory : the Americans retired, and finding himself hard 1781.] GREENE MARCHES INTO SOUTH CAROLINA. 511 pressed, and his artillery captured, Greene, whose policy forbade him to risk the total destruction of his army, directed a retreat, while it could yet be ef- fected with order and security. He had lost four hundred men upon the field, and the fugitive militia for the most part returned to their families. On his part Cornwallis had lost five hundred men, among whom was Colonel Webster, one of the most gallant and accomplished officers of the army. The British had marched and fought without eating ; there were no provisions in the camp, and they only received a small allowance on the evening of the day after. Crippled in every way, so far was the English general from being able to profit by his victory, that he was compelled to fall back to subsist his troops. His flanks were harassed by Greene's light corps ; and that general was only refreshing his army in order to fight him a second time. After a painful march, Cornwallis reached Wilmington. Vaunting, as a political manoeuvre, his recent victory, he called upon the inhabitants to repair to his standard, but Math even less success than before. His star was no longer in the ascend- ant; his indefatigable opponent had only fled to turn again upon his pursuer, and at this very time was meditating a daring attempt to recover the provinces so lately overrun by his rival. After a council held with his officers, Greene boldly resolved to march into South Carolina, leaving Virginia to be defended by her own resources and such as Washington could add to them. The former State was then held by Lord Rawdon with a small force at Camden, and by a series of posts, which formccl at once rallying-places for Tories and depots of stores and pro- visions. As the miseries of this civil conflict had almost prevented cultivation and ravaged the open country, Greene purposed, by striking at these posts in detail, at once to recover his influence in the country and subsist his own troops with the stores intended for his enemy. Takina: himself the main road towards Camden, he detached Colonel Lee to effect a junction with Marion, cut off" Rawdon's communications with Charleston, and capture any posts that might be open to a successful attack. By this means the British position at Camden became one of extreme diffi- culty, especially as Cornwallis, concluding that he was leaving behind him a force sufficient for the defence of the south, had, after consulting his officers, resolved to march to the conquest of Virginia, now left uncovered by the de- parture of Greene. The latter general — Sumpter having failed to join him as desired — being too weak to attack Camden, took up a position at Hobkirk's Hill, about two miles distant, to intercept Rawdon's supplies and prevent his receiving reinforce- ments. Meanwhile, several of the smaller posts were successively recovered by Lee and INIarion, and Rawdon felt that he must either strike a blow at the army which hung menacingly above him, or retire from his own position. He determined therefore to attempt the surprise of Greene's camp. ' The American army was posted on a woody ridge, protected on one side by a swamp. Never perhaps was Greene so near being taken imawares. Some provisions had just been served out, and the troops were engaged in 512 A ME RICA N8 REP ULSED A T FOR T NINETT-SIX. [1781. washing their clothes, when Hawdon stealthily advanced along the edge of the morass, and drove in the American picquets, who raised the alarm only just in time to enable Greene to form his line of battle. Observing that, from the nature of the ground, the assailants presented a very narrow front, Greene despatched two regiments to turn their flanks, but Rawdon brought up a reserve in time to frustrate the meditated manoeuvre. The action was now maintained on both sides with great spirit, till Gunby's veteran jNIary- land regiment gave way, and threw the whole line into confusion, upon which Greene was obliged to retreat. Fortunately for the Americans, they possessed a superiority in cavaliy, or the defeat might have been decisive. This disaster proved but a very trifling check to Greene's plan of operations. After vainly seeking to bring his adversary to battle, Rawdon, finding that all the posts were falling into the hands of the Americans, that his commu- nications were cut off", and the republicans again rapidly rising, evacuated Camden, and, followed by a number of fugitive Tories, retired towards Charleston, taking up a position at Monk's Corner. Greene now marched to reduce the fort of Ninety-six, the principal re- maining stronghold of the British influence except Charleston. Here, however, he was destined to meet with a repulse. The garrison, commanded by Colonel Cruger, defended themselves with extraordinary spirit. The Americans were obliged to invest the place in form, under the direction of Kosciusko, and Greene had nearly carried his works to completion, when he ob- tained the unwelcome intelligence, that Rawdon, who had just received succours from England, was rapidly coming up to raise the siege. Repeated attempts had been made to send word of his approach to the garrison, but all his ex- presses were cut off" by the vigilance of the American scouts. " At length," says Colonel Lee, " one evening, a countryman was seen riding along our lines south of the town, conversing familiarly with the offkers and soldiers on duty. He was not regarded, as from the beginning of the siege our friends in the country were in the habit of visiting the camp, and were permitted to go wherever their curiosity led them, one of whom this man was jiresumed to be. At length he reached the great road leading directly to the town, in which quarter were only some batteries thrown up for the protection of the guards. Putting spur to his horse, he rushed with full speed into the town, receiving the ineffectual fire of our centinels and guards nearest to him, and holding up a letter in his hand, as soon as he cleared himself of the fire. The propitious signal gave joy to the garrison, who running to meet their friend, opened the gate, welcoming his arrival with loud expressions of joy. He was the bearer of a despatch from Lord Rawdon to Cruger, communicating his arrival at Orangeburg in adequate force, and informing him that he was hastening to his relief. This intelligence infused new vigour into the intrepid leader and his brave companions. Nothing now remained but to try the chance of an assault, to meet Rawdon, or retire. Prompted by the ardour of the troops, Greene determined to try the former alternative ; but after consummate bravery on both sides. 1781.] GREENE RETIRES TO THE HILLS OF SANTEE. 513 tlie issue was unfavourable, and after a siege of twenty-nine days, lie was compelled to retreat across the Saluda before the advancing forces of Hawdon, who pursued him as far as the Ennoree. Disheartened at this reverse, some of his friends advised him to abandon South Carolina and repair for safety to the north, but with stedfast determination he replied, " I will recover the country, or perish in the attempt." No sooner, therefore, had Rawdon turned his back, than he again hovered about his flanks, and by his continual pre- sence compelled the English commander to contract his line of defence, evacuate Ninety-six, and retire to Or^geburg, with a host of Tory families, thus driven to seek shelter in his caaip. The sultry season had now arrived, and both sides were glad to pause awhile from the toils of this terrible campaign. In the words of his bi- ographer, " Since the commencement of January, the army of Greene had experienced nothing bat an uninterrupted series of exertioUj toil, ex- posure, and battle. It is believed that a more active or, for the number of troops engaged, a more eventful campaign, is no where recorded in military history. Nor had adverse fortune been backward in her approaches, or light in her visitations. The Americans had been twice defeated in general action ; once repulsed from the lines of a fortress ; and twice compelled to consult their safety in a rapid, arduous, and extensive retreat. Notwithstanding this, their hopes were sanguine, and their confidence unshaken ; because the genius of their commander, still converting misfortune into prosperity, and deriving from defeat the advantages of victory, was conducting them with certainty to conquest and triumph. Already had they captured most of the enemy's posts, turned against him the tide of war, so as to place him com- pletely on the defensive, and wrested from his hand a large proportion of the conquered territory. But the season was now hot and the troops were be- coming sickly. General Greene, therefore, resolved on retiring to a secure and healthy position, to indulge his army in a short repose, that, their health being restored and their strength renovated, they might be the better pre- pared to act with vigour in their future operations. " Selecting for this purpose the high hills of Santee, where the air is pure, the water excellent, and, in consequence of the elevation of the ground, the heats less oppressive, he encamped there about the middle of July." Finding the spirit of opposition, which they had supposed to be finally crushed, thus awcikening into fresh activity, the British generals resolved to exert the utmost severity towards those who dared to raise anew the banner of their country's independence, though there were not wanting many among the royal officers who opposed such proceedings, as alike impolitic and inhuman. The fate of Colonel Isaac Hayne Inspired a feeling of bitter indignation throughout the States. He had Avarmly espoused the cause of independence, and during the siege of Charleston had served in a volunteer company of light horse. After the capitulation he surrendered himself prisoner of war, but under threat of a long imprisonment was induced to take the oath of 3 u 614 DEATH OF COLONEL ISAAC HAYNE. [1781. illcgiance to the British, under the special condition that he should not be required to bear arms against his country. When, however, the Americans vigorously resumed the offensive, he was required to associate himself with the royal troops, an order which his patriotism would not allow him to obey. Nay more, considering that by this bicach of the promises made to him his parole was become null, he willingly listened to the entreaties of his coun- trymen, and a second time took up arms against the English, He was soon after taken prisoner, and immediately condemned to death. Tliis sentence, the dictate of a ruthless military policy, was inexorably carried into execution. Nothing could shake the determination of Lord Kawdon. In vain did even the loyalists themselves intercede in his behalf. In vain did the sister and motherless children of the prisoner throw them- selves at his feet in all the agonies of grief; all that could be obtained was a respite of eight and forty hours in consideration of " Hayne's humane treat- ment of the British prisoners who had fallen into his hands." Surrounded during these fleeting hours by sorrowing friends and weeping children, whose mother he had lately consigned to the tomb, he displayed the most heroic fortitude. Having arranged his papers, on the arrival of the fatal morning he called his eldest son, only thirteen years of age, and desired him to see them forwarded to his brother. " Go then," he said to the poor boy, " to the place of execution, receive my body, and see it decently interred Avith my fore- fathers." Bestowing his last embrace and blessing, he firmly advanced to meet his fate. Like Andre, he had prayed to die the death of a soldier, but as he approached the place of execution, the fatal gallows proved to him that his prayer had passed unheeded. A momentary shock was felt, but one of his friends whispering to him, " You will now exhibit an example of the manner in which an American can die," he calmly replied, " I will endeavour to do so." Taking an affectionate leave of his friends, he ascended the cart, drew the cap over his eyes, and amidst the tears of the spectators, died witli a forti- tude that shed an heroic lustre over what Avas intended, as an ignominious doom. Leaving behind him an unenviable reputation for merciless severity. Lord Bawdon now departed for Europe, leaving the army under the command of Colonel Stuart. During the oppressive heats Greene continued on the salubrious Santee Hills, engaged in exercising his army and rendering it more capable of en- countering that of the enemy, against whom he determined to advance. On the 21st of August, having received a supply of horses for his cavalry, he left his encampment, and taking a circuitous direction, fell in with the English army at the Eutaw Springs. Here, on the morning of the 8th of September, was fought one of the bloodiest and most obstinately contested engagements during the whole war. The number of the combatants was about equal, and the struggle was maintained on both sides with obstinate valour and varying success. Both parties resorted to the bayonet, and used it with equal skill and determination, many individuals of both armies being mutually transfixed with the deadly weapon. At length the English left, attacked simultaneously 1781.] THE BATTLE OF EUTAW SPRINGS. ^5 in front and flank, gave way, covered by the English infantry under Major Marjoribanks. Colonel Washington, being sent to charge him with his cavalry, got entangled in an almost impervious thicket, and was wounded and taken prisoner, and his detachment obliged to withdraw. As the broken English left fell back, they threw themselves into a large brick-house, which enabled Stuart to rally his troops and reorganize his line of battle. This interruption cut short the progress of the Americans, and turned against them the tide of success. Greene's troops in vain attempted to force an entry, and even his artillery failed to dislodge the English. Their whole line now advanced, and having recovered the ground from which they had been driven, proceeded no further, while Greene also withdrew his troops. Both parties claimed a victory, and in proportion to their numbers their loss was about equal. But all the advantage was in favour of Greene, who, after falling back a few miles in quest of water, again advanced in quest of his enemy. Crip- pled as he was by this engagement, and fearing lest he should be cut off from Charleston, Colonel Stuart returned to Monk's Corner, his rear-guard being harassed by Marion and Lee. Thus by the persevering policy of Greene were the English at length restricted to a narrow corner of Carolina, the whole of which they had so recently overran as conquerors. Unable to pur- sue his advantages, owing to the weakness and almost destitution of his army, he returned to his encampment on the high hills of Santee. The state of affairs in Virginia next demand our attention. Shortly after the unhappy affair of Andre, Arnold, anxious at once to display his new-born loyalty and gloze over his despicable treachery, put forth>an " Address to the In- habitants of America." Admitting that he was among the first to oppose the aggressions of Great Britain, so soon as that country had evinced a desire for accommodation, and Congress had displayed an unwarrantable stubbornness, he had resolved to return to his allegiance. He dwelt upon the party spirit with which the national assembly was distracted, and denounced the unnatural alliance with the French, aliens alike in blood, manners, and religion. He concluded his " Address " with offering three guineas to every private soldier who should desert, and to the officers a similar rank in the British army to that which they held in the American. This manifesto, which totally failed in its object, was received with indignation and disgust, and Arnold was reminded that no one so much as himself had courted and flattered the French ambas- sador, until baffled in his base endeavour to obtain from him a sum of money, under the convenient title of a loan. That vigour and activity which had formerly won him the admiration of his countrymen, were now employed in injuring them. With sixteen hundred troops he set sail for Virginia, ascended the James river, and before resistance could be offered, had ravaged Richmond and carried off a considerable booty. Washington, anxious to effect his capture, sent Lafayette to co-operate with Baron Steuben, then in Virginia, and, at his request, the whole French fleet soon after sailed from Newport with a body of troops on board. Pursued, hoAvever , by the British blockading fleet, after an indecisive engagement they 3 u 2 516 CORNWALLIS OVERRUSS VIRGINIA. [1781. were compelled to regain Newport, while the British fleet, carrying an additional body of troops under General Phillips, entered the Chesapeake, and effected a junction with Arnold's corps. The coasts of Virginia were now exposed to the requisitions of the British ships for plunder and provisions. One of these vessels entered the Poto- mac, and sent a demand for supplies to Washington's agent and relative in charge at Mount Vernon. On learning that they had been furnished, Washington wrote a letter expressive of his great dissatisfaction. " It would have been a less painful circumstance to me," he observes, " to have heard that in consequence of your non-compliance with their request they had burnt my house, and laid the plantation in ruins. You ought to have con- sidered yourself as my representative, and should have reflected on the bad example of communicating with the enemy, and making a voluntary offer of refreshments to them, with a view to prevent a conflagration." But these predatory expeditions, that could only annoy and irritate a people whom it had been found impossible to subdue, this waste of blood and trea- sure to maintain a contest evidently hopeless, were, happily for both parties, fast approaching their termination. The closing scene of this long and ob- stinate struggle was now at hand. It will be remembered that Lord CornwaJlis, in consequence of Greene's bold inroad upon the Carolinas, resolved to leave those provinces to be de- fended by the forces stationed there, and to carry his arms into Virginia. In pursuance of this plan, he crossed the Roanoke, and soon after effected a junction with the corps under Phillips, being besides reinforced by four regi- ments from New York, thus largely outnumbering the feeble force com- manded by La Fayette, who, retiring before him, succeeded in joining the Pennsylvania troops under Wayne, At the approach of the British general, the assembly of Virginia adjourned from Richmond to Charlottesville. By the activity of Tarleton, however, several members were captured, and Jeffer- son himself had a very narrow escape. Destroying arms and stores, and ravaging the country before them, the British troops continued to advance, followed however by La Fayette, who, with a judgment that would have done honour to a veteran commander, continued to hang upon the skirts and harass the progress of his able and powerful adversary. While thus overrunning Virginia, Cornwallis received an order from Sir Henry Clinton, then ex- i:)ecting an attack upon New York, to send him a detachment of his army, and after a smart skirmish with La Fayette, had reached Portsmouth, and actually embarked the troops, when he received a counter-order from his chief, who in the mean while had been relieved by reinforcements from England. According to his new instructions he was to retain the troops and establish himself at Portsmouth, where he could easily co-operate with an ex- pected fleet. This station appearing, however, less favourable for the purpose than Yorktown, Cornwallis shortly after removed thither with his entire army, and diligently proceeded to throw up intrenchments to secure his new position. irSL] WASHINGTON'S PLANS FOR TAKING NEW YORK. 517 Tlie Frencli troops under Roclianibeau were still at Newport, where tliey had remained inactive ever since their landing, and Washington and his army occupied the neighbourhood of the Highlands, when the welcome news arrived, that a powerful French fleet, commanded by the Count de Grasse, might shortly be expected on the American coasts. The favourite design of Washington, in which he had been so often disappointed, and which, could it be realized, would have proved a decisive and brilliant term- ination of the war, now seemed as if within the reach of accomplishment. An express was sent to the Count de Grasse, requesting him to direct his course to New York. E.ochambcau's troops were marched to the Hudson, where they effected a junction with those of Washington. Thus was the city sur- rounded on the land side, and the arrival of De Grasse, to co-operate with the attack by sea, was expected with the greatest anxiety. After remaining in this state of high-wrought suspense for several weeks, Washington received despatches announcing that it was not the intention of the French admiral to come to New York, but repair to the Chesapeake, and that his stay upon the coast must necessarily be brief. Here seemed to occur another instance of the futility of French co-o^ieration which had so often disappointed the hopes of the Americans. Never, it is said, was Washington more distressed and agitated than on the receipt of this despatch. His attendants were obliged to leave him, and shut up in his own chamber, he gave way for a while to the uncontrollable excitement of his feelings. His wonted self-command, how- ever, soon recovered the ascendancy, and he nov.^ applied all his energies to improve the opening afforded him by this new and unexpected turn of affairs. The plan he formed was to march upon Virginia, and with the expected succours enclose Cornwallis by land, while the fleet of De Grasse blockaded the river and prevented him from receiving help by sea. As Clinton and Cornwallis were alike unsuspicious and ignorant of his design, to the success of which secrecy and despatch were above all essential, every possible arti- fice was made use of to conceal it. Batteries were established in New Jersey as if for extensive operations, surveys carried on, and other contrivances re- sorted to. But what especially served to cast a film over the eyes of Clinton, was the receipt of letters he had been artfully allowed ta -iitercept. The bearer of one of these, a young man named Montagnie, was directed by Washington to proceed to Morristown by the way of the Ramapo Pass. Knowing it to be infested by the Cow-boys, he ventured to suggest that he should be sent some other road. " Your duty, young man," said Wash- ington, stamping his foot, " is not to talk, but to obey." He set off, and, as he anticipated, was captured and thrown into prison at New York. His despatches, which contained the plan of an attack upon the city, were taken from him, and next day made their appearance in the gazette. Clinton was thoroughly bamboozled, and so fully satisfied that New York was the point about to be menaced, that even when Washington began to march his troops to the southward, he regarded it merely as a feint in order to throw him off 518 WASHINGTON GOES TO THE SOUTH. [1781. Ills guard, and hugging himself Avith malicious satisfaction, remained securely within his defences. Profiting by this illusion, which he could not expect would long continue, Washington, having directed the formation of depots and transports at differ- ent points on the line of march, and ordered La Fayette to take up a position so as to intercept Cornwallis in case of his retreat, rapidly advanced toward the scene of action. Having crossed the Jerseys and reached Philadelphia, a serious, and what might have been a fatal, interruption to their progress oc- curred. The soldiers of the eastern and middle States evinced great disinclin- ation to march southward, and to put them in good humour, it was highly desir- able to advance them a month's pay in specie. But the treasury was em2:»ty, and had it not been for Rochambeau, who advanced Morris a sufficient loan from the French military chest, to be replaced Avitliin thirty days, the con- sequences might have proved extremely serious. At this critical moment, Laurens arrived from France, after a successful mission, with a large supply of clothing, arms, ammunition, and specie. While the army pursued its march, Washington, accompanied by Rochambcau, paid a hurried visit to Mount Vernon, whither he was so soon to retire accompanied by the bless- ings of his countrymen, for the first time during his long and anxious struggle of more than six years. Both generals then repaired to the camp of La Fayette at Williamsburg ; where they awaited wdth intense anxiety the news of De Grasse's arrival, which after all might be entirely frustrated by a superiority of the English at sea. In truth, the English admiral. Lord Rodney, expecting that a portion, though not the whole, of the French fleet would proceed to the coast of America, had despatched Hood with fourteen ships of the line to reinforce the squad- ron of Graves, the commander of the English fleet. On the 25th of August, Hood arrived oflf the Chesapeake, and not finding his superior admiral, directed his course to New York. No sooner had he arrived there, than the news came that Du Barras, commander of the French fleet at Newport, had put to sea to effect a junction with the expected fleet of De Grasse. The English admiral-in-chief now sailed to prevent, if possible, this junction, and had reached the entrance to the Chesapeake, when he found De Grasse's fleet of twenty-four ships of the line at anchor within Cape Henry. Three thousand troops had already been landed, and some ships sent i;p the river to blockade Cornwallis in Yorktown. The French admiral stood out to sea, and for five days artfully kept up a distant engagement, until assured that Barras also had safely entered the river, when he returned to his original position. Unsuccessful in his object, the English admiral was obliged to return disappointed to New York. Thus, while Lord Cornwallis was daily expecting the co-operation of an Eng- lish fleet, he suddenl)'-, to his astonishment, found himself blockaded both by land and sea. After so many abortive attempts at co-operation, the French and American forces, by this extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, so skil- fully improved by Washington, were about to strike a final and decisive blow. 1781.] C0RNWALLI8 BLOCKADED IN YORKTOWN. 519 The town of York, standing on an eminence above the river of that name, had, by the labours of the English troops, been rendered as strong as possible. Flanked and half-encircled on the right by a marshy ravine, it was access- ible only by a limited space, defended by strong lines flanked by a redoubt and bastion. On the opposite side of the river, here about a mile across, was Gloucester Point, defended by Colonel Tarleton with a body of cavalry. As soon as De Grasse had arrived, Washington repaired on board and concerted with him the plan of operations. Transports were sent for the American troops, who speedily joined those already before the place. The Americans were stationed on the right hand, the French upon the left, in a semicircular line extending on each side to the river. The post at Gloucester ■was merely blockaded ; but around York, the besieging army immediately began to construct regular approaches. Strong as was the force by which he was invested, Cornwallis was at first but little uneasy. The film having fallen from the eyes of Sir Henry Clinton, he determined to strain every nerve to throw succours into Yorktown, and had despatched a messenger with a letter in secret cipher, who suc- ceeded in eludina: the watchfulness of the American sentinels. This missive in-formed Cornwallis, that but for the damage sustained by Graves' ships he would at once repair to his assistance, but that by the 5th of October, as he hoped, they should be on their way to him with a fleet and army. Building somewhat too confidently on these anticipations, Cornwallis withdrew his troops from the outer line of defences, and concentrated them within the narrow limits of Yorktown. In order to create a diversion, and if possible induce Washington to with- draw a portion of his troops, Arnold, just returned from Virginia, was de- spatched with a considerable force, consisting chiefly of Hessians and Tories, to make a descent upon the New England coasts. Landing near the flourish- ing town of New London, and finding but little opposition from the militia, they set the town and shipping on fire ; Arnold, it is said, standing in a church belfry to witness the conflagration. On the opposite side the river was Fort Griswold, into Avhich the militia had retreated, and which might have facilitated the escape of a portion of the shipping. Arnold, therefore, ordered it to be reduced. After being summoned in vain to surrender, it was attacked with great spirit, but just as bravely defended; and it was not until the British had sustained a heavy loss that they succeeded in effecting an entrance by storm. Colonel Ledyard, the commandant, now ordered his men to throw down their arms. One of the British officers, mortally wounded in the attack, had exhorted his comrades, in dying, to kill every man in the fort. Exasperated at the protracted defence and the loss of several officers, the British, instead of respecting the bravery of the defendants, commenced an indiscriminate massacre. "Who commands this garrison?" shouted, as he entered. Major Bromfield, a New Jersey loyalist, at the head of the attacking party. " I did, sir, but you do now," said Ledyard, presenting his sword, with which his savage captor instantly ran him through the body. The place was 520 CRUELTIES OF GENERAL ARNOLD. [1781. ancle deep in blood, and the slaughter went on till one of the officers exclaimed, " My soul can no longer bear this' butchery." Seventy men were killed and thirty-five more dangerously wounded ; some of the latter were put into a baggage waggon, v/hich was then thrust doAvn the rugged surface of the hill, in the hope that it might plunge into the river and get rid of the poor wretches by a general noyade. The jolting of the waggon killed some outright and horribly tortured others, until arrested in its course by a tree. The prisoners were then taken out and confined all night in a neighbouring house, suffering, jn addition to tlieir other agonies, the extremities of thirst, until relieved next mornhig by Fanny Ledyard, niece to the murdered colonel, who came to their succour Avith a supply of necessaries. After these proceedings, as barbarous as they Avere useless in a military point of view, Arnold and his companions returned to New York. The prisoners killed in cold blood after surrender, he represented in his despatch as having been found dead in the fort. As this was one of the most wanton inroads during the war, so hajipily it also proved to be the last. To return to the siege of Yorktown ; the besiegers, having completed their works, upon which they mounted a hundred pieces of cannon, opened a most destructive fire upon a place utterly inadequate to sustain it. Their balls even flew over the toAvn into the river, and set on fire an English frigate auvd several transports. Cornwallis now received a second letter from Clinton, regretting that the departure of the promised reinforcements must in- evitably be delayed until the twelfth. Hereupon several of his officers sug- gested a timely evacuation, but he was unwilling to surrender while any chance of succour yet remained. Meanwhile the enemy, animated by the prospect of a speedy triumph, pushed their operations Avith such energy, that they Avere soon Avithin three hundred yards of the place. Severely annoyed by the English redoubts, so placed as to enfilade their Avorks, it Avas resolved, if possible, to carry them by storm. The capture of one Avas confided to the Baron de Viosmenil and a party of French ; the other, consisting of American troops, Avas headed by La Fayette and Colonel Hamilton, the talented aide- de-camp of Washington. So Avarm Avas the emulation betAveen the two de- tachments, and so vigorous their assault, that both the redoubts were car- ried, and included Avithin the second parallel of the besiegers. CoruAA'allis, whose position noAV grcAv desperate, endeavoured to check their progress by a vigorous sortie ; but the advantage thus gained was but momentary, and he Avrote to Clinton, informing him that such Avas his distress, that it was hardly AA^orth Avliile running any great risk in endeavouring to bring him relief. As a last desperate chance, the advice before rejected was noAv acted iipon. On the night of the 16th, boats were prepared, and a portion of the army passed safely over to Gloucester Point. But as the second AA^as on its way, there arose a violent storm of Avind and rain, Avhich dispersed the embarkations tip and doAvn the river. As morning approached the tempest ceased, and the scattered barks made their Avay back to YorktoAvn. © w w s? 1781.] SURRENDER OF YORETOWN. 521 To hold out any longer could only create unnecessary suffering, without improving the chance of escape. The works were ruined, the guns silenced, and the fire of the enemy swept the place. The garrison Avas enfeebled by sickness, and the result of an assault could not be doubtful. Painful as it must have been to a commander Avho had marched triumphantly across the land to find himself thus conquered by inevitable circumstances, he had no alternative but to send next morning a flag of truce, proposing an armistice for twenty-four hours in order to arrange the terms of capitulation. As the British succours might arrive at any moment, only two hours were allowed to come to a decision. According to the terms proposed by the British general, the garrison were to marcli out as prisoners of war with the usual honours; and be transported to England. The only alteration required by Washington, was that they should be retained in the country until the conclusion of the war. No promises could be obtained in favour of the Tories, but Lord Cornwallis was allowed to send a ship to convey de- spatches to Sir Henry Clinton, which by agreement departed without ex- amination, and the unhappy refugees embraced this opportunity of retiring to New York. On the afternoon of the 19th of September, the British army marched out of Yorktown, and deposited their arms with the same formalities prescribed to the Americans on the surrender of Charleston. Lord Cornwallis was not present at the trying scene, but delegated to General O'Hara the task of surrendering his sword to General Lincoln. The whole number of prisoners, exclusive of seamen, rather exceeded seven thousand men, of whom three thou- sand were not fit for duty; the combined American and French forces, in- cluding militia, to about sixteen thousand. This brilliant success far transcended all previous anticipations, and, indeed, had Lord Cornwallis been able to hold out a little longer, (as he probably would had he not at an earlier period counted upon Clinton's arrival,) the affair might after all have taken a different turn. Only five days afterward the British fleet, conveying an army of seven thousand men, arrived off the mouth of the Chesapeake, but finding that Cornwallis had already surren- dered, returned disappointed to New York. It is said that the news of the surrender reached Philadelphia after the citizens had retired to rest, and that the watchmen, when proclaiming the midnight hour, added the startling intelligence, " Cornwallis is taken." The windows of the inhabitants flew up to assure themselves that what they heard was not a dream, and when assured of its reality, the candles were lighted, and the citizens, hastily throwing their clothes on, hurried into the streets, questioning, congratulating, and embracing each other. That night was not made for sleep. The tide of joy was too much for the bosom of one aged patriot, who, thanking God he had lived to see his hopes fulfilled, expired. AVhen morning dawned, and the glorious event was fully confirmed, the whole city was given up to rejoicing. The news flew like wildfire over the country, giving assurance to the people that the cause for which they had 3 X 522 RESIGNATION OF LORD NORTH. [1781. sufFerecl so much, and of which, in the dark hour of defeat, they had often been tempted to despair, was now, in sober earnest, at length about to prove triumphant. Although fully participating in feelings, which to him, who thus saw his toils rewarded, must have been inexpressibly sweeter, Washington was far from suffering his watchfulness to be lulled asleep. Brilliant as was the recent success, it might, nevertheless, fail to overcome the obstinacy of the English ministers. The war might be renewed, and Congress, and the people at large, tempted in the prospect of a speedy peace to relax from their long and arduous sacrifices, might be taken at a ruinous disadvantage. He therefore strenuously urged the necessity of keeping up the number of the troops, and maintaining a state of watchful preparation. He returned to the camp at Newburgh, and earnestly exerted himself, both by correspondence and personal labours, to place the army upon a footing efficient in case of the continuation of the war, and which by showing that the Americans were still on the alert, might assist in procuring an honourable peace. The surrender of Cornwallis proved the virtual termination o^' the war. So recently as the preceding January, the empress of Kussia had offered her mediation, which was accepted by Great Britain. Gates had just been de- feated in Carolina, and Congress, with the southern States, stating their will- ingness to be satisfied with something short of an express acknowledgment of independence, although the northern States strenuously opposed such a concession. But England haughtily refused to acknowledge, in any shape whatever, the independence of her revolted colonies, and the attempted medi- ation consequently proved abortive. Now, however, the case was changed. The surrender of another British army proved but too plainly the impossi- bility of subduing America, yet, stimulated by George III., still obstinately determined not to give way. Lord North ventured to propose a further con- tinuance of hostilities. The king's speech to parliament declared " that he should not answer the trust committed to the sovereign of a free people, if he consented to sacrifice either to his own desire of peace, or their temporary ease and relief, those essential rights and permanent interests, upon the main- tenance and preservation of which the future strength and security of the country must ever depend." The opposition moved, on the other hand, " that any further attempt to reduce the Americans by force would be ineffectual and injurious." The ministers gained only a majority of forty-one, which showed their parliamentary influence to be already on the wane. But the country was now heartily weary of the war, and the enormous expense it had entailed ; their murmurs gave increased energy to the opposition, and after rej^eated efforts, they lost only by a single vote a motion brought for- ward by General Conway, " declaring that whosoever should advise his Ma- jesty to any further prosecution of offensi^'e war against the colonies of North America should be considered as a public enemy." Thus situated^ Lord North had no alternative but to resign. 1781.] ENGLAND A CKNO WLEDGES THE UNITED 8TA TES. S23 The leader of the new ministry was the Marquis of Rockingham, who openly favoured the recognition of American independence. As Lord Shel- burne, who, on the death of the Marquis, succeeded to his office, was desirous of avoiding, if possible, this open dismemberment of the empire, endeavours were made to effect a separate treaty with America, without then insisting on this unpalatable ultiinatum. Indeed, if Franklin was rightly informed, the king still continued to insist upon this condition. Among his papers was found the following memorandum. " Immediately after the death of Lord Rockingham, the king said to Lord Shelburne, ' I will be plain with you, the point next to my heart, and which I am determined, be the consequence what it may, never to relinquish but with my crown and life, is to prevent a total, unequivocal recognition of the independence of America. Promise to sup- port me on this ground, and I will leave you unmolested on every other, and with full power as the prime minister of the kingdom.' The bargain was struck. No effort was spared by the English commissioners to effect this de- sired object, but the instructions of Congress to their agents rendered them entirely abortive. They refused to negociate unless in conjunction with France, and insisted upon the open recognition of independence as the indis- pensable basis of a treaty. At this juncture England received a salve for her wounded honour by the victory of Rodney over the fleet of De Grasse in the West Indies, one of the most splendid achievements in the long catalogue of her naval triumphs. Now that she had lost America, it was at least no small satisfaction to have thus effectually humbled the pride and repaid the interference of her ancient and inveterate foe. Neither had Spain any reason to congratulate herself upon espousing, however reluctantly, the cause of the Americans, since, after a long siege, in which the combined resources of herself and France had been exhausted, the flag of England still waved upon the impregnable rock of Gibral- tar. The Dutch had also suffered from the interruption of their commerce. England, in short, had nobly maintained her ancient prowess, and, if compel- led to yield to invincible circumstances, might console herself with the reflec- tion, that the territory she had lost had been wrested from her by her own undegenerate children. The king and ministry being no longer able to contend with the general feeling of the nation, an act of parliament was obtained, authorizing a negocia- tion with the colonies, which was presently opened at Paris by Mr. Oswald on the part of Great Britain, and Franklin, Jay, and Laurens on the part of the United States. As Vergennes, the French minister, hesitated to comply with the American claims to fish on the banks of Newfoundland, Frank- lin and Jay, at Oswald's suggestion, concluded a separate preliminary treaty with England. The sovereign independence of the United States was acknow- ledged, an unlimited right of the fisheries was conceded, and certain imaginary boundary lines agreed upon. This conclusion of a separate negociation was contrary to the instructions of Congress, who had required that every thing should be done in concert with their French allies, and it naturally gave 3x2 524 UNSETTLED STATE OF CO XG RES 8. [1781. offence to Yergennes, wlio, however, speedily gave his assent, and on the ord of September, 1783, the treaty was definitively signed. During this interval the feelings of Washington were exposed to a painful trial. The end of the war was now in prospect, and yet, amidst the general exultation, the officers, their pay several months in arrear, were suffering the most intolerable distress. Promises had indeed been made to them by Congress, at Washington's earnest entreaties, of enjoying a half-pay for life ; but if they had been neglected by that body while engaged in active service, it was feared that, when independence was achieved, they might be cast aside unrewarded and forgotten by an ungrateful country. Knowing that the negligence of Congress arose from the limited and uncertain nature of its powers, they feared not only for their own rights, but, perhaps, also for their country's safety under the existence of republican government ; and they were tempted to meditate, under the auspices of their venerated chief, what they believed would be a firmer and more energetic system. Colonel Nicola, an officer through whom the distresses of the army had often been made known to Washington, was now made the organ of a proposal which might have ex- cited the ambition of one of less pure and disinterested patriotism. After exposing the disadvantages of a republican government, and the desirableness of a limited monarchy, this writer proceeded £.s follows : " In this case it will, I believe, be uncontroverted, that the same abilities which have led us through difficulties, apparently insurmountable by human power, to victory and glory, those qualities that have merited and obtained the universal esteem and veneration of an army, would be most likely to conduct and direct us in the smoother paths of peace. Some people have so connected the ideas of tyranny and monarchy, as to find it very difficult to separate them. It may, therefore, be requisite to give the head of such a constitution as I propose, some title apparently more moderate ; but, if all things were once adjusted, I believe strong arguments might be produced for admitting the name of KING, which I conceive would be attended with some material advantages." This communication must have been deeply distressing to Washington, who had so often defended his companions in arms against the insinuations and suspicions of their countrymen — jealous as they were (and, as he must now have acknowledged, not altogether Avithout reason) of the dangers to be dreaded from the maintenance of a standing army. Yet he was but too well aware of the long though unavoidable neglect, and cruel extremity of suffer- ing, that had extorted the movement ; and thus his reply, full of a noble stern- ness, is softened by the expression of compassionate regard. " Sir, " Newhurg, 22 May, 1782. • With a mixture of great surprise and astonishment I have read with attention the sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be as- sured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the Avar has given me more painful sensations, than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed, and I must view Avith abhorrence and repre- 1781.] GREENE'S DIFFICULTIES IN THE SOUTH. 525 hend v/itli severity. For tlie present, the communication of tliem will rest in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of the matter shall make a disclosure necessary. " I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address, which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. At the same time, in justice to my own feelings, I must add, that no man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice done to the army than I do ; and as far as my jDowers and influence in a constitutional way extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it, should there be any occasion. Let me conjure you, then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature. I am, sir, &c., George "Washington." From the camp at Newburgh let us now glance at that of Greene, After the surrender of Cornwallis the ojDerations of the southern army were desul- tory and unconnected, and had for their object only to harass and keep in check an enemy now confined to the walls of Charleston and Savannah. Yet the labours of Greene were still arduous, and his trials severe. His troops, no longer actively occupied, and left almost in a state of destitution, became discontented and mutinous. His letters at this period present a deplorable picture of their condition. " I would order," says he to the secretary of war, '' the returns you require, but we really have not paper enough to make them out,, not having had, for months past, even paper to make provision re- turns, or to record the necessary returns of the army. Since we have been in the lower country, through the difficulty of transportation, we have been four weeks without ammunition, Avhile there was plenty of this article in Charlotte. "\Ye lay within a few miles of the enemy without six rounds a man. Had they got knowledge and availed themselves of our situation, they might have ruined us. You can have little idea of the confusion and dis- order which prevail among the southern States. Our difficulties are so numerous and our wants so pressing, that I have not a moment's relief from the most painful anxieties." He had moreover the chagrin of knowing, that, while the British generals at least did justice to his great abilities, the secre- tary at war had entertained prejudices against him. " However mortifying these things were," thus he writes, " my pride would not suffi?r me to unde- ceive you, and such was my situation at the time, that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, had I attempted it. ISIy military conduct must speak for itself. I have only to observe, that I have not been at liberty to folloAv my own genius until lately, and here I have had more embarrassment than it is proper to disclose to the world. Let it suffice to say, that this part of the United States has had a narrow escape. / Jiave been seven monilts in the 626 GREENE'S RECEPTION IN CHARLESTON. [1781. Jield, toithoiit taking off mij clothes one nif/Itf.'' Amidst these distresses some of the soldiers became tainted with treason ; a plot was formed for seiz- ing and giving him up to the enemy, but being discovered in time, the ring- leader was tried and executed. It was consoling to find tliat no native American was concerned in this conspiracy. The hour at length drew near when the southern army was to repose from its long and arduous toils. The British evacuated Savannah in July, and announced their intention of speedily withdrawing from Charleston. Being unwisely refused the necessary supplies, they were compelled to send out foragers, and the younger Laurens was unhappily cut off in a skirmish. Be- fore the year closed the British had for ever left the soil of Carolina, and Greene was received by the inhabitants of Charleston with demonstrations of a respect and attachment only second to that bestow^ed on Washington him- self. As he entered the city at the head of a body of cavalry, the spectators at first gazed in silence upon the brilliant hero of the south, the deliverer of Carolina, the adversary of the redoubtable Cornwallis, till one universal and enthusiastic shout arose from that vast assemblage. Balis, banquets, and festive entertainments, all that a grateful and generous people coidd devise for his amusement, succeeded. Nor was it a mere temporary ebullition of thankfulness. The southern States showed their sense of his services by other and more substantial rewards. From South Carolina he received au estate worth ten thousand pounds, from Georgia another of half that value, and from North Carolina an extensive tract of land in what is now the State of Tennessee. In describing the revolutionary war, our attention has of necessity been principally fixed upon the most important movements, and their most con- spicuous theatre, the older and more civilized States. But on the western frontier of civilization, ever since the beginning of the struggle, had been waged a fierce and barbarous war of extermination between the settlers and the Indians, stimulated by Tory intrigue and British gold. Many elements of discord entered into this contest, and contributed to inflame it to the highest pitch of ferocity. The unlawful encroachments of the Americans upon the lands belonging to the Indians, the wrongs and insults the latter had en lured, predisposed them to listen to the emissaries of the British government. The Tories, in the violence of party feeling, had often been treated with great cruelty by the Bepublicans, and felt that it was between them a struggle for life and death. It is not clear to whom the guilt belongs of first engaging the Indians in the war. In the very outset of the quarrel Congress had resolved to enlist a body of Indian warriors, and perhaps this circumstance may have led the British ministers to adopt, by way of reprisal, a measure so indig- nantly denounced by the eloquence of Burke and Chatham. One thing is clear, that while Congress afterwards desired to induce the Indians to ob- serve a peaceful neutrality, the emissaries of Great Britain in the west per- sisted in using every effort to stimulate their ferocity, by promises of gold and plunder, and by offering a premium for the scalps of the American rebels. 1T81.] • LIFE OF THE FRONTIER SETTLERS. 527 Some of the consequences of this horrid and revolting policy, have al- ready appeared in the destruction of Wyoming and the ravages of the frontier settlements. But until the close of the war they were destined to know no respite from incessant alarm. The animosity thus enkindled was satisfied with nothing short of mutual extermination. The historian would gladly pass over scenes so humiliating to human nature, but that without them it is impossible to give a correct idea of those dreadful times, and of the demoniac feelings called into activity by civil war. Of the condition of the frontier settlers during the war, a vivid picture is given by Monette in his History of the Mississippi Valley, a work to which we have been already largely indebted. " The flame of Indian war was lighted up simultaneously west of the mountains and against all the settlements upon the waters of the Ohio. These feeble settlements, remote from the dense population and from succour, without defence or support, were thrown, as an isolated portion of the States, entirely upon their own resources, for the sup- port of their families in the wilderness, and for the protection of their homes and lives from savage massacre and rapine. Unprovided with the means of regular warfare, they were compelled to associate for mutual protection and defence with the limited means at command. Surrounded by hostile savages in every quarter, Avhose secret approaches and whose vengeance none could foresee or know, they were compelled to depend upon their own courage and energy of character, in order to maintain an existence against the extermin- ating warfare of these allies of the British king. The mode of Indian Avar- fare itself suggested their only course. To protect themselves from midnight slaughter, they were compelled to secure themselves in forts and stations, where the women and children could enjoy comparative security, while the men, armed always in the Indian manner, went out to meet the enemy in their secret approach and in their hiding-places, whether in the recesses of the mountains or in the dense forests. Every residence, however humble, became thus a fortified station ; every man, woman, and child, able to raise a gun, or axe, or club, in case of assault, became a combatant in defence of their castle, and every able-bodied man or youth was a soldier of necessity. During hostilities every day was spent in anxious apprehension, and each night was a time of suspense and watching, uncertain who might survive the night. Life, in such a condition, was a forced state of existence against the dangers of the tomahawk and rifle, for no retreat was safe, no shelter secure, and no caution eflectual, against the insidious advances and midnight sallies of the ever-watchful savage. The private paths, the springs, the fields, and the hunting-grounds were all waylaid bv parties of Indians, who remained quietly in their hiding-places for days to secure the devoted victim who might incautiously frequent those places. To <:u^ OiT supplies, the gardens and the fields were laid waste at night, the stock were killed in the woods, and the game was destroyed around them by lurking savages. The bear and the panther, and the most ravenous beasts of prey, were less an object of dread than the Indian, thirsting for human blood, and bent on extermination. 528 Cruelties of the Indians and toiues. [i:si, "Every recent massacre of helpless innocence and female Aveakness; every ruined family ; every depredation and conflagrated dwelling ; every daring incursion and new alarm, served but to increase the white man's terror of the horrid warfare, and to stimulate his vengeance to deeds of blood against the omnipresent foe. To remain at home and in their fortified stations, was to starA'B and make themselves an easy prey to their enemies, or to invite an attack from xmited numbers, which would overwhelm all in one promiscuous carnage ; hence the active, the strong, and the daring, scoured the woods for miles in every direction, to discover any approaches that might be made, and, in case of large numbers discovered, to give the alarm, and prevent surprise to-the respective stations. "Wl.ere offensive operations in force required, when no regular government existed, and -where no military organization had been formed, each man volunteered his individual patriotism, and devised ways and means for the general defence ; each man became a private soldier, supplied and equipped himself, and entered the expedition to aid in the enterprise. The bold and experienced were, by general consent, placed in command, and all submitted with a cheerful obedience. If the object was the destruction of a remote Indian town, probably two hundi'ed miles distant, and known to be the dwelling- place of hostile bands, which had repeatedly laid waste the settlements with conflagration and blood, all were eager to engage in the enterprise; fathers, sons, brothers, and relatives, all were ready to march to the destruction of the devoted town. Where the numbers required were less than the voluntary lev)^, the leader selected the chosen men and the skilful warriors, leaving the remainder to defend the stations. Thus a portion of the pioneers were com- pelled to seek danger at a remote distance, in order to secure safety for those at home." It is a melancholy fact, that some of the renegade Tories, who, outcasts from their own people, and adopting the manners of the Indians, became their instigators and leaders during the M'ar, committed atrocities which revolted even their savage allies. An instance of this may be cited from the history of Schoharie Valley. " When Sir John Johnson and his half-bred Indian confederate Brant were ravaging this valley, an infant happened to be carried off. The frantic mother followed them as far as the fort, but could get no tidings of her child. On the morning after the departure of the in- vaders, and while General Van Ransselaer's officers Avere at breakfast, a young Indian came bounding into the room, bearing the infant in his arms, and a letter from Captain Brant, addressed to ' The commander of the rebel army.' The letter Avas as folloAvs : ' Sir — I send you by one of my runners the child which he Avill deliver, that you may know that AvhatCA^er others may do, /do not make war upon Avomen and children. I am sorry to say, that I haAX those en- gaged Avith me who are more savage than the savages themseh-es.'" That such Avas often the case, the following story gives painful evidence : " A party of Indians in the British employ had entered a house, and killed and scalped a mother and a large family of children. They had just completed 1781.] DEATH OF CORNSTALK AND HIS SON. 529 their work of death, when some royalists belonging to their party came up and discovered an infant still alive in its cradle. An Indian warrior, noted for his barbarity, approached the cradle Avith uplifted hatchet; the babe looked up in his face and smiled; the feelings of nature triumphed over the ferocity of the savage, the hatchet fell from his hands, and he was in the act of stooping down to take the infant in his arms, when a royalist, cursing the Indian for his humanity, took up the child on the point of his bayonet, and as he held it up, struggling in the agonies of death, he exclaimed, ' This, too, is a rebel.' " It was the inevitable consequence of this deadly warfare between the whites and the Indians, that the peaceful and unoffending were dragged into the quarrel, or made to pay the penalty of wrongs inflicted by others. Driven to madness by the outrages of savages and Tories, the frontier settlers gave way to an indiscriminate spirit of revenge. Thus perished Cornstalk, one of the bravest and noblest of the sachems, who after fighting against the Americans at the battle of Kenhawa, had voluntarily come to Fort Pleasant to warn the commander of approaching danger. This disinterested service was requited by his being detained as a hostage by the commandant, and while thus in custody, and his son Ellenipsico had come to inquire what was become of him, a party of militia, enraged at some murders committed in the neighbourhood, burst into the fort and declared their intention of putting all the Indians to death. " Cornstalk was conversing with some of the officers, and delineating the region north of the Ohio on the ground, when apprized of their murderous intent. At their approach, Ellenipsico appeared agitated, but the veteran chief bade him not to fear death ; ' My son,' he said, ' the Great Spirit has seen fit that we should die together, and has sent you here to that end — it is his will — let us submit.' The murderers had now arrived, the old chief turned round to meet them, when, shot through the body with seven balls, he fell and expired without a struggle." Ellenipsico met his fate with great composure, and was shot upon the seat on which he was sitting when he received the announce- ment of his fate. Such, also, was the unhappy lot of the Christian Indians converted by the Moravian missionaries. Their village happened to be half way between the white settlements and the hostile Indian towns, so that it became next to im- possible to preserve a strict neutrality. Both parties required their aid and assistance, and if from motives of compassion they gave shelter to fugi- tives from either, they Avere considered guilty of a breach of neutrality. Menaced more than once by the whites, they had been actually dispersed by the Indians, but had returned again to their village and engaged in the peace- ful occupation of husbandry. But their doom could no longer be averted. Depredations having been committed by some of the hostile Indians upon the whites, the latter, on the pretext that either the marauders must have been Moravians, or at least were sheltered in their village, determined to destroy this peaceful and unoffending people. A body of volunteers, under the com- mand of Colonel Williamson, stole suddenly upon them as they were reaping, and professing peace and friendship, informed them that they were come to 3 T 530 MURDER OF THE 3I0RA VIAN INDIANS. [1781. conduct them for protection to Fort Pitt. The Indians cheerfully complied, surrendered their arms, and prepared breakfast for their protectoi's before de- parting on the journey. At length they arrived, and were confined in two houses under a strong guard. " After the prisoners were thus secured, a council of war was held to de- cide upon their doom. The officers, unwilling to incur the whole re- sponsibility of the terrible decision, agreed to refer the question to the M-hole number of men engaged in the expedition. The men were accordingly paraded in a line, and the commandant. Colonel Williamson, then put the following question to them : ' Shall the Moravian Indians be taken prisoners to Pittsburgh, or shall they be put to death ? All those who are in favour of saving their lives, step forward and form a front rank.' Only sixteen or eighteen stepped forward. The line for vengeance greatly outnumbered that of mercy, and the fate of the innocent and defenceless Indians was sealed. They were informed that they must prepare for death. They were not sur- prised at the summons ; for, from the moment they were placed in the guard- house, they anticipated their fate, and had commenced their devotions with hymns, prayers, and exhortations to each other to place a firm reliance on the Saviour of men. " When their fate was announced to them, these devoted people embraced and kissed each other, and bedewing each other's faces and bosoms with their tears, asked pardon of the brothers and sisters of any ofiEence they may have committed through life. Thus at peace with God and each other, they re- plied to those who, impatient for the slaughter, demanded ' Whether they were ready to die?' * That, having commended their souls to God, they were ready to die.' " No sooner had they done so, than they were butchered in cold blood by their treacherous captors, and their mangled bodies consumed in the flames of their own homesteads. Nor was this enough. A new expedition set out to complete the destruc- tion of the Christian Indians by assailing Sandusky, and also to include the AVy- andots in their attack. It was waylaid and defeated by a superior force. Several prisoners, among whom was Colonel Crawford, being taken, the exasperated Wyandots took a fearful revenge for the atrocious massacre at Gnadenhutten. In spite of the endeavours of Girty to save his life, Crawford was burned to death with the severest tortures which Indian cruelty could invent. When the news of this massacre reached Franklin at Paris, it elicited the following letter, in which, while he does not attempt to palliate the cruelty of his oAvn countrvmcn, he attributes it mainly to the policy of the British ministers, instigated, a he believed, by George III. himself. The letter is addressed to Mr. Hutton, a man of the greatest worth and respectability, for many years secretary to the Society of Moravians in England. *^My old and dear Friend, Passr/, July 7, ITSS. A letter written by you to M. Bertin, Ministre d'Etat, containing an account of the abominable murders committed by some of the frontier people 1781.] FIGHTING WITH THE INDIANS IN KENTUCKY. 531 on the poor Moravian Indians, has given me infinite pain and vexation. The dispensations of Providence in this world puzzle my weak reason ; I cannot comprehend why cruel men should have been permitted thus to destroy their fellow-creatures. Some of the Indians may be supposed to have committed sins, but one cannot think the little children had committed any worthy of death. Why has a single man in England, who happens to love blood, and to hate Americans, been permitted to gratify that bad temper by hiring Ger- man murderers, and joining them with his own, to destroy, in a continued course of bloody years, near 100,000 human creatures, many of them possessed of useful talents, virtues, and abilities, to which he has no pretension ! It is he who has furnished the savages with hatchets and scalping knives, and engages them to fall upon our defenceless farmers, and murder them with their wives and children, paying for their scalps, of which the account kept in America already amounts, as I have heard, to near tivo thousnml ! Perhaps the people of the frontiers, exasperated by the cruelties of the Indians, have been induced to kill all Indians that fall into their hands without distinction ; so that even these horrid murders of our poor Moravians may be laid to his charge. And yet this man lives, enjoys all the good things this world can afford, and is surrounded by flatterers who keep even his conscience quiet by telling him he is the best of kings." About the same time a large body of Indians under the command of Simon Girty, one of the most desperate and implacable of the refugees, having made a fresh incursion into Kentucky, were pursued and imprudently attacked, while lying in ambush, at the Big Blue Lick. Taken at a disadvantage, the Kentuckians sustained a loss of nearly seventy in killed and wounded, and this bloody skirmish spread mourning throughjthe whole State, most of the best families having some relative engaged in the combat. Similar incur- sions on the part of the Cherokee Indians and Tories were repressed by General Pickens. The camp of General Wayne was attacked by a body of Creek Indians, who were however repulsed, and the western frontiers ob- tained an interval of repose. Meanwhile the uneasiness of the northern army, given up by inaction to brood over their sufferings, increased with the progress of the negociation for peace. A memorial was drawn up requiring Congress to give security for ful- filling their engagements, and also proposing a commutation of a certain sum instead of the half pay for life. To this proposition no definite or satisfactory answer was, nor could be, returned. Some members were desirous that Congress should assume the responsibility of satisfying the claims of the army, and others disposed to call upon the States to discharge their unsettled obli- gations. Between one and the other, the ofiicers despaired of obtaining re- dress, and some of those more active in the movement employed a young and talented writer (afterwards ascertained to be Major Armstrong) to draw up certain anonymous letters, known as the " Newburgh Addresses," to stimu- late the army to more energetic remonstrances, and extort from the fears of Congress, what its weakness and disunion had prevented it from granting-. 3 T 2 532 WA8HIN0T0N'8 ADDRESS TO THE SOLDIERS. [1T81. Tlie style of tlie letters was vivid and impassioned^ and in the excited state of the array calculated to produce a deep and dangerous fermentation. After exposing with great energy their hopeless wrongs, the writer demands of his fellow-soldiers, " Can you then consent to be the only sufferers by the revo- lution, and retiring from the field grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt ? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity which has hitherto been spent in honour ? If you can go and carry with you the jest of Tories and the scorn of Whigs, the ridicule, and what is worse, the pity of the world ! go, starve, and be forgotten." Wasliington had a difficult and delicate task to perform. In his general orders he expressed his disapprobation of the anonymous letters and the proposed meeting at a ncAv building called the Temple, and requested that the delegates from the whole army should assemble. Meanwhile, he took occasion privately to confer with the principal officers, and represent to them in the strongest colours the mischievous effect of any rash and premature measures, the dictates of passion and resentment. Having thus prepared their minds to listen to the voice of reason, at the appointed hour he repaired to the Temple, and stepped forth upon the platform in presence of his officers. There was a deep and solemn silence. Putting on his spectacles, he said, " You see, gentlemen, that I have not only grown gray, but blind in your service." This simple remark touched them to the heart. For years had they borne the toil and burden of Avar under the leadership of their venerated chief, upon the purity of whose motives no shade ever rested, of the kindn'ess of whose heart no one among them ever entertained a doubt. His empire over their feelings was irresistible, and as he read to them an address embodying the results of calm and earnest reflection, the mist fell from their eyes, and the step to which they had been goaded by insupport- able distress appeared in its legitimate colours. After dwelling at some length upon the incendiary character of the anonymous letters, he turned to the advice which their author had not hesitated to offer. " ' If peace takes place, never sheathe your swords,' says he, ' vmtil you have obtained full and ample justice.' This dreadful alternative of either deserting our countiy in the extremest hour of her distress, or turning our arms against it — which is the apparent object — unless Congress can be compelled into instant com- pliance, has something so shocking in it, that humanity revolts at the idea. ]\Iy God ! what can this writer have in view by recommending such measures ? Can he be a friend to the army ? Can he be a friend to this country ? Eather, is he not an insidious foe ? some emissary, perhaps, from New York, plot- ' ting the ruin of both, by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent ? And what a compliment does he pay to our understandings, when he recommends measures, in either, alternative, impracticable in their nature!" Not satisfied with thus denouncing the intemperate rashness of the author, he applied himself to assuage the feelings and rekindle tlie hopes of his audi- IIU.IPUBLIC ENTRY OF THE AMERICANS INTO NEW YORK. 533 tors. " Let me request you," he continued, " to rely on the plighted faith of your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress, that previous to your dissolution as an army, they will cause all your accounts to be fairly liquidated, as directed in the resolutions which were published to you two days ago, and that they will adopt the most effectual measures in their power to render ample justice to you for your faithful and meritorious services. And let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honour, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your own utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood-gates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood. By thus determining, and, thus acting, you will pursue the plain and direct road to the attainment of your wishes ; you will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice, you will give one more distin- guished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the most complicated sufferings ; and you will, by the dignity of your con- duct, afford occasion for posterity to say, Avhen speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, ' Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.' " Having terminated this address, which was listened to in breathless silence, Washington departed without uttering another word. Under the influence of feelings thus awakened, the officers passed a vote declaring their unshaken attachment to their chief, and their confidence in the justice of their country, denouncing the insidious attempt that had been made to tempt them from the path of their allegiance. In no instance probably did Washington render a greater service to his country, than in thus repressing the spirit of revolt in the army. Fortunately, as has been well observed, he was placed by his ample private fortune above the temptation of want, and the confusion and excitement of mind that the fear of want is so liable to produce. But he was not satisfied with having recalled the suffering troops to a sense of duty, but continued to plead their cause tmtil that justice, which indeed was only delayed for want of means, had been fully and satisfactorily granted. While arrangements were making by Sir Guy Carleton, who had replaced Clinton, for the evacuation of New York, Washington paid a visit to the scenes of Burgoyne's defeat and surrender, and on this occasion is said to have called attention to a plan for that water communication wath the west, which has since been so magnificently carried out in the New York and Erie canal. At length, on the morning of the 25th of November, the last British soldier having departed, the American officers, civil and military, made their public entry into New York, amidst the general rejoicing of the people. A few days afterwards, Washington prepared to set out on his journey home. One trial of his feelings yet remained — to take leave, perhaps for ever, of those 534 WASHINGTON TAKES LEA VE OF HIS OFFICERS. [1781. brave companions in arms to whom he had become endeared by the toils and trials of seven eventful years. This affecting scene cannot be better de- scribed than in the very words of Marshall. " At noon, the principal officers of the army assembled at Frances's tavern, soon after which their beloved commander entered the room. His emotions were too strong to be concealed. Filling a glass, he turned to them and said, ' "With a heart full of love and gratitude I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish, that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy, as your former ones have been glori- ous and honourable.' Having drunk, he added, ' I cannot come to each of you to take my leave, but shall be obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.' General Knox, being nearest, turned to him. "Washing- ton, incapable of utterance, grasped his hand and embraced him. In the same affectionate manner he took leave of every succeeding officer. The tear of manly sensibility was in every eye ; and not a word was articulated to interrupt the dignified silence and the tenderness of the scene. Leaving the room, he passed through the corps of light infantry, and walked to "White Hall, where a barge waited to convey him to Paulus Hook. The whole company followed in mute and solemn procession with dejected countenances, testify- ing feelings of delicious melancholy, which no language can describe. Having entered the barge, he turned to the company, and waving his hat, bid them a silent adieu. They paid him the same affectionate compliment ; and after the barge had left them, returned in the same solemn manner to the place where they had assembled." Congress having adjourned from Princeton to Annapolis in Maryland, Washington proceeded thither by easy stages, welcomed as he passed along by public addresses and every mark of affectionate regard. How different were now his feelings to those with which, seven years before, he had been compelled to retreat over the same country in the darkest hour of the revolu- tion, before the pursuit of the victorious English. Then the cause of liberty might well have seemed on the verge of extinction ; now it was secure and triumphant. On reaching the seat of Congress he deposited in the con- troller's office an account of his expenses, and informed the president that he was ready to resign his commission, in whatever way might be deemed most suitable by that illustrioiis body. They at once decided on a public recep- tion ; and at the appointed hour, the hall being crowded by anxious spec- tators, and the members of Congress being seated, Washington was conducted to a chair by the secretary. After a few moments' pause, the President ap- prized him that the United States, in Congress assembled, were prepared to receive his communication. Rising with that majestic dignity which clothed his every action, he briefly congratulated the assembly upon the happy termination of the war, resigned with satisfaction an appointment accepted with diffidence, and thus concluded his address : " Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take leave of all the employments of 1781.] ADDRESS OF CONGRESS TO WASHINGTON. 635 public life." He then stepped forward to the chair of the President, and deli"vering his commission into his hands, awaited, while standing, the follow- ing impressive reply. It was a striking circumstance that this address was delivered by MifHin, the lately elected President of Congress, and one of those who, as it was believed, when Washington's fair fame lay under a cloud, was among the most active and influential of his enemies. " Sir," said Mifflin, " the United States, in Congress assembled, receive with emotions too affecting for utterance, the solemn resignation of the authority under which you have led their trooj)s, with sviccess, through a perilous and doubtful war. Called upon by your country to defend its invaded rights, you accepted the sacred charge before it had formed alliances, and while it was without funds or a government to support you. You have conducted the great military contest with wisdom and fortitude, invariably regarding the rights of the civil power through all disasters and changes. You have, by the love and confidence of your fellow-citizens, enabled them to display their martial genius, and transmit their fame to posterity. You have persevered until these United States, aided by a magnanimous king and nation, have been enabled, under a wi?e Providence, to close the war in freedom, safety, and independence ; on which happy event we sincerely join you in congratulations. Having defended the standard of liberty in this Ncav World, having taught a lesson useful to those who feel oppression, you retire from the great theatre of ac- tion with the blessings of your fellow-citizens. But the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command ; it will continue to animate remotest ages." Having deposed the burden of care, Washington retired to Mount Verncn, which, except on hurried occasions, he had not visited for eight years and a half. He had become, to use his own words, " a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, under the shadoAV of his own vine and his own fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life." Yet it was long " ere he could get the better of his usual custom of ruminating, as soon as he waked in the morning, on the business of the ensviing day, and of his surprise at finding, after revolving many things in his mind, that he was no longer a j)ublic man, nor had any thing to do with public transactions." As he had at first entered upon the discharge of his duties with a firm reliance upon the support of Providence, and as he had recognised its work- ings in the surprising turns and events of the war, so now did he feel as " the wearied traveller must do, who, after treading many a painful step with a heavy burden on his shoulders, is eased of the latter, having reached the haven to which all the former were directed, and from his house-top is look- ing back and tracing with an eager eye the meanders by which he had escaped the quicksands and mires which lay in his way, and into which none but the all-powerful Guide and Dispenser of human events could have pre- vented his falling." The war was over — the army disbanded — and the independence of the United States achieved. Other nations have attained distinction after undergoing a 536 GROWTH OF THE REPUBLIC. [1781. long and protracted struggle with feudal oppression, — the Great Republic sprung, Minerva-like, into sudden and full-grown existence. But the glori- ous prospect now opening before her, cannot be better described than in the words of him who had mainly contributed to her emancipation. " The citizens of America, placed in the most enviable condition, as the sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of continent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the world, and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences of life, are now, by the late satisfactory pacification, acknowledged to be possessed of absolute freedom and independency. They are, from this period, to be considered as the actors on a most conspicuous theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designated by Providence for the dis- play of human greatness and felicity. Here they are not only surrounded with every thing which can contribute to the completion of private and domestic enjoyment, but Heaven has crowned all its other blessings, by giving a fairer opportunity for political happiness than any other nation has ever been favoured with. Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circum- stances under which our republic assumed its rank among the nations. The foundation of our empire was not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition ; but at an epocha when the rights of mankind were better un- derstood, and more clearly defined, than at any former period. The researches of the human mind after social happiness have been carried to a great ex- tent ; the treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of philosophers, sages, and legislators, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily aj)plied in the establish- ment of our forms of government. The free cultivation of letters, the un- bounded extension of commerce, the progressive refinement of manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and above all, the pure and benign light of Kevelation, have had a meliorating influence on mankind, and increased the blessings of society. At this auspicious period the United States came into existence as a nation ; and if their citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own." THE EXD. d44 ^*«i LbAp?; % f .-^ i'Js^ <. v e ^^' ''^^ A^' v-^- ■^- ->■ - ^ V >" •-^^ ^^^ v^^ ^^%- ^0■ A • \ .,j..A O 0^ o^ ^<^ .^^' .<^' ^^ '"oo^ "^^ v^ ^V >^ ^- . 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